After five bargaining sessions comprising forty hours of face-to-face interaction at the bargaining table (and countless hours preparing for bargaining), MGEC and the State of Minnesota have reached a Tentative Agreement (the “TA”). As of this writing, the state just sent us the “redline” of the new contract that will be the precise language that you will see in the final contract, if approved by the MGEC membership. We are currently reviewing the redline. This is a frustrating but critical step in the negotiation process: too many times, in previous bargaining cycles, language items that we ... Read More >>
Bargaining updates
Meet Your Bargaining Team
The people who comprise the bargaining team are your peers – they work at the state as engineering professionals and bring their experiences to the bargaining table. There’s no substitute for directly sharing the experience of living under a contract and telling those experiences directly to the employer. These MGEC members have donated considerable energy to pursue the best possible contract. This year’s team includes: Corey Mathisen, President Benton Campbell, Vice-President Carroll Aasen, Director John Dalton, Director Jared DeMaster, Treasurer Blake Nelson, ... Read More >>
Bargaining Update
Bargaining for the 2025-27 labor agreement between the state and MGEC kicked off Tuesday, September 9th with the exchange of proposals from both parties. The state came to the table with a list of 41 proposals and MGEC presented 34 proposals. Our proposals are each designed to expand MGEC members’ compensations and benefits; the state’s generally attempt to restrict or lessen them. Subsequent rounds of bargaining, held Thursday the 19th of September and October 6th, were more about either eliminating proposals or finding agreement on obvious topics like revising the dates of the ... Read More >>
Bargaining Update
Bargaining for the 2025-27 labor agreement between the state and MGEC kicked off Tuesday, September 9th with the exchange of proposals from both parties. The state came to the table with a list of 41 proposals and MGEC presented 34 proposals. Our proposals are each designed to expand MGEC members’ compensations and benefits; the state’s generally attempt to restrict or lessen them. The second round of bargaining, held Thursday the 19th, was more about either eliminating proposals or finding agreement on obvious topics like revising the dates of the contract. There are many styles of ... Read More >>
Bargaining Update
As you’re no doubt aware, the contract between MGEC and the State of Minnesota expired on the last day of June. While it is always a source of frustration to have a contract expire before a successor labor agreement is in place, this is consistent with the history of bargaining with the State, and is common in the public sector more broadly. We have a set of mutually agreed upon dates with the State to bargain the next contract, beginning in September and running into December on a roughly two-week cycle. In our ideal scenario we will not require all the dates and can arrive at a ... Read More >>
MGEC 2025-2027 Contract Negotiation Update
MGEC Officers and staff have met with the Minnesota Office of Management and Budget (MMB) to set up dates and protocols for the negotiation of the next labor agreement. We share the frustration of working under a contract that has expired while the next one is negotiated, although it is common in public sector negotiations. The MGEC Bargaining Committee has met several times over the last several months to identify bargaining priorities. Given that MMB reads our member communications such as this one, we prefer a strategy where they don’t know what our asks will be before we get to the ... Read More >>