Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Gopher Grad Worker Union Bargaining Brouhaha
When we last heard from the University of Minnesota's freshly minted graduate student worker union, back in April 2023, positivity abounded. Around 4,100 grad student employees at the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses had voted by a large margin to unionize, the sixth such election since 1974—and first victory. Their main aim? Collectively fighting to boost abysmal salaries that can hover around $25,000. At first, the U seemed ready to play ball. “Your voices have been heard and those who voted in the election have chosen to form a union and be represented by the Graduate Labor Union-United Electrical (GLU-UE),” read a letter from two university officials.
After over a year at the bargaining table, however, the union reports things aren't going great. Over the summer 98% of voting union members rejected the U's contract proposal, with major disagreements looming over whether graduate assistant fellows should be included in the bargaining unit (union says yes, university says no). The union claims the U agreed to continue negotiating while the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) ironed out the fellows impasse, but that on October 10 the university successfully petitioned BMS to "suspend all bargaining indefinitely."
States a collective statement issued last week by the union...
The union can only conclude that this duplicitous action was taken to avert a strike. Because of the university’s dishonest decision to halt bargaining after 13 months of productive negotiation, graduate assistants must continue to endure low pay, discriminatory fees, and no recourse for abuse in the workplace. Considering the university is the state of Minnesota’s largest employer, the union believes the Minnesota community should be made aware of the university’s deceitful actions. Instead of bargaining in good faith with graduate assistants, the university has chosen to hide behind bureaucracy and should be ashamed of itself.
Racket reached out to the union and to the university for comment, but didn't immediately hear back from either party.
Update No. 1: Sam Boland, a grad student worker in the College of Science & Engineering, wrote us back on behalf of the union: "We're all incredibly frustrated and feel like we have been stabbed in the back. It feels like instead of bargaining with us in good faith, the university is hiding behind bureaucracy. More than anything, it feels like they are scared. They won't even join us in the room for a joint caucus and instead send all of their communications through our mediator. It's insulting in a way."
Update No. 2: U of M spokesman Jake Ricker says the union's assertion that the university urged BMS to "suspend all bargaining indefinitely" is "not an accurate way to characterize what happened," adding that "mediation will resume once BMS completes its review and issues a decision [regarding fellows]. The university looks forward to resolving this issue and resuming mediation."
3 Very Different Twins Takes
So begins the Sports Talk Industrial Complex churn following last week's big news that the Pohlad family is seeking to unload the Minnesota Twins. Over the past few days I've encountered three unique takes, two of which managed to irritate to me.
First, we've got curmudgeonly Patrick Reusse, whose takes I typically hold in high regard. But, for some reason, the veteran Strib sportswriter decided to wander aimlessly down Memory Lane for hundreds of words before arriving at a head-scratching enemy: the fans.
You showed ’em, folks … forcing Minnesota’s second family of Twins ownership to get rid of a business it bought for $44 million four decades ago for $1.3 billion, maybe more. And, surely, you’ll get those new owners that pay the billion-plus, take the $40-50 million hit on lost regional TV revenue, and then will add $100 million to the payroll. And that will get you to an actual ballgame? Probably not. Great complainers, mediocre baseball fans.
Next, we've got Adam Platt offering "some contrarian thoughts" in Twin Cities Business. If Reusse accuses Pohland-critical fans of bellyaching, Platt suggests they're simply too dumb and/or incurious to understand baseball history and marketplace dynamics. He sympathetically positions the billionaire owners as "intensely private" straight shooters who did their very best, and speculates that Joe Pohlad, executive chair of the Twins, is "privately devastated" his family is selling. "Not all their decisions as owners, particularly under patriarch Carl’s tenure, are Hall of Fame worthy," is as rough as Platt gets with the Pohlads. His exercise in contrarianism concludes with...
I’ve seen many sports owners depart over the years, in this market and others. I’ve seen a lot of fan bases say “good riddance,” often with cause. But if that’s the take on the day the Pohlads turn over the keys to Target Field, it’s because fans simply lack interest in a nuanced understanding of the last four decades. It may not have been the best of times, but it was hardly the worst.
Finally, we've got Aaron Gleeman writing in The Athletic. Gleeman has pulled the fewest punches as the payroll-hamstrung Twins collapsed in spectacular fashion this year, reliably offering a fan-first perspective undergirded by his locally unparalleled hardball knowledge. So yes, his column from today doesn't irritate—it electrifies with the possibility of "a new owner who doesn’t view the team strictly as a business or, short of that, will at least be better at running it strictly as a business. The Pohlads failed at both."
Go off like a baseball from Bob Allison's bat, Gleeman..
Decade after decade, the Pohlads failed the fans they professed to respect and cherish. And perhaps not surprisingly, the third generation’s emotional attachment to the Twins seemed minimal as they willingly dismantled the team’s momentum and the fan base’s morale to cut payroll by .075 percent of their fortune and 2 percent of the franchise’s value. That’s their legacy.
I’m sick of writing and talking about the Pohlads. I’m sick of framing every roster move in terms of what it means to the Twins’ too-limited payroll. I’m sick of knowing that, no matter how good a moment feels or the future may look for Twins fans, there’s always the threat of a billionaire family deciding it was costing them too much money and had to be stopped.
Forty years is enough.
What It's Like Going Solar in Minneapolis
We've all thought about installing solar panels. David Brauer, the longtime Twin Cities journalist and media critic, took the leap last year, and just documented the experience in abundant detail for Streets.MN. The project ran Brauer $45,500, though a federal tax credit cut his out-of-pocket cost to $31,500. (He worries that Trump 2.0 could ax the program, which hastened his urgency to get it done.) His 16 panels will pay for themselves in 20 years, a figure that crept higher since a "complicated" install process required digging a damn trench through the backyard.
Motivated by climate dread and leaving a better world for his grandson, Brauer reports he's happy to be living the solar life today. "Everyone has different motivations, resources and psychology," he concludes. "But solar really has brought peace of mind, and I can feel even more joyful when I look at my grandson." (Your author recently purchased an EV and has yet to receive a "thank you" from Brauer's grandkid...)
Nina Moini Lands Minnesota Now Hosting Duties
True public radio nerds love agonizing over programming/hosting changes, and we suspect a high percentage of Racket members fall into that category. (I'm still bitter NPR canned Neal Conan's Talk of the Nation 11 years ago!)
A few years back, former 9 to noon Minnesota Public Radio host Kerri Miller pivoted to something called Big Books and Bold Ideas, making way for Angela Davis and a mix of national syndication from Jenn White of 1A during that time slot. Meanwhile, the station's stalwart star—the irreplaceable Cathy Wurzer—pulled double duty, holding down Morning Edition and, at noon, the newish show Minnesota Now. (Ali Elabbady yakked with Wurzer about his international grocer roundup for Racket on Minnesota Now earlier today.)
Alright, still with us? That's a shitload of table setting to let you know MPR announced today that reporter Nina Moini will soon take the reigns at Minnesota Now. Moini grew up in Apple Valley, left the state for college and reporting gigs in Missouri and Florida, and returned as a reporter for WCCO in 2013. She has been at MPR News since 2018, and will begin Minnesota Now hosting duties in about a month. “I’m incredibly honored to serve as the host of a thoughtful and down-to-earth hour of Minnesota news," Moini says via press release.
“We wanted Minnesota Now to be an on-ramp for people who didn’t think public radio was for them and I think we’ve done that,” MPR President Duchesne Drew says via that same press release. “Handing the microphone to Nina Moini, who is an incredibly talented and respected member of our MPR News team, is recognition of her talent and gives Cathy the opportunity to focus full-time on Morning Edition."
