The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
The Minnesota Federation of Labor held an emergency special convention for the first time in its history April 3, 1939. On the agenda? How to defeat a labor-relations bill making its way through the Legislature that winter and considered by The Advocate to be “one of the most vicious anti-Labor bills ever introduced in the middle […]
Staples and the U.S. Postal Service have cut a deal that will replace full-service post offices with privately run post offices inside Staples stores. These knock-off post offices will not be staffed with Postal Service employees. This back-room deal jeopardizes the mail service, local post offices and thousands of middle class jobs, postal workers say. […]
Untold Stories, the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s annual labor-history series, will focus this year on the struggles facing workers in the past and how they influence the issues of today. The free, public programs begin April 22 and wrap up May 14. A full programming guide is available on the Friends’ website. […]
Raising minimum wage to $9.50 per hour will improve the incomes of 357,000 working Minnesotans across the demographic spectrum. It would also improve the incomes of 202,000 working women. If we would have indexed Minnesota’s first minimum wage in 1973, $1.80 per hour, it would be approximately $9.50 today. Indexing minimum wage to $9.50 allows […]
Union nurses are keeping the pressure on Allina Health to do right by their colleagues at Regina Medical Center in Hastings, where nurses voted yesterday to authorize their leadership to call a strike if contract talks break down. Meanwhile, about 100 nurses and supporters from the labor community staged informational picketing outside Allina-owned United Hospital […]
Supporters of raising the state’s minimum wage – and indexing it to keep up with the cost of living – kept the pressure on state senators today, delivering more than 7,000 postcards from constituents demanding action. The postcards are the product of conversations with Minnesotans that began, Raise the Wage Coalition spokesperson Jennifer Munt said, […]
Public construction projects in Minnesota are awarded to the “lowest responsible bidder,” according to state law. But how do public agencies distinguish which bidders are responsible? It’s a question the state’s Building Trades unions want answered during the 2014 legislative session. With lawmakers likely to pass a bonding bill containing roughly $1 billion in infrastructure […]
The Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO, will hold its Eleventh Annual Fund Raiser from 2 to 6 p.m. May 3 at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 10 Hall, 1681 Cope Ave., in Maplewood. Admission is free, and there will be free food, free parking and music. This is not an occasion for retirees only. Rather, […]
School board members weighed into the minimum-wage debate this week, when all seven members of St. Paul’s Board of Education signed a letter urging state senators to help close achievement gaps in their district by supporting a substantial wage hike this session. Louise Seeba, a board member and AFSCME Local 3757 member, spearheaded efforts to […]
“Pains, Trains & Automobiles,” a forum and panel discussion in Woodbury March 18, will consider what can be done to improve Minnesota’s transportation system, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of Washington County and the East Metro. The forum will run from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Genesis Room at Woodbury Lutheran Church, […]
Union Advocate 