To win electoral contests and issue campaigns, organized labor in Minnesota increasingly has worked in coalitions with community allies. Now two coalitions allied with labor plan to fold and create a new, broader coalition.

The new organization will launch in January 2006, growing out of Progressive Minnesota (PM), founded in 1994, and the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action (MAPA), founded in 1988.

The name of the new organization will be announced at MAPA's annual dinner Saturday, Dec. 10.

"Unions are an active part of launching this organization with MAPA and Progressive Minnesota. They'll have a strong role," said Ryan Greenwood, PM executive director.

One member of the founding board is Bill Moore, chief of staff of the Minnesota AFL-CIO. He said the AFL-CIO has worked in coalition with both MAPA and PM. "To combine efforts is a really neat idea and will make for a more effective and broader organization," Moore said.

Currently, nine of MAPA's 27 member groups are unions while eight of PM's nine affiliate organizations are unions.

The SEIU Minnesota State Council has been a member of both MAPA and Progressive Minnesota. "We saw both of them filling distinct niches in Minnesota progressive politics," said Kristin Beckmann, SEIU political director.

MAPA's work has focused on policy research and building coalitions to win state legislation. Victories include passing a state corporate welfare law and strengthening protections for voting rights.

Grassroots organizing
Progressive Minnesota, meanwhile, developed expertise in grassroots organizing to win electoral campaigns for candidates and referendums.

In recent years, "each organization started to grow in the direction of the work the other organization was doing," PM's Greenwood said. "That made us question, why are we apart? Are we stronger apart or together?"

"The discussion has gone on for years about how we ought to find a more strategic way to work together," said MAPA Executive Director C. Scott Cooper. "In December of 2004, we really started saying, hey, we should look at this seriously and not be afraid to talk about dramatic changes."

"Rather than duplicate, it made more sense to bring the two parties together," said Doug Williams, international representative for IUE-CWA, who is a longtime MAPA board member. "MAPA has done well organizing organizations. PM has done well organizing individuals. They complement each other very well."

"The new organization so far has been very well received by labor," Williams added. The new organization, he said, presents "an opportunity for labor to work in collaboration with a much more diverse group."

"There's enormous, enormous potential on this organization having an impact on what Minnesota looks like and how we govern ourselves," Williams said.

"The two boards really wanted it to be more than the sum of its parts, so it was not just MAPA plus PM but a lot of other new groups," Cooper said.

"Issues that MAPA worked on in the past and campaigns that Progressive Minnesota worked on have had a real tie to labor. I think that will continue," said Steve Hunter, longtime MAPA board member and secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

A coalition for all of labor
In the wake of the split in the AFL-CIO, the new organization also could become a place where AFL-CIO unions and Change to Win unions can work together.

"The split is going to make these coalitions even more important," SEIU's Beckmann said. "It's going to be the place where the two labor federations sit down and work out shared goals."

"This will give us a table to share," said Bernie Hesse, political director for UFCW Local 789 and a member of both the MAPA and PM boards. "As labor folks, we can build something together and get something done."

"It's fun to be putting something together at a time when things seem to be falling apart," the AFL-CIO's Moore said.

"It's certainly important to us that we keep all parts of the labor movement as part of this coalition," Cooper said.

Next steps
The founding board is in the process of hiring an executive director.

Staff currently employed by MAPA and PM will apply for jobs at the new organization.

Both organizations have annual budgets of about $350,000 per year, Cooper said.

MAPA currently has four full-time staff and one part-time staff member. MAPA employees are represented by the AFSCME Council 5 Employees Union.

Progressive Minnesota's staff of 12 full-timers are represented by the Steelworkers.

A vision for progressive change
Founders shared excitement ? and a sense of urgency ? expressed by Progressive Minnesota's Ryan Greenwood: "This is something we had to do and need to do to take power in the state for folks who believe in social and economic justice.

"This is an opportunity to build something bigger, stronger and more effective that can really challenge right wing political power in this state."

Contact MAPA at 651-641-4050 or visit www.mapa-mn.org. Contact Progressive Minnesota at 651-641-6199 or visit www.progressivemn.org.

Steve Share, currently the editor of the Minneapolis Labor Review, was communications coordinator at MAPA from 2001-2003.