Three assistant AGs go public with union demand
by Dan Heilman
AG Lori Swanson (AP Photo) |
In a surprising twist to the ongoing labor strife going on inside the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, three staff attorneys have gone public with their demand for a union in a letter to their boss, state Attorney General Lori Swanson.
In the letter, assistant attorneys general Susan E. Damon, Daniel S. Goldberg, and Amy R. Lawler beseech Swanson to accommodate “the will of the staff to be recognized by a labor union.” Damon works in the Health Licensing department of the AG’s office, while Goldberg works in Human Services and Lawler in Complex Litigation.
A copy of the letter was posted late last week on a blog run by supporters of the unionization effort -- http://agunion.blogspot.com.
Previously, representatives of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) had provided the only public voice for the organizing attorneys. While some union supporters working within the office have previously expressed their views anonymously on blogs, the three assistant AGs are the first current employees of the office to public identify themselves as advocating unionization.
The letter identified the following three key concern areas:
n promoting job stability and security;
n allowing staffers in the office to perform their jobs free of political influence.
The organizing efforts have been a sore spot virtually since Swanson took office in January 2007. Last spring AFSCME renounced its endorsement of Swanson, a DFLer, in light of what it calls hostility toward unionization efforts. Not long afterward Mike Hatch -- Swanson’s predecessor as AG who had come back to the office to work as a top deputy for his former protégé – departed from the office after a short but controversial stint to go into private practice. Union organizers trace their labor-related concerns back to Hatch’s eight-year tenure as AG, although they accuse Swanson of continuing along the same pathway.
In recent months, organizers maintain there has been a campaign of harassment against the union in the office, including bad-mouthing and efforts to discourage new hires from joining.
“Nearly all staff attorneys have recently been approached and asked to sign either an anti-union petition or a declaration of support for [Swanson],” the letter says.
The three lawyers maintain that staff members have been terminated because of their participation in union organizing efforts – a charge that Swanson has vehemently denied when it has come up before.
The lawyers also argue that a majority of the 135 attorneys in the office initially signed union authorization forms, which, they contend, creates a bargaining unit among the attorneys. (Since that time, they estimate that there has been nearly a one-third turnover among the attorneys in the office.)
In order for the attorneys’ union to be certified by the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS), the organizing group has to supply the BMS an official list of employees in the Attorney General’s office. The BMS then compares the employment data on the list with that on the union registration cards. The attorneys say BMS has the cards, but that requests for an official employee list have gone unheeded by Swanson. Meanwhile, Swanson’s office has maintained in the past that it’s received no such request.
A call to Swanson's office seeking comment was not immediately returned.
