By Olivia Grady

The Minnesota Labor Relations Act (MLRA) was enacted in 1939, in order to resolve disputes in the state’s growing labor movement. It took inspiration from the recently enacted National Labor Relations Act in 1935.

The MLRA established the Division of Conciliation for conciliation/mediation, arbitration, bargaining unit determinations and bargaining unit certification elections. In 1969, the Division became a separate state agency and was renamed the Bureau of Mediation Services.

In 1971, the BMS’ mission was greatly expanded to include state employees. Its current mission according to its website is “to promote stable and constructive labor-management relations and the use of alternative dispute resolution and collaborative processes in areas other than labor-management.” Its goals are to “[r]esolve contract and grievance disputes peacefully, expeditiously” and to “[r]esolve bargaining unit and other representation disputes consistent with Minnesota laws.”

In theory, the BMS is supposed to be an impartial arbitrator between labor and employers. But is that possible when so many BMS leadership are former union officers?

For example, Josh Tilsen has been BMS commissioner since 2011. Prior to joining the BMS, Mr. Tilsen was a union officer and local union representative from 1977 - 1985 for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 17, in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

In addition, questions were raised in 2014 by Watchdog, a news organization and project of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity (that exposes government mismanagement), and others about his side job as an arbitrator on the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board since 2006, and he is still listed on the Board’s website. According to Watchdog, his daily fee as arbitrator is $1,200 plus costs. In 2013, Tilsen was paid $7,451 by AFSCME Council 61 in Des Moines for arbitration services.

Watchdog’s Tom Steward quoted Jonathan Blake, vice president of Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, in a July 17, 2014, article:

“We have a state commissioner [Tilsen] who regulates and oversees labor relations in the state of Minnesota and he is accepting income on the side from the very unions that he is charged with overseeing. In this particular case, that’s a very serious and immediate conflict of interest that needs to be resolved.”

In 2015, Fox 9, the news channel for Minnesota and western Wisconsin, reported that Tilsen received $140,000 for his work at the BMS.

And that’s not the only apparent conflict of interest in Minnesota labor relations.

Todd Doncavage (pictured left), the BMS deputy commissioner, was the business agent for the Operating Engineers (IUOE), Local 49, in Minneapolis, part of the AFL-CIO. In 2014, in his first year as deputy commissioner, he was paid over $85,000 by the BMS; just one year prior, he was paid about $30,000 by IUOE.

And there’s more: Jill Kielblock, BMS mediator, was a union field representative for AFSCME Council 5 in St. Paul for over 28 years before joining the BMS, and another mediator, Dan Vannelli, was a business agent for the Law Enforcement Labor Services, Inc., Local No. 293. Kielblock was paid over $75,000 in 2014 by BMS, and Vannelli was paid almost $85,000. In 2012, AFSCME paid Kielblock almost $94,000.

In its sharing of union staff and therefore compromised integrity, the Minnesota state labor authority shares much in common with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mark Pearce became Chairman of the NLRB in 2011. He has also been a union member. According to Teamsters, as an adjunct faculty member at Cornell University, he was a member of the Cornell Adjunct Faculty -Upstate, New York State United Teachers Local # 37-950, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO).

Another NLRB Board member is Lauren McFerran, who, prior to joining the NLRB was an attorney who provided legal defense for unions at the law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser. Kent Hirozawa, an NLRB Board member whose term expired in August, also represented unions for more than twenty years at Gladstein, Reif, & Meginniss LLP. Finally, Richard Griffin, Jr., the general counsel of the NLRB since 2013, previously was general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, and he was on the board of directors for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, among other union leadership positions.

Employers and workers are routinely brought before labor boards to adjudicate matters with deep constitutional and financial consequences for all involved. The fact that in Minnesota and in Washington, DC, so many of these arbitrators have been on the payroll of one side of the dispute means that workers can rarely expect a fair hearing.