A City That Changed the Labor Map

For event professionals in Minnesota, working with unions is often part of the job, as union membership increases and jurisdiction continues to evolve along with technology. While working through budget considerations or coordinating onsite labor may be top of mind most of the time while collaborating with unions, it’s useful to have an understanding of how we got to where we are today. To understand why Minnesota's labor culture is different, you have to go back to 1934.

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, in the early 1930s Minneapolis was largely a non-union city. An employer advocacy group called the Citizens Alliance had held sway over the Minneapolis economy for decades, and had been successful in keeping unions at bay. By May of 1934, one of the worst years of the Great Depression, General Drivers Local 574 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters had organized approximately 3,000 transportation workers. When employers refused to recognize the union, Local 574 called a strike.

What followed was one of the most consequential labor actions in American history. Violent clashes between strikers and police culminated in an ambush on what became known as Bloody Friday, in which two strikers were killed and dozens were injured. Governor Floyd B. Olson declared martial law, deploying 4,000 National Guardsmen. The National Guard raided both the Citizens Alliance headquarters and the union's own strike headquarters, arresting its leaders. The union's rank and file responded by calling a mass rally and nearly 40,000 people marched on the stockade, successfully demanding the release of the arrested leaders. The strike ended on August 22, 1934, with the employers accepting the union's major demands.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters notes that the strike's effects extended well beyond Minneapolis: it helped pave the way for the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, as well as the Fair Labor Standards Act. These federal laws established workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively for the first time at the federal level. Per the Teamsters, one contemporary labor writer noted in the Minneapolis Labour Review, the strike "changed Minneapolis from being known as a scab's paradise to being a city of hope for those who toil."

That victory seeded a labor environment that would extend far beyond the 1930’s. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Minnesota's union membership rate has exceeded the national average every single year since 1989, when comparable state data first became available. In 2025, 14.1 percent of Minnesota wage and salary workers were union members, compared to 11.0 percent nationally.

Emerging in roughly the same time period as the cataclysmic transportation union wins in Minnesota, the events industry’s skilled labor was organizing their own union coalitions.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) was founded in 1893, according to its own historical records, when representatives of stagehands from eleven cities met in New York and pledged to support each other's efforts to establish fair wages and working conditions. The union organized around a craft-based model, where different trades do different work. This is the direct ancestor of the jurisdictional rules that event planners and vendors encounter today when they're told, for instance, that an outside AV technician cannot touch house rigging, or that only certain crews can connect electrical equipment.

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, this history is particularly long. The IATSE Local 13 chapter was chartered in January 1894, just one year after the international union itself was founded. Local 13 describes itself as the longest-standing arts-related organization in the Twin Cities metro area, predating many of the major venues it now staffs.

The hospitality side of the events industry has its own parallel history. UNITE HERE Local 17, Minnesota's hospitality union, represents more than 6,000 workers in hotels, restaurants, sports complexes, convention centers, and the airport in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding suburbs.

From the Minneapolis Convention Center to Rochester’s Mayo Civic Center to MSP airport, Minnesota’s labor history has direct impacts on today’s crews every time they walk into a union house. The rules didn't calcify in 1983 with IATSE’s founding or in 1930’s with the Minneapolis labor strikes, but rather kept being renegotiated as the industry changed, and they're still changing now.

The Events Industry - and the Unions Within It - is Still Evolving

As technology, culture, and labor expectations continue to evolve, so do the agreements governing organized labor - and the COVID pandemic became a catalyst of change that thrust unions and the event industry into uncharted territory.

When the pandemic hit, many event organizers explored the options of virtual and hybrid events. But with new tech set ups for streaming and recording came new questions about jurisdiction. At union venues in Minnesota, standard A/V production typically falls under IATSE Local 13, the Twin Cities stagehand local. But adding a livestream could trigger a separate broadcast jurisdiction — in Minnesota, that's IATSE Local 745, which represents broadcast technicians across the state under its own contract and minimums. That can mean two IATSE locals working the same event under two different agreements. The specifics vary venue by venue, which is exactly why the conversation needs to happen before anyone signs a contract.

Yet, even as jurisdictional questions continue to be negotiated, union membership also continues to increase. According to IATSE's own records, the union's membership has grown from approximately 74,000 in 1993 to more than 168,000 today, a period during which private-sector union membership nationally has generally declined. This increase indicates that union presence is strong, and thus union rules will continue to be a budgeting and workflow consideration for the foreseeable future.

What This Means for Your Work

The single most consistent piece of advice from industry professionals who work regularly in union venues is this: get everyone aligned before anyone signs anything, and work out the labor structure together. Problems that surface on the loading dock the morning of an event are almost always problems that could have been resolved in a planning call months earlier.

Shawn Pierce, president of strategic events, meetings and incentives for MCI USA, told Skift Meetings in 2022 that union rules are among the most variable factors in event planning. They differ not just from union to union, but within the same union at different venues and in different cities. That variability is why the conversation has to happen early with everyone at the table.

Bring your production partner in before you sign the venue contract. Kip Cade, COO of AV-America, told Prevue Meetings & Incentives in 2023 that bringing your production company into conversations in the early planning stages is essential. They can help you get the best possible outcome in dealings with the venue's union team, and may be able to negotiate provisions that won't be available once contracts are signed. The same applies to any outside supplier or vendor. A decorator, rental company, or AV vendor who finds out about union rules the week of the event has no leverage and no time to adjust.

Understand the jurisdiction before load-in day. What a decorator's crew can carry, what an outside AV company can connect, who handles freight from the dock - these questions have specific answers at each union venue, and those answers need to be known by every party before anyone arrives. Skift Meetings notes that planners who don't have this clarity often end up with unexpected charges on the final bill that could have been anticipated or avoided entirely. The venue's event services team is the right starting point; they navigate these questions regularly.

Budget for the full labor structure, and make sure your vendors are working from the same numbers. Kathryn Chong, director of meeting operations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told Skift Meetings that she adds 15 to 20 percent to her estimates to cover unexpected costs at union venues, and structures her planning timeline around the fact that last-minute requests are harder to fulfill. That's not a reason to avoid union venues, but it is a reason to make sure every vendor you're working with is budgeting against the same reality, not a non-union baseline.

Know what shadow labor means before it appears on your invoice. When an outside vendor performs work that would otherwise be done by union labor, many contracts require that a union worker be assigned to observe on a one-to-one basis at full pay. Prevue Meetings & Incentives describes this arrangement as one of the more significant cost surprises for planners who didn't ask about it upfront. It's not a surprise if you've asked; it becomes a budget line. Your venue contact and production partner can tell you whether and where it applies to your specific event.

The crews are a resource. Skift Meetings notes that there doesn't have to be a competitive dynamic between union crews and event professionals, as both sides have a stake in the event going well. The crews working in major Twin Cities venues are often deeply experienced in those specific rooms: they know the rigging points, the power quirks, and the load-in rhythms. That institutional knowledge is an asset when the relationship is collaborative from the start.

The through-line in all of this is communication that happens early and includes everyone. Union rules should be written into contracts that venues, unions, and contract-bound planners all have copies of, so everyone is on the same page - literally.

May Day in Minnesota isn't just a historical footnote: it's a living tradition. The May Day Parade organized by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Powderhorn Park has been running for over 50 years. The 1934 Teamsters Strike has a historical marker.

The events industry exists inside that culture. Working in and with unions can be complicated, as we all collaborate to navigate the rules and regulations that vary from venue to venue. But understanding the organizing history behind in our state provides a starting point for approaching the labor rules as a structure that provides clarity of roles and expectations, allowing us all to come together in achieving our shared goal: providing the best events possible for those we serve. 

The MPI MN feature articles cover the people and stories happening in Minnesota's events community. Have a story idea or know someone who should be featured? Send it to Ellie Hartmann at ehartmann@lmc.org.