News staffers at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul will vote Tuesday on whether to unionize, an MPR spokesperson has confirmed.
“We received a petition indicating some members of MPR’s news teams are interested in having a union represent them,” said Angie Andresen in an email Thursday. The petition was filed by the Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, she said.
“Minnesota Public Radio respects everyone’s right to have a voice in whether or not they want to be represented by a union, and we are committed to an inclusive workplace where all employees feel valued and heard,” she wrote.
Staffers at MPR’s music station The Current will not be involved in the vote. In 2013, employees at KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., which is operated by MPR’s parent company American Public Media Group, voted to join SAG-AFTRA.
A May 6 City Pages article about the MPR vote said that in a memo to staff, APMG CEO Jon McTaggart “acknowledged their desire to unionize, but discouraged them from ‘involving a third party’ — a reference to the labor organizers of SAG-AFTRA.”
APMG laid off 13 percent of MPR’s newsroom staff in July 2015.