Minnesota earns D in public-sector labor report

Minnesota scored poorly in a new report examining government unions and worker freedom across all 50 states. The Commonwealth Foundation's fifth annual report found the largest government unions are "organizing new and unusual workplaces" in an attempt to make up for membership losses in recent years. Minnesota scored a D on the report, titled "The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws," which ranked states on an A-F scale. In total, 15 states scored a D, making it the most common grade. Arkansas and Georgia joined five other states topping the report with an A+, while California and Illinois were one of six states to receive an F. The foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank, looked at a number of factors while considering rankings. Those factors included whether collective bargaining is limited, what legal protections workers have, and the laws currently in place. According to the report, Minnesota's public-sector labor laws allow unions to organize government employees and provide for exclusive representation, unfair labor practices, binding interest arbitration and payroll deduction for unionized employees. It also highlighted Minnesota's system for unionizing home care workers, noting that the state is one of 12 that treats certain home care workers as partial public employees for collective bargaining purposes. David R. Osborne, senior director of labor policy at the foundation and the report's author, told The Center Square that several proposed reforms in Minnesota would have curtailed the power of government unions but ultimately failed. "In Minnesota, more bills on public sector labor were introduced by Republicans than Democrats and DFLers," Osborne said. "Republican Reps. Quam, Witte, Bakeberg and Sens. Wesenberg, Koran, and Gruenhagen each introduced reforms that ultimately failed but would have significantly curbed the power of government unions." One proposal, House Bill 545 and its Senate companion, Senate Bill 645, would have prohibited union representatives from using union release time for political activities. Both bills were introduced during the 2025-26 legislative session but failed. Other Republican-backed proposals would have repealed the statutory authority for unions to charge nonmembers agency fees, allowed public employees to choose where their union dues were directed and required employees to be notified that union membership is not a condition of employment. Democrats also introduced legislation related to public-sector unions, including proposals that would have allowed striking workers to receive unemployment benefits and extended collective bargaining to unions representing inmates. Osborne said this is part of a broader national trend in which government unions are seeking to grow membership and maintain influence. "Nationally, government union membership is trending up," Osborne said. "One reason for that is unions' lobbying emphasis on recruitment even at the expense of individual employees." He pointed to laws passed over the last decade that require disclosure of employee home addresses and personal cellphone numbers, guarantee unions unsupervised time with new hires and provide access to government email systems and buildings. "Unions use that sensitive information to recruit and harass public employees, send them political materials, and initiate collections when they fail to pay dues," Osborne explained. "At the same time, they unethically trap union members to prevent them from withdrawing their membership, often with the blessing of state legislation." The foundation's report found that the four largest government unions—the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—have begun replacing membership losses incurred since 2018. The decline began following the landmark Janus v. AFSCME decision, which prohibited public-sector unions from collecting agency fees from nonmembers. Just since 2024, those four unions have reported a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5%. According to the report, a big part of this is due to tens of millions of dollars being directed by the unions to state legislators. It called many of these actions taken by states and unions "anti-freedom" proposals which leave workers confused on their rights and obligations. "Union executives are spending tens of millions of dollars to rewrite the rules of the game and bolster their political machine in every state, at the expense of freedom for government employees," Osborne said. "State lawmakers across the country must stand up against anti-freedom labor proposals to ensure that every American worker has the right to choose whether or not to associate with a union, without coercion or fear, and that their hard-earned dollars don't fund a political agenda they don't support."