The Minnesota Senate on a strong bipartisan vote (56-10) gave the nod to new contracts with 10 state employee unions. Workers would get a two-percent increase retroactive to July 1st 2017 and an additional 2.25 percent effective this July. Duluth Democrat Erik Simonson said about one area of particular concern to Republicans, “Our agencies, our commissioners… have committed to absorbing the costs of some of these increases within their existing budgets.”
The Republican-controlled Minnesota House refused to approve the contracts when it passed its own operating budget in late February. G-O-P members proposed certain changes which some Democrats call “union-busting language.”