MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A more than three-week-long strike has come to an end after the Minneapolis Parks and Recreational Board (MPRB) approved a new contract with Minneapolis parks union workers on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Minneapolis park workers approve new contract

Contract details

LIUNA Local 363, the union that represents around 300 of the striking park workers, has said its members sought both increased wages and worker protection.

Through back-and-forth negotiations, accusations were leveled by MPRB officials who said picketers threatened workers during their strike.

The union announced the strike ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and extended it throughout negotiations.

The MPRB officially approved the new contract at the Aug. 7 board meeting.

Here is what is included in the new contract:

Wages

• 10.25% cost-of-living adjustment over three years.
• $1.75/hour market adjustment.
• $2 million in wages for workers.
• Wages will increase by $5.42 an hour or $11,302 a year on average by 2026.

Workers rights

• Protected existing steward rights.
• Maintained grievance process.
• Kept existing drug testing standards.

Worker benefits

• Expanded contract rights around sick and bereavement leave.
• Protected fair overtime distribution.
• Kept Forestry transfer rights.

Safety

• “Harmful” language taken out.
• Workers are protected from reporting requirements and targeting.

Seasonal employees

• Kept union rights for all seasonal workers.
• Protected seasonal full-time schedules.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Hoping to establish a Minneapolis Labor Standards Board (MLSB) that would study new requirements for businesses in industries such as restaurants and hospitality, a march is planned on Wednesday to increase awareness of its proposed creation.

What we know

Beginning at 3 p.m., Minneapolis City Council Member Aurin Chowdhury will lead the march that is said to “highlight multiple groups of workers who have seen their work standards go backwards while the cost of living has continued to rise.”

For more than two years, several Minneapolis leaders have backed the idea of creating the MLSB, which would study specific industries and worker protections.

The board would form subcommittees for specific industries, comprised of people that could include business owners, union members and elected officials. They could then propose new ideas for regulations within the industry studied.

The MLSB could not enact any proposed regulations themselves – those would need to go through the process of full city council approval.

But advocates for the board believe it would be a start, and result in ideas that could further propel workers’ rights in areas such as minimum wages, paid leave and scheduling.

At the march on Wednesday, workers from multiple industries plan to speak about why workers would benefit from the creation of the MLSB.

Proposal pushback

Not everyone is excited about the creation of a new board that could ultimately lead to more regulations.

In June, 40 restaurant owners, who operate 120 restaurants in Minneapolis, sent a letter to the Minneapolis City Council opposing the creation of the MLSB.

“The Labor Standards Board you have proposed does not acknowledge the challenges faced by BIPOC-owned businesses,” the letter said in part. “This action seems to aim to protect the BIPOC community, but this has been done without us and therefore is not for us. We are trying so hard to make it in Minneapolis and more changes and more regulations will not make it easier. When people who do not understand our business or the unique experiences and models we create add more regulations, it makes it difficult to survive.”

Several owners have decried additional regulations on an industry previously ravaged by COVID-19 restrictions, while noting margins in their business are already slim.

They’ve also criticized the idea that people who comprise the MLSB subcommittees might have no background in the industry.

A list of owners, and their establishments, that signed off on the letter includes: 

• Adam Witherspoon, The Greasy Spoon Syndicate
• Aditya Bhavani, Independent Owner/Operator McDonald’s Minneapolis
• Amol Dixit, Hot Indian Foods & Bussin Birria Tacos
• Ann Ahmed, Kamma Hospitality – Lemon Grass, Lat14, Khâluna
• Ann Kim, Vestalia Hospitality – Kim’s, Young Joni, Back Bar, Hello Pizza, & Pizzeria Lola
• Chiafukam Okoroji, Bussin Birria Tacos
• Christina Nguyen, Hai Hai & Hola Arepa
• Courtney Henry, Independent Owner/Operator McDonald’s Minneapolis
• Daniel del Prado, DDP Restaurant Group – Josefina, Macanda, Layline, Café Ceres, Cardamom, Colita, Martina, Rosalia, Bar Rufus, Blondette, Miou Miou, & Porzana
• Diane Moua, Dianes Place
• Gustavo Romero, Oro & Nixta
• Jared Brewington, Official Fried Chicken
• Jess Kelley, Ono Hawaiian Plates
• JJ Haywood, Pizza Luce
• John Ng, Sushi Dori
• Jorge Guzman, Pollo Pollo al Carbon, Petitie Leon & Chilango Mex-Tex
• Justin Baylor, Independent Owner/Operator McDonald’s Minneapolis
• Justin Sutherland, J. Sutherland Concepts
• Kamal Mohamed, Step Chld Khalid Ansari, Baba’s Hummus House & Mana’eesh Bakery
• Kim Tong, All Saints Leo Judeh, Shish Bistro Lina Goh, Zen Box Izakaya
• Lonnie J McQuirter, 36 Lyn Refuel Station
• Margo Roberts, Alma & Brasa
• Melissa Kennedy, Independent Owner/Operator McDonald’s Minneapolis
• Michael Shaughnessy, Pink Ivy Kitchen and Bar Nettie Colón, Red Hen GastroLab
• Pedro Wolcott, Guacaya Bistreaux
• Peter & Linda Bian, Saturday Dumpling Co. Rolando Diaz, Marna’s Catering
• Saed Wadi, World Street Kitchen & Milkjam Creamery
• Sameh Wadi, World Street Kitchen & Milkjam Creamery
• Sanjeev Azad, Lake and Bryant Café
• Sean Sherman, Owamni by The Sioux Chef Tammy Wong, Rainbow Restaurant
• Tim Baylor, Independent Owner/Operator McDonald’s Minneapolis
• Tracy Wong, My Huong Kitchen
• Viorica Shaughnessy, Pink Ivy Kitchen and Bar
• Warren Seta, Ono Hawaiian Plates
• Yia Vang, Union Hmong Kitchen, Vina

Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly minted running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “failed to act” during May 2020 riots in Minneapolis that burned over 1,000 businesses and a police station to the ground, a scathing state Senate report showed. 

The 60-year-old Democratic governor was accused by the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate’s Joint Transportation and Judiciary and Public Safety Committee of delaying the deployment of the National Guard, failing to coordinate with local police, downplaying the possibility of riots and allowing his adult daughter to access confidential information about law enforcement movements that put first responders at risk during the the four days of rioting that swept through the Twin Cities in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25, 2020, death in police custody. 

The state Senate’s scathing postmortem, released in October 2020, determined that Walz “first mobilized the Minnesota National Guard on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28 … 18 hours after” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey first pleaded for assistance and the day after the city’s police chief gave Walz written notice that he needed at least 600 National Guardsmen to quell the riots. 

“It was obvious to me that he froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people’s properties were being burned down,” Republican state Sen. Warren Limmer told the New York Times, suggesting that the governor’s “personal sympathies” toward the rioters may have been why he was slow to act. 

When Walz did send in the guard, it was far less than what was needed and requested. 

“The request was sent for at least 600 guardsmen at 9:11 p.m. Wednesday, May 27,” the Senate report states. “Governor Walz eventually produced 100 guardsmen for the City of Minneapolis late in the evening on Thursday, May 28.”

Amid the riots, the governor’s daughter, Hope, appears to have tried to tip off the arsonists and looters that the National Guard was going to be slow to respond. 

“Could someone who actually has followers rely [sic] to the masses that have gotten ‘national guard’ trending that the guard WILL NOT be present tonight??” Hope, who was born in 2001, tweeted on May 28, 2020.  

“The guard can not be sent in within minutes,” she wrote in a subsequent tweet, noting that “it takes time for them to deploy because they come from all over the state.” 

“To be clear, the national guard will not be present tonight,” she added.

“Just because someone asked for something doesn’t mean it’s happening right away or even happening at all,” another May 28, 2020, tweet from Hope read, an apparent reference to local officials’ request for the National Guard. 

“I don’t know about swat but what I do know is the guard will not be present arresting people tonight,” she continued. 

The state Senate committee pointed to Hope’s tweets as evidence that Walz “allowed his adult daughter to access confidential information that she then disseminated to the general public and rioters.”

“This unnecessarily put police, Minnesota State Troopers, and the Minnesota National Guard in jeopardy,” the report said. 

On the same night Walz’s daughter sent out those tweets, the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct police station was overrun by rioters and set ablaze. 

“The commitment to hold the third [Precinct] was one I was not comfortable with,” Walz said during a press conference at the time when asked about the decision to evacuate the precinct rather than counter the rioters. 

The investigation into Walz’s response also found that the governor “never reached out to Minneapolis Police Department to better understand the situation on the ground” and his administration was “not fully using the Minnesota State Patrol or the Minnesota National Guard’s aviation support” to track the movements of rioters. 

Furthermore, Walz underestimated how hell-bent the mob was to burn the city down. 

“The Commissioner of Public Safety admitted it was a fair criticism to say the state failed to see the criminal activity that was rapidly escalating and failed to see it was beyond the local’s capacity to handle,” the report states, noting that Walz’s administration expressed that it “ did not expect rioting” or “did not expect rioting to continue” between May 26 and May 29. 

Walz, however, did acknowledge on the third night of rampant looting and arson, that the government’s response to the rioting was “an abject failure that cannot happen.”

“I simply believe that we try to do the best we can,” he told reporters recently when questioned about his response to the riots. 

Meanwhile, Harris — just days after the Minneapolis police station was lit up — asked her Twitter followers on June 1, 2020, to assist in bailing rioters out of jail.  

“If you’re able to, chip in now to the [Minnesota Freedom Fund] to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” the then-California senator wrote on X. 

The Minnesota Freedom Fund’s mission statement says the group “pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.”

The fund received more than $30 million in donations after the riots and Harris’ tweet. 

Greg Lewin, the fund’s interim executive director at the time, told McClatchy in 2021 that Harris did not personally bail out rioters or have any other interaction with the group.

The vice president also went on a media tour in the aftermath of the riots voicing support for “defund the police” and redirecting resources from law enforcement. 

“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said during a June 9, 2020, appearance on New York-based radio show “Ebro in the Morning,” according to CNN.

“Any progress we have gained has been because people took to the streets,” Harris added, signaling strong support for the rioters.