Apple Valley associate joins nationwide Walmart strike

Supporters show their support for low-wage workers at Walmart and Target at a sendoff event for Gabe Teneyuque.

An associate from Apple Valley is among more than 100 striking Walmart workers nationwide who are protesting outside the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Ark., this week. Gabriel Teneyuque, a member of the grassroots campaign OUR Walmart, joined the “Ride for Respect” to company headquarters last week. The caravan traveled through about 30 cities, […]

St. Croix Valley Labor Assembly to host annual picnic June 26

picnic-meat-web

The St. Croix Valley Labor Assembly will host its annual family picnic June 26, from 5 to 7 p.m., at Valley View Park in Oak Park Heights. The event offers an opportunity for the St. Croix Valley’s union members, elected officials and candidates for office to meet in an informal, fun setting. The picnic is […]

Three bring labor endorsement into St. Paul DFL Convention

Incumbent school board member John Brodrick (right), with St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper, will be among the labor candidates seeking DFL endorsement June 8.

Planning on attending the City of St. Paul DFL Endorsing Convention? Three labor-endorsed candidates are counting on union members’ support. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman is seeking re-election with labor endorsement. Two incumbent candidates for St. Paul Board of Education also have labor endorsements: John Brodrick and Jean O’Connell. The endorsing convention will begin at 9 a.m. […]

Looking back on a century of support for buying union in St. Paul

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In the same spirit of The Union Advocate’s annual Buy Union edition, in which we encourage union members to support businesses that hire union workers, publishers of the Minnesota Union Advocate urged readers to “Buy Bread With the Union Label” in their June 6, 1913, edition. They weren’t afraid to lay it on thick 100 […]

Letters to the Editor: Kudos to Metsa for walking in low-wage workers’ skin

Jason Metsa shops for groceries on a minimum-wage budget.

A story in the May Union Advocate (“A constant juggling act”) about state Rep. Jason Metsa of Virginia trying to live for a week on a minimun-wage budget brings to mind a quote from the famous novel “To Kill a Mocking-bird,” in which lawyer Atticus Finch tells his young daughter, “You never really understand a […]

Unions see plenty to like in results of 2013 legislative session

Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Legislative leaders called 2013 the “education session” for the new investments in E-12 students, and a bill to extend union rights to 21,000 child-care providers and home health care workers grabbed headlines as Republicans tried to filibuster it to death. But the 2013 legislative session yielded many other victories for union members and middle class […]

Bobby Kasper: A successful session – with room for improvement

Bobby Kasper

We here at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation entered this session with high hopes. Having claimed the state-government trifecta – pro-worker majorities the House and Senate, as well as a pro-labor governor – for the first time in more than two decades, we believed that with some hard work lobbying and some help from […]

June 2013 Poll

‘Robust’ trade advisory council wins approval at Capitol

MNFTC

The Minnesota Trade Policy Advisory Council is back and, fair-trade advocates believe, better than ever. The Jobs and Economic Development bill signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton this week included reauthorization of the Trade Policy Advisory Council, which saw its authority “sunset” in 2012, but in a new form – one more inclusive of […]

Education funding, tax reform highlight gains made in 2013 session, unions say

capitol

Minnesota’s working families will see the most obvious fruits of the 2013 legislative session in their public schools and property-tax bills, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of investments, reforms and initiatives passed by labor-endorsed majorities in the Legislature this year, union leaders said. The Minnesota AFL-CIO called the session, which adjourned May […]

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