The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.

Politics-motivated union faces string of successful decertification votes in Minnesota

Brittany Burgess (front, center) and her coworkers at Mayo Clinic’s Mankato, Minnesota, branch sparked a wave of Foundation-backed efforts across Minnesota to declare independence from union bosses, with the most recent success in Fairmont, Minnesota.

FAIRMONT, MN – In 2022, then-President of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) union Mary Turner expressed to the Minnesota Reformer her ambition to continue pushing the MNA’s political agenda in the Minnesota state legislature and eventually vie for the presidency of the National Nurses United (NNU) union, MNA’s parent.

The NNU is also known for its ardent political activity — in 2016, the union’s super PAC spent roughly $1 million on promoting self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders for president.

When asked whether the union’s politics played a role in the fact hundreds of nurses, backed by the National Right to Work Foundation, had just voted MNA union bosses out of power at Mayo Clinic in Mankato, Minnesota, Turner had this to say: “They’re going to have to prove to us that they want the union because they lost it.”

Fast-forward to 2025, and the MNA’s obsession with politics hasn’t changed — and neither has nurses’ opposition to the alienating nature of the union. This January, with free Foundation legal aid, nurses at Mayo Clinic’s Fairmont, Minnesota, location voted by over 60% to remove MNA union officials from their facility.

“The MNA was a very divisive force in our workplace, and I think we’ll be able to better serve our patients and the community without the union,” commented nurse Jamie Campbell on the vote.

Foundation Backs Another Grassroots Effort to Nix MNA

Campbell kick-started the union removal effort by submitting a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in December 2024 requesting a union decertification vote.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Campbell’s union decertification petition contained well over the number of employee signatures needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules.

Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, MNA union officials had the legal power to require all the Fairmont Mayo nurses to pay at least a portion of union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work jurisdictions, union membership and all union financial support are voluntary and the choice of each individual worker.

However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials are able to impose one-size-fits-all contracts on all employees in a work unit, even those who voted against or otherwise oppose the union.

Fairmont Victory Follows Others in Mankato, St. James

The election took place in January, and within a week, the NLRB certified the nurses’ successful ouster of the union.

Since 2022, several sizable units of healthcare workers in Minnesota have sought out Foundation legal aid to obtain removal votes against the MNA and other unions, and have often been successful in freeing themselves. After Mankato Mayo Clinic nurses voted MNA out, nurses at Mayo’s St. James branch did the same with AFSCME Council 65 in August 2022. Support staff at the Mankato facility kicked out American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1856 union officials in 2023.

“MNA union bosses’ influence and political connections did not shield them from suffering another defeat by rank-and-file nurses at the ballot box,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens.

“Ironically, Minnesota’s lack of Right to Work protections — which are vociferously opposed by the MNA — likely removed an important accountability tool from the relationship between the MNA and the nurses they claim to ‘represent.’ It’s no surprise that union bosses who can force workers to pay union dues or fees on pain of termination wind up being far less effective and more out-of-touch than union officials who must earn the voluntary financial support of each worker.”