The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
Members of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34 and union plumbers from across Minnesota volunteered to fix plumbing problems for elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners during the annual “Water’s Off” service event March 19. For the 22nd consecutive year, union plumbers provided free labor, and their employers, members of the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association, donated replacement […]
Wayne Wittman, who served as chair of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation’s Community Services Committee for three decades, died unexpectedly Wednesday. He was 86. A passionate activist for peace and social justice, Wittman attended the labor federation’s first meeting at the new St. Paul Labor Center earlier this month. Today at the same labor […]
They may no longer be on the brink of a Supreme Court-imposed Right-to-Work rule, but Minnesota’s public-sector union members aren’t celebrating. They’re organizing. “What we got was a reprieve, not clemency – and surely not a pardon,” Education Minnesota attorney Meg Luger-Nikolai warned a standing-room-only audience of activists last night at the East Side Freedom […]
A union investment fund announced plans today to renovate an aging, eight-story office building in St. Paul’s Lowertown district. The project will create 134 market-rate multifamily housing units and an estimated 190 union construction jobs. The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) unveiled the $42.3 million project, dubbed “333 on the Park,” in a press release. […]
St. Paul’s East Side Freedom Library will make the most of the five Mondays in February by hosting a Black History film each evening, part of a series of free, public events the non-profit library has planned for Black History Month. Additionally, the library will host the February installment of Twin Cities Labor Movie Night, […]
Jim Hendricks clapped his hand five times, and the room bustling with more than 30 busy children Saturday morning fell silent. Everyone turned to face Hendricks, a business representative for the Carpenters union, awaiting his instructions. Holding up two pre-cut pieces of wood, Hendricks demonstrated the method for fashioning them into the sides of a […]
Decking the apprenticeship hall with festive concrete has become an annual tradition at Cement Masons Local 633. The local hosted a holiday party at its training center in New Brighton last night, and members strolled through a “Peanuts”-themed winter wonderland fashioned by first- and second-year apprentices. All of the work to create the concrete […]
Naomi Holmes will run out of deferments on $57,000 in student debt this winter. Howard Terry took out a $30,000 loan to finish his graduate degree at the University of Phoenix. Tom Laabs’ wife, Liz, will graduate next year from the University of Minnesota with six figures’ worth of debt. “When that school loan comes […]
Minnesota plummeted in a nationwide ranking of hospital safety released yesterday, but that came as no surprise to nurses, whose reports of unsafe staffing incidents in hospitals statewide have doubled over the last 12 months. Minnesota fell from 15th to 32nd in the Hospital Safety Score rankings, based on the percentage of hospitals that receive […]
The trophy on display in Local 1’s New Hope training center may be small, but the accomplishment behind it – Brandon Peterson’s first-place finish in the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers’ International Apprentice Contest – is as grand as they come. Peterson, a 33-year-old apprentice tile setter from Ham Lake, advanced from local and regional tiling competitions […]
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