The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
The president of a major Minnesota union sent a letter this week to members enrolled in its health insurance plans urging them to “go elsewhere for health care” during the Allina strike. Jennifer Christensen, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, cited concerns about “quality control” and patient safety at five Allina Health […]
UPDATE 9/29/16 – United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 announced on its Facebook page that its members will vote on a contract proposal from the company, reached during bargaining Monday. The local is withholding details of the proposal until the ratification vote Oct. 3, but acknowledged that it made some concessions to the company: “You all […]
The historic organizing drive among faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus cleared a major hurdle today, when a state agency ruled contingent and tenure-track faculty could join together in one potential bargaining unit. The Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services’ decision clears the way for about 1,000 contingent and 1,500 tenure-track faculty members […]
The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust treated the men and women working to redevelop a property in St. Paul’s Lowertown district to lunch Aug. 31, highlighting the trust’s unique approach to investing union pension funds in union-built construction projects. The development, 333 on the Park, is transforming an eight-story office building, originally constructed in 1913, into […]
When Celeste Kopacek’s patient in the neuroscience unit at Abbott Northwestern Hospital told her he was going home to get his gun and would come back to find her, she reported the threat to Allina security. “They told me to call back if he showed up,” Kopacek said. Since contract negotiations with Allina began […]
The 16 members of Allina Health’s board of directors have remained mostly above the fray since a contentious round of negotiations with nearly 5,000 union nurses began in February. But that changed last week, when Allina nurses at five Twin Cities facilities began an open-ended strike and, at the same time, rolled out a […]
Laurie Mattson-Collier left a meeting with Command Security Corporation managers last month relieved they had reached a compromise to stave off severe pay cuts for her unit of 13 security officers at a postal facility in Eagan. Less than a week later, Command told Mattson-Collier it was backing out of the verbal agreement, citing […]
Jennifer Mlodzik of Cottage Grove was among the first in line for a blood drive today near the United Hospital picket line, but she probably won’t be the last striking nurse who offers a little gallows humor to the Red Cross technicians. “Are you guys hiring?” Mlodzik asked the woman about to draw blood from […]
Members of the St. Paul City Council today voted 7-0 to pass an ordinance hailed by working people, small business owners, clergy members and other advocates as the strongest earned sick and safe time law on the books nationwide. Mayor Chris Coleman immediately indicated he would support the ordinance, making St. Paul the 35th U.S. […]
Thousands of Allina nurses and their supporters are spending Labor Day on the picket line, as members of the Minnesota Nurses Association today began an open-ended strike at five Twin Cities facilities. For the second time this summer, union nurses at United, Abbott Northwestern, Mercy and Unity hospitals and Phillips Eye Institute walked off the […]
Union Advocate 