Jim Niland speaks

Jim Niland served 10 years on the Minneapolis City Council, replacing his friend Brian Coyle in 1991, after Brian died from AIDS. Jim was the one coalition candidate in Minneapolis who was able to garner endorsements from three separate political parties: the DFL, the Green Party, and Progressive Minnesota (while it was still a political party). Niland represented Minneapolis' 6th Ward (Phillips, Whittier, Steven's Community, and part of the West Bank) before retiring in 2001 and making way for the 6th Ward's current Councilperson, Dean "Zimmerperson" Zimmerman.

While on the Minneapolis City Council, Jim Niland was a clear champion for progressive causes—fighting for everything from organic food labeling to the livable wage law. Jim Niland earned a reputation in city government as uncompromising on progressive and sometimes even radical issues he believed in—never compromising a vote even when he was obviously outnumbered. Jim also has a lighter side to him, serving as a booking agent for Lee's Liquor Lounge for several years, and always proving his sense of humor—making me laugh every time I see him. Now Jim seems to be out of the limelight, making it appropriate for me to ask: whatever happened to that guy? So I met up with him for coffee and recorded our conversation for your reading pleasure (after editing for length of course).

SSP: What are you doing with your time these days?
JN: I'm working for the health care worker's union. SEUI, Service Employees International Union, local 113. I've been there since the end of the Wellstone Campaign.

SSP: You worked for Paul Wellstone in the last election season.
JN: That's right. Technically I was a DFL party employee, but I was essentially working for the Wellstone campaign.

SSP: Did you keep working on that campaign after the crash?
JN: Yeah, essentially everyone did—just for that last couple of days before the election.

SSP: We're talking about politics of course. You used to be a City Councilman and you're working for the union now. What's going on there these days?
JN: We just got through with a big contract campaign, we represent a lot of the workers at the big Minneapolis hospitals like Abbott, for example. About half of our membership, about 6,000 workers, are in those hospitals, and their contract expired at the end of March. We put together a big contract campaign to try to increase our ability to win a better contract for the workers—a better pay increase, better health care coverage, that sort of thing. It was the first time our union had struck the hospitals, so we did a whole bunch of rolling, one-day strikes at a bunch of hospitals around the Twin Cities, like Fairview-Riverside for example, that were very successful. We forced the corporations to blink, to improve their so-called final offer—and it was a big economic win for the union. We got a good contract with the cost of living pay increase, especially if you look at the economy now and what's happening to a lot of union members, and the key thing is that our membership learned how to fight. So they learned the lesson that if they were willing to struggle, they were willing to strike and engage in activism—they actually could win a better contract and get a sense of their power, and that was the coolest thing about the campaign.
We just got done with that a few months ago, and now we're just kind of picking our next target.

SSP: Have you gotten your conceal and carry permit yet?
JN: (laughter) No I have not, I don't intend to—in fact at the place I work it's posted that no guns are allowed, which is the way it's supposed to be (more laughter).

SSP: I just thought I'd ask, it's such a hot topic these days. Have you been thinking about the presidential election coming up?
JN: Of course, beating George Bush is a huge priority for our union, I think for any progressives in this country. In fact I'm going to be at a conference in D.C., I'm flying out on Saturday specifically to talk with a bunch of activists in our union about what we can do to make sure Bush goes down. Next year, we're planning on moving a bunch of resources into the battleground states. So yeah, it's a big, big focus for the union and myself.

SSP: Do you have a pick for a candidate yet?
JN: Nope, our union hasn't endorsed anybody.

SSP: What about yourself?
JN: You know, usually I'm in the thick of it—I was an early organizer for Jesse Jackson in '88, for example. To be honest, I'm not widely enthused by the field of candidates, but beating Bush is essential—so whoever ends up as the candidate, we'll be working our asses off for. But I personally am not involved . . .

SSP: Don't have a candidate yet who really impresses you.
JN: Exactly, and a lot of our membership is still undecided. Obviously they don't want to see Bush re-elected, but they're undecided amongst the candidates. We don't want to get out of touch with our membership by doing an inappropriate or early endorsement. Something we're debating internally is who to support, but whoever that is we'll be working very hard to elect next year.

SSP: Enough about politics. You're living in South Minneapolis, I'm assuming you're still living at the same place.
JN: 2728 Pleasant, yep.

SSP: Do you plan on living here forever?
JN: Oh, I love it. I love the neighborhood, it's a great neighborhood. No plans to move.

SSP: Any plans for a family?
JN: You know, actually we tried a couple of times and that didn't work out, so that's probably not going to happen. The only thing I could see doing is, y'know I love Ireland, and maybe sometime in the future it would be fun to go live in Ireland for an extended period of time. I've got Irish roots, I've got relatives over there, I love Ireland, so maybe that's the fantasy—maybe I could go live for a year or so over in Ireland.

SSP: I heard a rumor that either you had or you wanted to work as a roadie for a rock and roll group.
JN: Well, actually, years ago I worked in the music biz, in fact the last two years I was on the council, I booked Lee's Liquor Lounge. So it's fun to dabble back in the music biz again, and back when I was in college, in fact just after I got kicked out of Georgetown—back when I was in college I actually worked for Roughtrade Records. So I worked as a roadie on tours, I helped book tours, handed out CDs to college radio stations. Yeah, so it was a great label to work for, interesting bands to go on the road with.

SSP: Do you ever plan to do that again?
JN: Well, I certainly road tripped to follow friends in bands, y'know what I mean? So I've done that and of course I've helped lug their gear to a club, I won't be doing it full time again (laughter).

SSP: So you're out, you're seeing shows, living your life again.
JN: That's right, I actually feel like I have a little bit of a life again. Y'know it's been quite a while since the Wellstone Campaign. It was nuts, y'know even when I first joined the staff in the early spring, it was already intense—and you know, the wildness in the last couple weeks.

SSP: You're getting more spare time to yourself.
JN: Yeah, I'm still real busy but I feel I can take the occasional day off on the weekend.

SSP: You ever going to go back and run for office again?
JN: I'm done with that. Ten years was enough, I never saw it as a career kind of thing. As long as you're having a good time and as long as you're hopefully having a positive impact—but I've seen a lot of people stay too long and that was kind of my standing order to my staff, shoot me if that happens to me and you'd be doing me a favor. Ten years and it was absolutely the right time to move on and do something else. Obviously I'm very, very involved in politics but I have no interest in being an elected official again.

SSP: What do you think of the 6th Ward race coming up, it looks like Dean Zimmermann and Robert Lilligren may be running against each other.
JN: With the new ward lines.

SSP: What do you think of that?
JN: Y'know they're both friends, I hope that doesn't happen. It'd be a shame to see two progressives forced to run against each other, and I think obviously there was definitely a lot of politics behind drawing those ward lines and how certain people were forced in with other people.

SSP: So you do agree that it was a fix?
JN: Well yeah, obviously it's a political process. I just think they should be open with the fact that it's a political process instead of having this farce of a reapportionment commission. Most legislators draw their own lines, it's a blatantly political process, let's acknowledge it, I mean that's politics—instead of hiding behind this supposedly nonpartisan method of picking ward lines.

SSP: There's been a little shakedown in City Council, two City Councilpeople have recently gone to prison. What's been going on? Has it been worse than people realize, is there more to it, is this just an anomaly?
JN: I think those two people were stupid, to throw away your career for a couple thousand dollars? Get a credit card. Appallingly stupid.

SSP: You don't think it's commonplace?
JN: No, I honestly think it was an anomaly and they made bad decisions. Now they're paying the consequences.

SSP: You don't think there's any chance of setups being involved there?
JN: It seems to me that they were guilty.