Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Membership swells as federal employee unions confront DOGE attacks; dairy farmer faces rare criminal charges for wage theft; Mayday Cafe reopens as worker-owned co-op; Americans don’t believe Democrats care about the economy; and Whole Foods challenges union election in Philadelphia.

Federal workforce insulted, demoralized and joining the union

Federal workers say there’s never been a more confusing — and upsetting — time to work for the government, as they’re inundated with orders and memos at all hours of the day and night.

“We feel very degraded and insulted … We feel terrorized,” said Regina Marsh, a Minnesota-based claim specialist for Social Security.

Marsh has worked at the federal government for her entire career — 37 years — starting right out of high school. She says it’s been a stable job and rewarding to help administer benefits to Americans who’ve recently become disabled or diagnosed with a terminal illness; people who have lost a spouse, and children who have lost a parent.

“We deal with people at the worst times of their lives,” Marsh said. “I feel like we’re compassionate and kind to the people that we serve, and we take pride in that.”

Marsh voted for President Trump in 2016 and 2020 because of her Catholic convictions on abortion, but lost faith in him after the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

“In all my years, we’ve been in and out of administrations on both sides of the aisle, and it’s never really changed our lives that drastically,” said Marsh, who is also executive vice president for AFGE Local 3129. “I feel like our government is being taken over and nobody is doing anything about it.”

The ranks of federal employee unions are swelling as they attempt to shield their members from a barrage of executive orders from President Trump, who with billionaire advisor Elon Musk, has launched an unprecedented assault on the federal workforce aimed at reducing its size and weeding out “disloyal” civil servants.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, grew to a record size of 319,233 active members after adding more than 14,000 in the past five weeks. That’s nearly as many as the union added in the previous 12 months, according to union spokesman Tim Kauffman.

The growth is significant because public employees haven’t had to pay membership dues to the unions that bargain contracts on their behalf since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME. The added revenue will help the union’s many legal battles against the Trump administration on behalf of federal employees.

Jacob Romans, a registered nurse at the Minneapolis VA and president of AFGE Local 3669, says his local of about 2,000 nurses, physicians and other VA workers has added 100 members in the last two weeks alone.

“They’re looking for protections, and they don’t know what’s going to happen,” Romans said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anger.”

The unions — including the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — have filed lawsuits challenging orders making career civil servants easier to fire; offering workers potentially illegal and unfunded buy-outs; and sharing confidential data with Musk’s initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not an official government agency.

Unions have also sued to block the gutting of USAID and stop DOGE from accessing Department of Labor data, which could give Musk access to non-public information about OSHA probes into his companies SpaceX and Tesla.

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buy-out offer until at least Monday. Union leaders and Democrats warned federal workers not to be cheated by the offer to resign and be paid through September because it is likely illegal and not funded. About 60,000 employees took the offer, according to Reuters, though it’s unclear how many were planning to leave anyways. The 60,000 workers represent about 2.5% of the total federal workforce, which typically sees 6% of workers resign or retire in a typical year.

Romans said he’s worried Trump’s executive orders offering buy-outs and ending remote work will only exacerbate the chronic short-staffing at the VA and lead to greater privatization, sending more federal funds to private hospitals.

It wouldn’t seem like Trump’s order ending remote work would affect jobs at the VA. But Romans said the Minneapolis VA employs doctors across the country — from Florida to Michigan — to provide virtual care to veterans.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” Romans said.

More than a fifth of the VA’s 479,000 employees have telework or remote work arrangements, but the agency hasn’t said what its policy will be regarding unionized employees.

Remote work is part of their union contract, but the Trump administration said it doesn’t believe it needs to honor those agreements, setting up another legal battle. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, said determining telework is a “management right,” and “provisions of collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced.”

“We’re going to disagree with that,” Romans said. “We bargained it, and they have to abide by that agreement.”

Ellison files rare criminal charges for wage theft

The owner of a sprawling central Minnesota dairy operation accused of stealing millions in wages from hundreds of workers now faces felony criminal charges in what is surely the most significant prosecution of wage theft in the state’s history.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday he charged Evergreen Acres owner Keith Schaefer with four counts of felony wage theft and one count of felony racketeering. Ellison’s office sued Schaefer and his companies in civil court last year alleging he stole at least $3 million in wages before settling the case for $250,000.

The charging document alleges horrific labor abuses in a dangerous industry notorious for exploiting undocumented workers. One 15-year-old employee worked upwards of 84 hours per week, in violation of child labor laws, and was regularly shorted pay while being charged rent for a small bed he shared with his father. Schaefer allegedly threatened to kill two other workers, who were also shorted wages.

Many of the workers are undocumented immigrants and Schaefer threatened to call the police to have them deported if they complained, according to court filings.

Minnesota lawmakers made wage theft in excess of $1,000 a felony in 2019, but no one has yet been convicted despite it likely being one of the most common forms of theft.

Ellison has made wage theft a central focus of his office and has brought cases against construction subcontractors, a property maintenance company and the Target-owned delivery service Shipt.

Mayday Cafe reopens as worker cooperative

Mayday Cafe, a decades-old south Minneapolis institution, reopened on Friday as a worker-owned cooperative, serving its familiar croissants and M&M cookies.

“It’s going to be the same cafe that people have known and loved for three decades, but now it’s going to be owned and managed by people who work here,” worker-owner and barista Mira Klein told MPR News.

Workers purchased the cafe with $100,000 in donations, a $130,000 0%-interest loan from the city of Minneapolis and support from the Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers. The workers also received assistance from Nexus Community Partners, a wealth-building nonprofit in St. Paul.

Poll: Americans don’t believe Democrats care about the economy

Americans care a lot about the economy, but don’t believe Democrats do, according to a recent poll from the New York Times and Ipsos.

Survey respondents were most likely to list the economy, health care, and immigration as their top issues personally, but said they believe Democrats care most about abortion, LGBT policy and climate change. Respondents said they believed Republicans cared most about immigration, the economy and guns.

The poll underscores Democrats’ perception problem, which was already made abundantly clear on Election Day.

Winning back working class voters was the overarching theme of the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee, which Minnesota’s Ken Martin handily won by touting his winning streak, working-class upbringing, and union bonafides.

On Monday, the leading super PAC supporting House Democrats announced a $50 million investment in a new “Win Them Back Fund” aimed at appealing to working-class voters.

Whole Food challenges first successful union election

Amazon-owned Whole Foods is challenging the first successful union election at one of its stores in Philadelphia, arguing the election cannot be certified because the National Labor Relations Board lacks a quorum after Trump fired board member Gwynne Wilcox.

The unprecedented firing of an NLRB member — which can only be done for neglect or malfeasance — has paralyzed the board since it needs at least three members to conduct business. Wilcox is challenging her ouster in court in a case that will test the constitutional limits of presidential power.

Workers at the Philadelphia Whole Foods voted 130-100 to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers, but Whole Foods is also alleging the union unfairly promised workers 30% wage increases if they voted to unionize and intimidated workers who didn’t support the effort.

Union local president Wendell Young IV said in a statement that Amazon is just trying to bust the union.

“Their goal is clear: They don’t want to bargain in good faith with their workers,” he said in a news release.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

ST. CLOUD — Former President Donald Trump had new material on Vice President Kamala Harris for thousands of cheering supporters in St. Cloud on Saturday evening at a rally with his running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D Vance.

Trump called Harris — the likely Democratic nominee for president since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign a week ago — a “radical left lunatic” who supports defunding the police, taking away guns, letting in tens of millions of undocumented immigrants, and limiting red meat. He also said she isn’t very smart.

Trump also took swings at his other favorite targets: Biden, “fake news,” radical Islamic terrorism and violent “illegal aliens” whom he compared to Dr. Hannibal Lecter from the horror movie “Silence of the Lambs.”

“I mentioned him because we have people like that coming into our country. They’re closing their insane asylum all over the world. They’re sending the criminals into the United States,” Trump said.

Trump added some optimism to his speech, promising an immediate turn of fate for America as soon as he’s back in the Oval Office: “Inflation will stop. The illegal aliens will be turned back. The cartels will be in retreat. Crime will fall. Energy prices will plummet. Incomes will soar. And a world in chaos will rapidly be transformed into a planet of peace.”

In fact, economists from an array of think tanks and Wall Street firms say Trump’s plan to halt immigration and raise tariffs on imported goods would cause inflation to increase and inflation-adjusted incomes to drop.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and economic adviser to the presidential campaign of the late Sen. John Mcain, told CBS MoneyWatch that consumers “will be hopping mad a year from now” about inflation if Trump wins and enacts his policies.

The line to see Trump at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center serpentined nearly a mile through a residential neighborhood, with people sweating in the 90-degree heat through t-shirts reading “I’m voting for the felon” and “Mean tweets and cheap gas.”

Standing in line, Jake Wolf of St. Cloud said he believed Trump would get the country “under control” with border security and “getting transgender sh** out of childrens’ schools.”

Darla Schmidt of Montevideo befriended fellow truck driver Brian Nelson of Pine City in line. Both said their main concerns are the increased cost of living eating into their wages, and believes Trump will be able to rein in prices.

Asked about the prospect of higher tariffs driving up prices, Schmidt said it was like cleaning a house: “It gets nasty first, but eventually it’s going to work its way through.”

While some 8,000 supporters made it inside the arena, more than a 1,000 others were disappointed to be turned away and left to cheer for Trump’s image on a giant screen set up in the arena’s parking lot. The Reformer was outside the arena with them.

Trump said they will win Minnesota easily as long as “they don’t cheat.”

Ahead of the rally, Democrats including Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar held their own event to energize 300 volunteers at the St. Paul Labor Center to kick off a Saturday door-knocking session.

“Three days ago, the nation found out what we’ve all known in Minnesota, [Trump and Vance] are just weird,” Walz said at the rally.

Walz is suddenly receiving lots of chatter as a potential running mate to Harris, in part for his blistering attacks on the Trump-Vance ticket: “They’ll be happy to only be 10 points behind by the time we’re done with them,” he said, according to a Harris campaign press release.

Despite its faint-purplish hue, Minnesota hasn’t gone red in a presidential election since voting for Richard Nixon in 1972.

Even when Trump knocked down much of the blue wall across the Upper Midwest in 2016, Minnesota remained stubbornly Democratic. Hillary Clinton won the state, albeit by just 1.5 percentage points, a closer margin than in any election since native son Walter Mondale squeaked out his only state win against Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Minnesota’s elusiveness has made the state a particularly precious prize for Trump, who spent millions here in 2020 even as he lost ground in the state, trailing Biden by 7 percentage points.

Trump vowed never to return to Minnesota if he lost the state in 2020, although he returned this year in May to speak at the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner, where he repeated the flagrant lie that he won the state in 2020.

Even though Biden suffered floundering approval ratings in recent years, he maintained a 6 percentage point lead over Trump in Minnesota, according to a June KSTP/Survey USA poll.

Harris has widened the margin for Democrats since becoming their all-but-certain presidential nominee with a 10 percentage point lead over Trump — 50% to 40% — in a KSTP/Survey USA poll released on Saturday.

Ruby red St. Cloud was friendly territory for Trump, who won 60% of the vote in Stearns County in 2020.

Vance took the stage first, speaking for about 20 minutes, with a speech that previewed Trump’s message on immigration at the southern border, Islamic extremism and support for the police, even though his running mate is now a convicted felon and facing charges in three other cases.

Vance also repeated a new attack on Harris for a tweet she sent four years ago in support of Minnesota Freedom Fund, a nonprofit organization that pays cash bail for people facing criminal trials or immigration hearings. At the time, the organization was bailing out people arrested in the protests and riots following the police killing of George Floyd. Harris hasn’t been involved in the organization beyond that one tweet, according to the organization.

“When rioters and looters were burning American cities to the ground, including Minneapolis, Kamala Harris was raising money to bail them out of jail. Let’s throw them in jail and deport them out,” said Vance, who’s now on a ticket that promises to pardon many of the people convicted of rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump sought to disrupt the peaceful of transfer of power after losing the election.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund has bailed out more than 2,500 people awaiting trial since its founding in 2016, arguing that the constitutional right to be innocent until proven guilty shouldn’t depend on a person’s income. Some of the people for whom the organization has posted bail have gone on to commit serious crimes, including rape and murder.

But the Trump campaign also attacked the organization for bailing out Jaleel Stallings, who was accused of attempting to kill police officers but later acquitted of all charges by a jury. One officer involved in the incident pleaded guilty to felony assault on Stallings, and apologized to him.

Trump also falsely said Saturday that he sent in the National Guard to quell the rioting in Minneapolis after Floyd’s murder; in fact, Walz, a 24-year veteran of the National Guard before his time in politics, called up the Guard.

Trump was joined on stage by Shannon Owen, whose husband Josh Own was killed in the line of duty as a Pope County Sheriff’s Deputy, and Paul Perez, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

The rally drew many East African immigrants, despite Trump’s anti-immigrant message. He promised in his speech to reinstate the travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries, including Somalia.

Osman Dagane, an Uber and Lyft driver from Minneapolis, said he arrived early Saturday morning to organize East African immigrants to come support Trump. He brushed off Trump’s previous comments on immigration — including that Somali migration to Minnesota has been a “disaster.”

“Well, now he gets to know a lot,” Dagane said. “He didn’t know that time, but now he know a lot.”

Dagane left before Trump took the stage because he was mainly interested in seeing Vance. Many people started filtering out of the arena thirty minutes into Trump’s speech, leaving only the most devoted behind.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.