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Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, March 10th. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Updates:  MDH meetings are now every other week, and this week’s was canceled, so there will be no MDH updates until the week after spring break unless […]

Dear Colleagues, We’ve commemorated a few anniversaries in the past several months. Our founding, our election, our victory. Today’s anniversary is both momentous and frustrating. It has been one year since we first sat down with the administration to bargain our contract. That first meeting was nothing short of a big deal. For the first […]

Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, March 3rd. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative.Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Updates: Situation update: Hospitalizations continue to decline; lowest case rate in MN since last August Testing supplies are available, and FEMA will continue funding testing through at […]

Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force meeting for this week was cancelled because there was no higher education update meeting with MDH this week. We received an update that next week, in addition to the normal updates, we will begin conversation on considerations around the advisability and timing of potential changes to the university’s indoor […]

Dear Colleagues,  The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, February 10th. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. MDH Updates Situation update: Hospitalization rate moderating, including among 18-24 age range. Variants: 91% of samples sequenced for week of 1/2 were omicron; currently 100% samples sequenced for week of 1/16.  […]

Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, February 3rd. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. MDH Updates Situation update: Some indications of transmission slowing, but hospitalizations continue to rise. Nearly 100% samples sequenced for the week of 1/16 thus far were omicron. State KN95 mask distribution […]

Dear Colleagues,  The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, January 27th. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. MDH Updates Situation update: Most cases in MN since 2020 For the week of 1/2 (most recent available), 90 percent for sequenced samples in state were Omicron. Hospitalizations overall are very […]

Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, January 20th. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. MDH Updates Situation update: Cases in Minnesota are  Increasing at a very high rate Currently very underestimated The exact number of cases is quickly becoming less and less meaningful (in part […]

Dear Colleagues, The COVID-19 Task Force had a meeting on Thursday, January 13th. Here are the meeting notes from the Augsburg Staff Union representative. MDH Updates Seeing large numbers of new cases in Minnesota; test positivity rate has jumped up to the highest level of the pandemic, but hospitalization rate has not followed suit (though […]

Dear Colleagues, Today marks one year since we officially won our union. Like many things about Augsburg University, our union is exceptional. We’re the first union of private university staff members in Minnesota history! We organized our union almost entirely during a global pandemic. Like most unions, we organized it from the ground up. It […]