The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
Three days before members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers were scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote, negotiators for the school district and the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract that will run through the 2014-15 school year. Teachers planned a ratification vote for March 4, and the union’s executive […]
“It’s an accident waiting to happen.” That’s rail worker Corey Plath’s assessment of Canadian Pacific Railway under the direction of CEO Hunter Harrison, who has made a career of cutting costs and, union members say, cutting corners when it comes to the safety of workers and the public. Plath and fellow Minnesota-based members of the […]
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and King of Kings Lutheran Church of Woodbury today announced record fundraising totals from the organizations’ Holiday Lights in the Park display in 2013. Proceeds from the nightly holiday-light display in St. Paul’s Phalen Park, as well as a related holiday concert and CD sales, totaled $86,000 last year, […]
Wearing red scarves, hats and shirts to show their solidarity with union teachers, families packed the parking lot outside St. Paul Public Schools headquarters yesterday during a rally in support of smaller class sizes, expanded pre-kindergarten and other community-driven priorities teachers have brought to the table in contract negotiations with the district. “Parents are standing […]
Darrin Seiberlich followed in his father’s footsteps when he took a job in the St. Paul Pioneer Press printing plant nearly 30 years ago. Seiberlich’s co-worker Jim Anderson traces his roots at the newspaper one generation further, to his grandfather. Those legacies and others will reach the end of the line Feb. 16, when […]
Parents, students and other activists demonstrated this morning outside a hotel downtown St. Paul, site of a business-backed conference on education reform that featured Michelle Rhee, a prominent national voice for weakening the influence of teachers and their unions. Not surprisingly, presenters at the Education Summit, sponsored by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, did not […]
Raising the minimum wage to $9.50 would boost the paychecks of an estimated 20,000 workers in St. Paul, injecting $27 million into the city’s economy. In Minneapolis 30,000 workers would get a raise, a $40 million bump for the city’s economy. It’s no surprise, then, that both Twin Cities mayors today added theirs to the […]
Seeking to hasten an organizing process ripe for obstruction and fraught with delays, the National Labor Relations Board today proposed changes to the rules governing elections that determine union representation in most U.S. workplaces. The NLRB, the federal agency that oversees union-organizing elections, voted 3-2 in favor of pursuing the rule change. In a press […]
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison will give the keynote address at the 2014 Nellie Stone Johnson Scholarship Dinner and Silent Auction at the Prom Center in Oakdale March 27. The Nellie Stone Johnson Scholarship Fund, named after a lifelong crusader for social justice, labor rights and higher education in Minnesota, awards scholarships to students of color […]
St. Paul union members gave homeless students in the St. Paul Public Schools the gift of warmth last month, donating 120 winter coats and dozens of stocking caps to Project REACH, the district’s outreach effort to homeless youth. The gift was made possible by contributions to the St. Paul Labor Studies and Resource Center’s annual […]
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