The Minneapolis City Council is poised to approve another $1.4 million in workers’ compensation settlements with 10 former police officers.

A council committee voted 5-1 Monday to approve the settlements, with only Chair Robin Wonsley voting “no.” The settlements await an Aug. 1 vote by the full council. 

Since the murder of George Floyd, hundreds of Minneapolis police officers have left their jobs, with most retiring early, claiming post-traumatic stress disorder and getting disability pensions and workers’ compensation benefits.

In the first two years after Floyd’s murder, the Minneapolis City Council approved over $22 million in workers’ compensation settlements for 144 Minneapolis police officers, rejecting a settlement with an officer just once; he had been involved in an excessive force case. 

The council has since approved millions more in settlements.

A $125,000 settlement with former MPD officer Christopher Cushenbery was sent back to city staff Monday because “there may have been an error,” Wonsley said.

Cushenbery was part of a SWAT team that drove around in an unmarked van firing 40-mm “less lethal” plastic projectiles at curfew-violators without warning five days after George Floyd’s killing. On the night of May 30, 2020, the SWAT team’s unmarked, white cargo van crept down Lake Street. Protests had ebbed but a curfew was in effect.

Cushenbery was the first officer to fire marking rounds at a small group of people standing in a Lake Street parking lot, hitting St. Paul truck driver Jaleel Stallings in the chest. Stallings fired back with his pistol, for which he had a permit. He testified later that he didn’t know the shots came from a van full of police officers or that they were 40-mm rounds as opposed to real bullets.

Under MPD policy, officers weren’t supposed to use 40-mm rounds to target a person’s head, neck, throat or chest “unless deadly force is justified,” because they could cause “permanent physical or mental incapacity or possible death.”

After Stallings fired back, the SWAT team piled out of the van and two officers beat him bloody. Stallings was hospitalized with a fractured eye socket, even as police and prosecutors painted him as a would-be cop killer. Stallings claimed self-defense, and was acquitted by a jury of eight charges, including two counts of attempted murder.

Cushenbery didn’t mention to investigators that the officers fired first, according to court documents.

Cushenbery left city employment in April 2021, and receives a state disability pension payment of over $5,100 per month.

Some council members have voted against past police workers’ comp settlements. Wonsley has said that many departing officers “engaged in gross misconduct that have produced many victims and have cost taxpayers over $77 million in liability settlements” since 2012.

Workers’ comp is insurance that helps workers who are hurt on the job. The City Council has been advised by its legal counsel that settling the workers’ comp cases with lump sum payouts is cheaper than going to trial. There’s no guarantee the city would win, and it could end up paying more.

City officials have said past misconduct is not legally relevant to whether the city has to pay workers’ comp benefits, and often lump sums are paid out for a fraction of the expected total liability. The money is paid out of the city’s self-insurance fund, which means city taxpayers — rather than an insurance company — would pay for the settlements if the council approves them.

The strike by 200 workers at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) reached a new stage on July 19 when workers voted by a 91 percent margin to reject management’s latest offer.

Their strike, which began on July 4 and is now well into its third week, must break out of the isolation being imposed upon it by the union bureaucracy, and make appeals to workers across the city and the country to rally to their support.

The MPRB has made it clear that it will not budge and aims to starve out the strikers. They want to maintain a permanent cheap labor force on the city’s nationally acclaimed 185 parks and other properties such as beaches, pools, trails and golf courses.

Workers are fighting to establish comparable living standards with other park board workers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region. Laborer’s International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 363, which covers the workers, found in a regional survey that MPRB workers’ wages are underpaid by between $8 and $15 an hour.

The resounding “no” vote by the rank-and-file shows that workers are not intimidated and are determined to keep up their fight until they win their demands. LIUNA, meanwhile, is preparing the way for a sellout to shutdown the strike.

The union bureaucracy has stated that the board’s 10.25 percent wage offer in the latest contract proposal is acceptable, despite the fact that it is spread out over three years and does nothing to combat inflation. The union’s eagerness to end the strike as soon as possible was evident in bringing this proposal to a vote in the first place.

AJ Lange, business manager of LiUNA Local 363, declared, “This overwhelming vote leaves no room for doubt. We’re ready to end this strike today, but management needs to stay at the table and show real commitment to bargain. If they step up, we’ll have this resolved in no time.”

This amounts to a plea to management to “come together” at the table to end the strike with a sellout deal. Countless strikes across the US and the world have been shut down in this fashion, with the union claiming that management has finally “negotiated in good faith,” while concealing major concessions until after the deal has been ratified.

MPRB workers must be on guard against both attempts to prematurely end the strike and against attempts to soften workers up on the picket line before ramming through a sellout. To countermand any decisions which undermine workers’ strength or violate their democratic will, they must form a rank-and-file strike committee to assert control over the struggle.

In addition to the below-inflation pay increase, the contract proposal which LiUNA put to a vote was filled with other concessions. Management wants to reduce the scope of seniority; step wage increases, which normally apply to all workers, are to be turned into merit increases awarded at management’s whim. As MPRB superintendent Al Bangoura revealed in a letter to the Minneapolis City Council, “Such increases may be withheld or delayed in cases where the employee’s job performance has been of a less than satisfactory level…”

Meanwhile, management is digging in its heels. Last week, the MPRB filed an unfair labor practice charge against LiUNA over strikers urging truck drivers to honor their picket lines at two parks and at the MPRB’s Southside Operations Center. Minneapolis Park Police were brought in to aid the transfer of food deliveries to one of its park concession facilities. The MPRB has also threatened to seek a restraining order against pickets.

Leading the charge against striking workers is the state Democratic Party, known as the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). All nine commissioners and the superintendent for the MPRB are Democrats.

The Democrats, like the Republicans, represent the city’s corporate interests and their agenda. Tens of billions of dollars are being squandered on the Biden administration’s war in Ukraine and the Gaza genocide.

No one should be fooled by the recent DFL-dominated Minneapolis City Council resolution claiming to support strikers, or the offer by DFL Mayor Jacob Frey to involve himself in the contract talks. These stunts were only fabricated for public consumption, while they prepare through the MPRB to break the strike.

The Minneapolis park board strike is at a critical point. In order for strikers to open up a new path of struggle, they must take the conduct of the strike into their own hands by forming rank-and-file committees that will break their isolation by turning to the power of the working class and forging a united front, combining all the struggles of the working class into one.

Minneapolis, MN – On July 15, the Coalition to March on the RNC successfully brought more than 3500 protesters together in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to protest against the racist, reactionary agenda of the Republican National Convention. 100 of these protesters arrived on coach buses from Minneapolis organized by the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee and the MN Abortion Action Committee.

This convention is where Republican delegates met to choose their party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, known for his anti-immigrant and misogynistic statements and policies. The thousands of protesters from around the nation marched within sight and sound of the convention center, thanks to the Coalition’s years-long fight against the city for a militant march route.

Meeting at Red Arrow Park in 90-degree weather, organizers stood out in the blazing heat and shared speeches on subjects such as immigration, abortion, climate justice and the genocide in Palestine. Not only were there lines of speakers, but also thousands in the crowd to listened and chanted in support.

MNACC member June Gromis spoke about how the Republican agenda impacts women and LGBTQ people, saying, “Republican politicians will try so desperately to convince you that they are virtuous faithful people but they have shown time and time again that their only religion is exploitation, subjugation and the control of all women and all gender oppressed people.”

MIRAC member Manny Pascual spoke on his experience regarding immigration, saying, “The U.S. will separate families every chance they get. If they’re not starting wars they’re funding them. They separate us because they know we are stronger than them. And we are fighting back!”

Walking a mile and a half route around the convention, many people held banners, flags and signs saying things such as “Legalization for all” and “Stop Trump and racist Republicans.” Voices also filled the streets as people chanted and shouted for the rights of all oppressed people. The Coalition united many on fighting against racism and for women’s, immigrants and LGBTQ rights, as well as calling out U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine.

Even with physical concrete barriers in the way of the march, people continued on, jumping over them and helping each other navigate around the obstacles.

Organizers from around the nation brought their own fiery energy to the RNC and successfully made a stance against the Republicans on the very first day of the convention. This was only a taste of the power of the people that will show out in full force regardless of who is elected in November.

Minneapolis organizers are now gearing up to march on the Democratic National Convention on August 19.

#MinneapolisMN #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #WomensMovement #ReproductiveRights #Trump #RNC #Featured