At its annual delegate meeting on Sept. 20, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) awarded its annual Outstanding Union Service Award to the organizing committee of MAPE’s Macalester’s chapter, MAPE at Mac, in recognition of their efforts in organizing a successful union vote this year. Staff there to accept the award included Dave Collins ’85, Jeremy Meckler ’10, Karl Snyder, Jake Mohan and Ginny Moran ’90.
Meckler, the media and cultural studies department coordinator, wanted to make one thing clear: this was not a solo effort.
“It was a collaborative effort including around ten percent of Macalester professional staff over a long period of time,” Meckler said.
Speaking about receiving the award, Meckler recalled feeling solidarity with the other union members. Moran, a research and instruction librarian, also described this feeling as one of her favorite parts of the meeting.
“It was great to meet all the folks that are part of our union and to learn about the various jobs they all do,” Moran wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “From professional staff at the state colleges and universities, to the president of the union who works in the State [Demographic Center], there is such variety, and I know that will benefit us as MAPE at Macalester works to win the best contract we can for our bargaining unit.”
According to Meckler, multiple Macalester alums were among the general MAPE members outside Macalester’s organizing committee who personally congratulated them, including one of his former student workers.
While he said that he can only speculate, Meckler thought the award was a recognition of the organizing committee’s work to connect with staff members across offices.
“I think they recognized how hard we fought to get a union. How many hours we all put into talking to every staff member on campus and doing the hard graft of outreach and leg work and that they were just really excited to have us be a part of their union,” Meckler said.
The work that the organizing committee put into the election was a reflection of the importance with which they viewed the union’s role.
“This is a school that talks about its progressive values all the time, and it’s a way for us to help the institution live up to those values,” Meckler said. “I’m an alum. Many of the people in our organizing committee were alums, and I think we all wanted to help Macalester actually be the place that it says it is, in terms of the way it treats its staff.”
Collins, a research and instruction librarian, also noted that after the union’s election, MAPE at Mac became “MAPE’s first non-government union co-hort.”
By choosing to work with MAPE at Mac, Meckler added, “they were sort of taking a leap…it’s a pretty big deal for the 18,000 members of MAPE that they now are not just state workers.”
Looking forward, Moran believes MAPE at Mac still has a lot of work to do.
“[While Macalester has] structures in place for staff involvement in decision making, [Macalester doesn’t] have what could be considered true ‘shared governance,’” Moran wrote. “We are living into the award now through bargaining our first contract.”
“The organizing continues with building our contract action team, continuing to have conversations with colleagues,” Moran said “And to represent their voices as we negotiate with our employer to help Macalester as a whole model its commitment to justice and equity through good faith bargaining and a strong contract that will serve us well.”
