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 who covered everything from Lula & the Brazilian labor movement to major league baseball. He spent years covering union organizing in the South for The Guardian and was labeled by the New York Times as an "abrasive gadfly" for exposing within the labor movement. Raised in a UE union family in Pittsburgh, Elk was illegally for union organizing at Politico in 2015 and used his NLRB settlement to start the crowd-funded Payday Report. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and is fluent in both Pittsburghese and Portuguese, which he learned when attending journalism school at PUC-Rio de Janerio. Email: [email protected]

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