MPR: State workers strike: It's not happening at the Zoo

State workers strike: It's not happening at the Zoo
By Patty Marsicano
Minnesota Public Radio
October 3, 2001

RealAudio

The strike by two unions representing state workers has forced the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley to shut down to the public and care care for its animals with fewer workers. Most of the zoo's 200 or so employees belong to the unions. While striking zoo workers say they're sorry to leave their jobs, they feel they have no choice.

VOICES
Allan Maguire is normally in charge of the zoo's aquariums. "I don't think anyone wants to see the animals suffer or not have the proper care," he says, "but there comes a time and a place where you have to stand up and say, 'I don't agree with these labor issues and I really can't go across and not support the labor issues.'" Listen to his comments.

Packing food for tigers, monkeys, flamingos, and mountain lions, work normally done by union employees, is now being done by the Minnesota Zoo's gift shop manager, a human resources professional and others.

Instead of her usual office routine of supervising the education department, Mary Bonnabeau is spending her days weighing and measuring raw horse meat, dead white mice, and fresh fruit.

"Some oranges for some of the flying squirrels, and everybody eats something, so we're getting it all together. The animals have to be taken care of. We all know that and I'll do my part to keep them well fed," Bonnabeau says.

The Minnesota Zoo only has about 50 employees to do the work usually handled by 200. The zoo is using those people to care for 3,000 birds, fish, and animals.

"We have been preparing contingency plans," according to Lee Ehmke, the zoo's director. "The training itself of some of the individuals who normally don't work with animals has taken place over the last two weeks. Could we have used more time? Absolutely, but the critical responsibilities are being handled by the animal managers who do have that day-to-day experience."

Ehmke says the zoo's veterinary staff is on the job as normal. They're not in the striking unions. And for some of the animals, like the screeching Gibbons monkeys, their unionized zookeepers have decided to cross the picket lines to care for them.

VOICES
James Streater, director of biological programs at the Minnesota Zoo, describes how the staff is coping without most of its workers. Listen.

"It's real important to me to make sure the animals are getting the consistent care that they're used to," Pascale Smith, one of those workers, says. "I came to be a zookeeper because I love animals and I don't think I could sit home wondering what was going on."

The zoo closure has a big impact on its finances. The zoo has an annual budget of $18 million and receives 43 percent of its revenue from gate receipts, concessions, and other zoo activities.

One of the zoo employees on strike is Sandy Koslowski, who feeds and cares for tropical birds and cleans those buildings for the public. "It wasn't an easy decision for any of us to walk away from the animal collection. You get attached to the animals you work with, whether it's a bird, a dolphin, or a mammal. But you have to set your priorities and right now my family has to come first. With the health care offers we were given, I've had breast cancer twice in the last 10 years and I can't face another major disease possibility without good health care," Koslowski says.

Allan Maguire is also on strike. He's normally in charge of the zoo's aquariums. "I don't think anyone wants to see the animals suffer or not have the proper care," he says, "but there comes a time and a place where you have to stand up and say, 'I don't agree with these labor issues and I really can't go across and not support the labor issues.'"

While animal care is being re-shuffled at the zoo, officials there say it's not all negative. They say the animals get a change of routine, which is good for them. And because workers don't have to squeeze in a lot of work that usually needs to take place before the gates open to the public, the smaller number of workers has more time to do the animal care that's required.

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