The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
ALBERT LEA – Minnesota’s largest hospital system has picked a fight with two of its smallest bargaining units, but union members at the Mayo Clinic Albert Lea hospital aren’t backing down in their fight for job security and quality rural health care. Workers aren’t standing alone against the health care Goliath, either. Nursing assistants, housekeepers, maintenance […]
Tom Stinson, a school nurse at Harding Senior High, sat across a table from two representatives of Allina Health last month and painted an unsettling picture. “Our kids will usually go to the nurse in their school eight times before they access any health care outside the school,” Stinson said. “They don’t get to the […]
St. Paul teachers and parents clogged the skyway system in downtown St. Paul yesterday. They marched from one corporate office to another, calling on Wells Fargo, US Bank, Ecolab and Securian to pay their fair share toward fully funded public schools. St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 organized the skyway march. In ongoing contract […]
Federal legislation introduced last month would lend cash to ailing pension funds so they can meet their obligations to current retirees and grow enough to serve people still working toward retirement. The Butch Lewis Act, authored by Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, received a full-throated endorsement from retirees, union leaders and lawmakers at a rally […]
A Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling issued yesterday dealt a setback to faculty members organizing a union at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, who are now weighing an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court. The ruling overturned a decision by the Bureau of Mediation Services, which oversees public employee labor disputes in Minnesota, […]
Striking fast-food workers rallied with supporters outside a St. Paul McDonald’s this morning, demanding $15 per hour and respect on the job. “We need something to live on,” said 27-year-old Tay Polite, on strike from her job at McDonald’s in the city’s Midway district. “Even with a job we’re still struggling to support our families. […]
Lured by generous tax incentives and low wages, foreign automakers have steadily increased their footprint in Southern states over the last two decades. Their employees earn less than union members at the Big Three domestic automakers, but attempts to organize workers in the South’s new, foreign-owned plants have almost always failed. The most recent defeat […]
Union members who provide in-home health services to clients across Minnesota have ratified a new contract with the state that will lift wages, provide holiday pay, boost paid-time off and expand training opportunities for an estimated 27,000 home care workers statewide. The new contract, home care workers’ second since voting to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota […]
The Hardman Avenue Workers Center, located at the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 hall in South St. Paul, opened with a celebration and free citizenship workshops for immigrant workers last week. The goal of the initiative, Local 1189 organizing director Abraham Wangnoo said, is to “start teaching people what their rights are,” particularly […]
The Minnesota State Retiree Council and allied organizations will hold a conference May 6 entitled “Family Security and Retiree Power in a Time of Crisis,” from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Minnesota Nurses Association, 345 Randolph Ave., St. Paul. Organizers plan an “action-oriented discussion about resisting attacks on affordable health care, our pensions […]
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