MAPE’s new business agents bring decades of experience, much of it from MAPE

Three new business agents (BAs) have joined MAPE to work with members across the state. The trio of Matthew Burris, Adam Novotny and Thu Phan have more than 40 years of combined labor experience, including as MAPE members.   

Matthew Burris 

Matthew Burris grew up in a union family in Oklahoma where his mother was a K-12 teacher and local president of her union. “I was stuffing envelopes and door knocking since I was a little kid,” Burris said.  

He’s no stranger to the Midwest where he began organizing in Wisconsin during the recall election of Gov. Scott Walker, architect of Act 10 where public employees largely lost their ability to collectively bargain in 2011. Those rights were restored last year.  

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with degrees in journalism and public relations, he graduated in 2009 into “an awful job market.” He said he then “went to law school, dropped out; fit everything I owned into my car and spent a decade driving around, picking fights and trying to win them.”   

He then worked for U.S. Senator Jon Tester in Montana, the American Federation of Teachers in Illinois, helped establish a faculty union at the University of New Mexico and most recently in Durham, North Carolina, where a slate of statewide public education workers wanted to invest in organizing.   

He thought MAPE was a great opportunity, “This union represents people that make the state function. Minnesota always has had a high quality of life – there’s nothing special in the soil, it’s because the people who make the state run do their jobs and have helped to make Minnesota remain great,” Burris said. “As a resident and a person who cares about labor, their voices are heard in the workplace. Any way I can help to contribute to it is a real honor.” 

Burris’ organizing area includes Locals 1501, 1502, 1001 as well as staffing the Union Power Project where there is “lots of potential not yet realized. It’s a really cool organizing opportunity.”   

The new Minnesota resident lives in the Longfellow neighborhood in Minneapolis, in a home he rented sight unseen, that has a backyard for his dog, Fritz. “Reading is my usual go to – I’m a history guy, with shelf after shelf about World War I and labor history. I enjoy hiking and there’s always somewhere new to explore with Fritz,” he added.  

Adam Novotny 

Adam Novotny was a MAPE member for most of the 16 years he worked at the Department of Corrections (DOC). His first job after graduating from Hamline University was as a corrections officer where he worked in Faribault for nearly five years before joining the DOC’s Central Office. For the last seven years he worked in the Interstate Compact Unit, transferring offenders released to other states.  

While a MAPE member, Novotny served on the Organizing Council, Negotiations Committee where he co-chaired the bargaining team for two cycles, and as a local secretary and steward.   

Transitioning from member to staff has been “valuable and challenging,” according to Novotny.  “Bringing the member experience to my new position and understanding how things feel as a member and on the member side, sometimes the urgency, the fear, the big wins are colored a bit differently as staff. I didn’t understand all the hats and directions BAs are pulled in; seeing the peek behind the curtain has brought me a new appreciation for the work.” 

His Locals include 1201, 1202, 1701 and he is staffing the Restructure Project, Negotiations Committee and the new Direct Care and Treatment (DCT) Meet and Confer at the Department of Human Services. “The things that draw you to labor are finding wins: big, small, formal, informal. I am excited about the DCT Meet and Confer and hope we can get that started. I’m also hoping to help build a more activist union with a deep sense of solidarity and developing that muscle where folks are looking out for each other, the core of what a union really is,” he added.  

Novotny’s wife, Katie, teaches health at the same elementary school his daughters attend; Charlotte is nine and Claire is seven. Novotny said the family enjoys spending time together outdoors and Katie, a gardener, has created “a nice little haven for us” filled with native flowers.   

Novotny said he also enjoys woodworking, fishing and hiking when he can. “I like to read – I read 70 books last year, mostly fiction,” he added. 

Thu Phan 

Thu Phan is a longtime MAPE member leader. He served as the union’s statewide vice president, chair of the Employee Rights Committee and a membership secretary and steward for Local 401 at the Department of Revenue during the more than 15 years he worked at the agency.  

After the election last fall, Phan said he was angry he didn’t “do enough to help elect pro-labor candidates into office. I might not be able to do much work at the federal level, but as an employee I could do my best to preserve everything we fought for in the contract. As a MAPE leader, I helped for an hour here and there, but mostly did my Revenue work. This BA job gives me a great opportunity to put all my efforts into the right to bargain and improve our contract language during negotiations.”   

“I’m taking the experience from everything I’ve done at Local 401 and state level and using those best practices as a business agent. This is the next transition. My kids are now in school, I have more opportunity and time to pay close attention to everything that concerns my fellow coworkers and members,” he added.  

Phan represents Locals 1301, 1302 and 1303. Region 13 is one of the largest regions with correctional facilities in Lino Lakes and Shakopee, Anoka Metropolitan Regional Treatment Center and smaller direct care and treatment facilities, Housing Administration and Minnesota State campuses.  

Phan said it’s his goal to help “build up all of the families in Region 13,” just as he did as a MAPE member leader in Local 401. “My ultimate goal is to be a resource Region 13 members can rely on whenever they need help. The power is at the local level and the contract affords them a lot of protections, responsibilities and power,” Phan said.  

Phan came to state service in 2009 after working in the private sector where he learned “there is no such thing as having a voice in the office, you keep your head down and do your work. I was promised a work-life balance by Human Resources but quickly learned the work was so overwhelming you couldn’t take time off.”  

Phan and his wife Mandy have two children: their daughter Kelly is 10 and son Edison is six. Both children like school and are busy with extra-curricular activities like swimming and piano lessons. The family is also involved with their church in St. Paul where the kids can retain their Vietnamese language and culture. Phan built a new website for the church, including an educational section with Vietnamese curriculum.