18 Years After Defeat, UE Wins w/ 97% at the University of Minnesota

In 2005, I traveled out to the University of Minnesota to help my father Gene Elk, the now-retired United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Director of Organization, as the UE attempted to organize graduate employees at the University of Minnesota. However, the effort was unsuccessful. 

It was one of six unsuccessful organizing efforts of graduate employees at the University since 1974.  As recently, as 2012, 62% of graduate employees at the University of Minnesota voted against unionizing. 

Now, UE has won the vote at the University of Minnesota by a margin of 97%. Something big has changed in this country. 

“The energy among grad workers this week was palpable. This victory is a testament to the workers who have taken the time to imagine what is possible and how much stronger we are together” said Graduate worker Yusra Murad.

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter and alumni of the Guardian. In addition to filing nearly 2,000 stories from 46 states, Elk traveled with Lula from Sáo Bernando do Campos all the way to the Oval Office in the White House. Credited by the Washington Post for being the first reporter to track the strike wave systematically, Elk started Payday Report using his NLRB settlement from being illegally fired for union organizing in 2015. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and works frequently in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended college at PUC-Rio. He speaks both Portuguese and Pittsburghese fluently. His email is [email protected]

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