Strikes surge nationwide

March 2, 2020 by

About 4,000 janitors across the Twin Cities, members of SEIU Local 26, went on a 24-hour strike over unfair labor practices last week.

Some 4,000 Twin Cities janitors walked off the job Feb. 27 for higher wages, paid sick days and other demands.

HealthPartners brought 1,800 nurses, technicians and other caregivers at its metro-area clinics to the brink of a strike before reaching a last-minute deal.

And next Tuesday, 3,600 union educators, frustrated by the district’s refusal to consider their student-centered contract proposals, could go on strike in St. Paul.

Strikes have been in the news a lot here lately, but it’s not just a local phenomenon.

According to labor market statistics released by the federal government last month, the number of U.S. workers who participated in major strikes surged in 2018 and 2019.

On average over those two years, 455,500 workers joined major strikes or work stoppages involving 1,000 or more people. That’s the highest two-year average in 35 years, and more than the total number of striking workers in the previous six years combined.

The numbers suggest that, despite low unemployment and steady economic growth, the U.S. economy isn’t as great as some would claim, particularly not for working people.

St. Paul teachers Remi Eichten (L) and Mary Rddad prepare signs for a potential strike beginning March 10. The #RedForEd movement to restore public school funding sparked strikes across the country, with some 237,400 educators joining strikes in North Carolina, West Virginia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kentucky and Oregon last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, said the strike surge reflects a “sea change” taking place nationwide.

“Working people, completely fed up with an economic and political system that does not work for us, are turning to each other and using every tool at our disposal to win a better deal,” Trumka said. “Because of the courage of every worker who said enough is enough, we all stand on a stronger foundation today. Solidarity works. And we’re just getting started.”

Despite healthy corporate profits, wage growth has been slow since the economy emerged from the Great Recession. The 2017 tax cut, which President Trump promised would raise average household wages by $4,000, has overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy instead.

Youth climate strikers and other environmental activists picketed in solidarity with striking janitors, whose contract demands include getting contractors to commit to green cleaning practices.

Executive pay, meanwhile, continues to outpace the wages of average working people. In 2018, CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies earned, on average, 287 times more than the median employee.

Historically, worker frustration has boiled over onto the picket line when working people feel they have leverage, said historian Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.

The low unemployment rate likely has emboldened people to stand up for themselves and risk employer retaliation, knowing they can easily find another job. Frustration, meanwhile, has been building for decades, as gains in productivity have failed to trickle down into workers’ paychecks.

“Much of this productivity growth has also emanated from a growing intensification of work, which has made life on the job harder and more stressful,” Rachleff said. “So workers are not only generating more wealth, which is being captured by their employers, but they are also just plain working harder.”

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Council members push back against hospital cuts

February 11, 2020 by

Council Member Rebecca Noecker, whose ward includes St. Joseph’s Hospital, called Fairview’s proposal to close the hospital “heartbreaking” during a City Hall press conference yesterday.

Standing alongside nurses from Bethesda and St. Joseph’s yesterday, three St. Paul City Council members called on Fairview to reconsider steep cuts at the downtown hospitals and, instead, partner with the community in preserving care for St. Paul’s urban core.

“The services, the jobs and what it means for our community – we cannot do without them in downtown,” said Rebecca Noecker, whose second ward includes St. Joseph’s.

Fairview confirmed in December it is weighing several proposals to cut costs, and permanently closing St. Joe’s, the state’s oldest hospital, is among them.

At nearby Bethesda, Fairview already has moved to cut the facility’s admissions capacity from 90 to 50 beds.

Together, the proposed cuts amount to an “abandonment of the central city,” Council Member Jane Prince said, adding that Fairview executives “have to answer” for “a very serious decision that they are making to walk away from downtown St. Paul.”

To that end, Prince, Noecker and Dai Thao, whose first ward includes Bethesda, plan to introduce a resolution at the council meeting tomorrow opposing the hospital cuts, and demanding Fairview be more transparent and inclusive of community leaders in whatever service reductions play out at the facilities.

At a press conference inside City Hall yesterday, council members did not mask their frustration with Fairview’s failure to engage community leaders before announcing the proposed cuts. Thao said he learned what was happening from media reports in December.

“This is not acceptable,” Thao said. “When health care corporations make decisions without the community being a part of it, we know it’s not about delivering care. We know it’s about delivering profits.”

Antoinette Fiagbedzi, a nurse at Bethesda, calls out Fairview for putting profits before patients.

Noecker acknowledged “systemic issues” facing Fairview, like limited access to quality health insurance and mental-health treatment, but said Fairview executives have so far ignored offers to work collaboratively toward solutions that benefit the provider and the community.

“We are all standing around holding this safety net together, and we cannot have one of our critical partners unilaterally drop their side of the safety net and walk away from that conversation,” Noecker said. “We all need to stay in it together to solve these issues.”

The Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents nurses at both Bethesda and St. Joseph’s, has begun negotiations with Fairview to ensure layoffs are handled according to the union contract, MNA President Mary Turner said.

But Turner warned the cuts at Bethesda, one of only two long-term rehabilitation hospitals in Minnesota, won’t just be felt by hospital staff. Closing St. Joseph’s, which devotes 100 of its beds to inpatient mental-health care and serves the city’s high-poverty neighborhoods, would expand the ripple effect even further.

“There is no way we can do without Bethesda and no way we can do without those 100 phychiatric beds in St. Joe’s,” Turner said.

Nurses at the press conference questioned Fairview’s decision to put care for the most vulnerable members of the community on the chopping block when the nonprofit health system sits on hundreds of millions of dollars in hedge fund and other financial investments – and recently raised CEO James Hereford’s pay to $913 an hour.

“Health care is not about if you have income or not,” Bethesda nurse Antoinette Fiagbedzi said. “When you care about people, you don’t think about their income. You don’t think of whether they have insurance or not. You do it out of love.

“That’s what we stand for, that’s what my colleagues stand for.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

House votes to restore worker voice on the job

February 6, 2020 by

Dee Ann Christensen and Mike Landers, both retired union members who attended the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s campaigns conference today, call their representatives in support of the PRO Act.

The U.S. House of Representatives tonight passed a bill to strengthen protections for workers trying to join together in a union.

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would create new penalties for employers who illegally intimidate or fire workers for organizing a union. It would repeal state right-to-work laws, protect the right to strike and give workers new tools for bargaining a first contract swiftly.

A top legislative priority for organized labor since Democrats took control of the House a year ago, the PRO Act would be the most consequential labor-law reform in 80 years – if it weren’t dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Still, the House vote affirms that labor-law reform remains a key piece of Democrats’ election-year agenda.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the PRO Act “the most significant piece of legislation that will come before Congress this year,” and said the nation’s largest labor federation would use today’s vote to draw a line in the sand.

“Those who would oppose, derail or delay this important legislation, do not ask us for a dollar or a door-knock. We won’t be coming,” Trumka said during a Capitol press conference. “But stand with us today, and we’ll stand with you tomorrow.”

Trumka’s message echoed loud and clear with federal lawmakers from Minnesota, who received calls from over 100 union members and retirees gathered for a conference in Minneapolis today.

“Our outdated labor laws are no longer effective to make sure working people have their voices heard,” the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Melissa Hysing told activists attending the federation’s two-day campaigns conference. “The PRO Act restores fairness to the economy and ensures working people share in the massive wealth we have helped create.”

Four DFLers co-sponsored the PRO Act: Reps. Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar and Collin Peterson. Rep. Dean Phillips also voted in favor of the bill.

McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, said the PRO Act would restore fairness to the economy and help curb rising income inequality.

“The PRO Act strengthens workers’ power to stand together and negotiate for higher pay and better benefits,” she said. “For women who are part of a union, the gender pay gap is nearly eliminated, and union members of color have nearly five times the median wealth of their non-union counterparts.

“Anti-union and anti-worker attacks have led to the decline of the middle class. It’s time we pass the PRO Act and restore the constitutional right to organize, putting power back into the hands of American workers.”

Despite polls showing historically high public support for unions last year, the percentage of U.S. workers who belong to unions continued a four-decade decline. An MIT survey from 2018 found about half of private-sector workers, or 60 million people, wanted a union. Only 6.4% actually have one.

The disconnect, union organizers say, stems from bosses’ increasing disregard for laws meant to protect workers during union organizing drives. Employers broke the law in 41.5% of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board in 2016 and 2017.

“They just view it as a cost of doing business,” Jeff Lachler, a Minneapolis-based organizer with the Communications Workers of America, said. “There’s every incentive in the world to break the law, and there’s no real downside as long as you succeed in keeping the union out.”

While federal law prohibits employers from harassing, threatening or firing workers for supporting a union drive, the penalties for breaking those laws lack teeth.

In many cases, employers found guilty of breaking the law must post a notice acknowledging their misdeeds or making workers aware of their rights. In the case of workers fired for union activity, employers have to reinstate them with back pay, if they haven’t already moved on to another job.

But the process, which includes board filings, hearings and appeals, is lengthy, and that works to employers’ benefit, Lachler said.

“Even if they have to bring the worker back, there are no punitive damages,” he said. “In the meantime, they’ve succeeded in scaring everybody else from going through with an organizing drive.”

In addition to giving the NLRB authority to fine employers who break labor law, the PRO Act allows workers to seek justice in court. That would be key for workers who can’t afford to wait for the lengthy NLRB process to run its course.

Other provisions of the bill would prohibit employers from permanently replacing workers who strike, and make so-called “secondary strikes” legal, allowing workers to strike in solidarity with their co-workers.

The PRO Act would make mediation and arbitration mandatory to settle lengthy disputes over first contracts. Nearly half of newly formed unions fail to reach a contract with the employers.

The bill also includes provisions to stop employers from misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid workers comp and other liabilities. It would make fast-food companies and other franchising corporations more responsible for labor practices throughout their chain.

And it would require employers to disclose whether they are paying an outside firm to help defeat a union organizing campaign. A recent analysis found employers pay about $340 million annually to outside firms for “union avoidance.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Unions on USMCA: ‘Working people made it better’

January 28, 2020 by

Minnesota’s fair-trade movement has kept the heat on members of Congress, and it paid off with improved labor provisions in the USMCA.

President Trump is expected to sign the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) into law at a White House ceremony Wednesday. While it’s sure to be a victory lap for the president, the nation’s top labor leader says much of the credit for getting the deal done should go to working people.

“Make no mistake, we demanded a trade deal that benefits workers and fought every single day to negotiate that deal; and now we have secured an agreement that working people can proudly support,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.

Senators voted Jan. 16 to approve the USMCA, but the agreement faced its toughest test earlier in the House, where labor-friendly Democrats won a majority in 2018 midterm elections.

After trade ambassadors for the U.S., Mexico and Canada signed the new pact in November 2018, the AFL-CIO and its allies in the fair-trade movement went to work, pushing lawmakers to demand significant improvements before signing off on the agreement.

The lobbying push, backed by phone calls and emails from thousands of union members across the country, resulted in the first U.S. trade agreement the AFL-CIO has endorsed since a 2001 deal with Jordan.

To improve on Trump’s initial effort, congressional Democrats added language making the USMCA’s labor standards more enforceable, including a rapid-response authority capable of investigating allegations of union-busting or other abuses firsthand.

Trumka called the final version of the USMCA “a vast improvement over both the original NAFTA and the flawed proposal brought forward in 2017.” The agreement also “eliminates special carve outs for corporations like the giveaway to Big Pharma in the administration’s initial proposal and loopholes designed to make it harder to prosecute labor violations,” he said.

While House Democrats managed to improve the USMCA, not all unions share Trumka’s enthusiasm.

In a letter to members of Congress, Machinists Union President Robert Martinez Jr. said the USMCA did not do enough to replace “the current trade template” that has bled the nation’s industrial sector of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“As we have repeatedly said, to win the support of the IAM, the USMCA must make fundamental changes to NAFTA in order to curtail the massive outsourcing of work in aerospace and other manufacturing sectors to Mexico,” Martinez wrote.

Doug Williams, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, called the USMCA “the best of bad choices” from a labor perspective.

The agreement already has prompted Mexico to begin raising its labor standards, and the USMCA provides stronger mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement of standards in all three countries. But those mechanisms won’t mean much, Williams said, unless officials have the will to use them.

“On paper it looks great,” the longtime trade activist and Communications Worker said. “But it’s complicated, it’s time-consuming, and the entire process relies on the good faith of whatever U.S. administration is in charge of enforcement at any given time. So that makes our presidential elections even more important.”

Labor standards fared better than environmental standards in the USMCA’s final version. Notoriously undemocratic trade tribunals – known as “investor state dispute settlement” systems – are mostly phased out of the agreement, except for those protecting energy companies from pollution laws. And opponents point out that in the USMCA’s 2,000-plus pages, not once does it mention climate change.

“There’s a well-documented record of corporations using NAFTA to dodge environmental standards in the U.S. by shipping out to Mexico,” Williams said. “That’s still going to be a problem.”

While the effectiveness the USMCA and its new labor standards can only be judged over time, the Trump administration’s push to rewrite U.S. trade policy marches on.

Agreements with the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines are in various stages of negotiations. The USMCA creates “a new standard” for any future agreement, Trumka said, thanks to the efforts of working people and their unions.

“President Trump may have opened this deal, but working people closed it,” Trumka added. “And for that, we should be very proud.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Union solidarity drives fight for $15 at MSP Airport

January 22, 2020 by

Ahmed Abdul Aziz, a member of Teamsters Local 120 who works for a rental-car agency, speaks before the Metropolitan Airports Commission in favor of a $15 minimum wage.

They may work different jobs or carry different union cards, but workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are fighting together to raise MSP’s minimum wage to $15.

And their solidarity is paying off.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which oversees operations at MSP Airport, is advancing an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage in three increments, reaching $15 per hour by July 1, 2022. That’s the same date ordinances in St. Paul and Minneapolis tick up to $15 for large employers.

At a final public hearing on the draft ordinance yesterday, commissioners listened to testimony from airport workers who stand to benefit, including members of the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters Local 120 and UNITE HERE Local 17.

Obang Okelo, a Local 17 member who works for airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs, told commissioners the raise would help him finally afford health insurance. For Michael Schofield, who works in an airport bookstore, the raise would mean more time to spend with his family.

“I work full time for Delaware North, but I have to have a second job because, like many, I have a family to support,” Schofield said, adding that he sees his co-workers at the bookstore clock out after an eight-hour shift, only to clock back in for work at another airport job. “They’re essentially working 16-hour days,” he said.

Obang Okelo tells commissioners raising the minimum wage would help him afford health insurance.

SEIU Local 26 member Glen Brown, a wheelchair attendant at MSP, said it’s not right that airport workers get poverty wages while corporations making money off the airport earn record profits. For most of the five years he’s worked at MSP, Brown told commissioners, his hourly pay has been under $11.

“I make this amount despite seeing the news stories about airlines making billions in profits,” Brown said. “I make this much despite seeing news stories about MSP Airport being one of the best in the country since 2016. I make this despite seeing airline CEO’s like Ed Bastian at Delta making $6,300 an hour.

“That just doesn’t sound fair to me.”

Several community supporters at the hearing agreed.

“It’s not right that we have a world-class airport … and depend on poverty wages in order to provide that service,” House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, a DFLer from Golden Valley, said.

Mary Sansom, a retired member of Machinists Local Lodge 1833, urged commissioners to put themselves in airport workers’ shoes.

“These are not easy jobs, and minimum wage is not sufficient,” said Sansom, who worked at MSP for 47 years. “And if anyone in this room believes that surviving on minimum wage is OK, then I challenge you to do it.”

Fortunately, the MAC appears to be taking workers’ concerns seriously.

Last August, the MAC unveiled an initial draft of the wage ordinance. It included language workers oppose, including a lower wage floor for tipped workers, known as the “tip penalty,” and exemptions for employers with collective bargaining agreements.

Misrak Anbese (R), an SEIU Local 26 member and longtime airport employee, appears before the MAC with Local 26 Presdident Iris Altamirano.

A month later, airport unions turned out hundreds of members and supporters to a public hearing on the proposal. Over 50 testified, and all spoke in support of a $15 minimum wage for all MSP workers, with no carve-outs or exemptions.

That’s exactly what they got just two weeks later, when the MAC revised its draft ordinance. Now, union organizers anticipate a vote in February or March.

Airport workers got more good news earlier this month, when the MAC released results from a survey of airport employers. Over 80% of those who responded anticipated the wage hike would not affect their ability to do business at MSP, and nearly 90% said the change would not impact the number of workers or total hours on their payrolls.

At the public hearing Tuesday, a handful of airport concessionaires disputed the survey results. They echoed now-familiar warnings about job cuts and business closings heard during debates over the minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul in recent years.

But Wade Luneberg, Local 17’s recording secretary, said airport employers will lose experienced workers to neighboring cities if their wages fail to keep pace. And the airport, which has been showered with awards for its efficiency and service in recent years, has an interest making sure that doesn’t happen.

“These workers are the first and last impression for the flying public, and literally care for the public,” Luneberg told commissioners. “They work in a secure environment that isn’t easy to get to – or into. They keep challenging schedules, balancing multiple jobs and family commitments. They’ve made a commitment to this facility, and they’ve made a life here at MSP.

“Airport workers deserve $15.”

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Labor trafficker’s victims speak out, pointing to need for reform

January 17, 2020 by

Ricardo Batres (Hennepin County photo)

Notorious wage broker Ricardo Batres, who pleaded guilty to felony charges of labor trafficking and insurance fraud in November, received a nine-month sentence in Hennepin County district court Wednesday.

The sentencing brought to a close the first labor trafficking case to emerge from Minnesota’s construction industry. But worker advocates, armed with the findings of an alarming new report, warn that unless the industry makes some fundamental changes, it’s unlikely to be the last.

Judge Lois Conroy did not stray from the terms of a plea agreement Batres reached with prosecutors last year, but the proceeding did give his victims an opportunity to put their stories on record.

“I fear those connected with Mr. Batres,” one of his former workers, identified by the initials “YIB,” said in a statement read by a victim’s advocate. “I am always fearful. I feel like everyone is my enemy. I did not anticipate this experience in Minnesota.”

“YIB” was one of four former employees who provided the court with statements. They said Batres made them work long hours to keep their housing, which the trafficker arranged, or to pay off debts, which the trafficker held.

Some said they were not paid in full for hours they worked. Others described working through the pain of jobsite injuries, often in unsafe conditions.

“Death was very close to us,” one victim said.

When a spinal injury sustained by victim “JZL” became too serious to work through, Batres instructed the worker to give false information to medical providers, so Batres could avoid liability. In his statement, “JZL” said his family “lived in constant fear” because Batres “threatened to kill us if I reported him to authorities.”

“He treats people worse than animals,” another victim said. “He does not have a conscience.”

Twin Cities construction workers joined the “March for Dignity and Respect,” sponsored by CTUL, in Minneapolis just over a year ago.

An industry in crisis

The testimony of Batres’ victims echoed findings of a new report by the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) Network, which warns of a “human rights crisis” on local non-union construction sites.

Released last month, “Building Dignity and Respect: The Case for Worker-driven Social Responsibility in the Twin Cities Construction Industry” draws from surveys of 76 metro-area residents who have worked a wide range of construction jobs.

CTUL, a Twin Cities worker center and human rights organization, conducted the surveys last winter, gathering information about wages, benefits, training, workplace safety and more.

Nearly half of workers reported being cheated out of wages they were owed. Many said their employers failed to tack overtime premiums onto their wage rates. Others said they were paid less than minimum wage, were forced to work through legally required breaks or had hours shaved off their time cards.

The report also calls into question safety protocols on local non-union sites. Nearly half of those surveyed said they had not received safety training before beginning work, and 44% reported not getting proper safety equipment from an employer.

Three in 10 workers surveyed said they had been hurt on the job at some point, and most workers who reported getting hurt said their employer failed to cover medical expenses or compensate them for lost wages.

Meanwhile, a third of workers surveyed said they wouldn’t voice their concerns about safety, wage theft or other abuses to supervisors for fear of retaliation, whether it be losing their job or being blacklisted, deported or kicked out of employer-provided housing.

Tip of the iceberg

While Batres’ conviction breaks new ground, advocacy groups like CTUL and local construction unions warn Batres is not the only bad actor in town. CTUL is currently investigating four other labor trafficking cases, with dozens of Twin Cities workers involved, according to the WSR Network report.

At Batres’ sentencing, the worker center submitted a community impact statement into the record, warning the non-union construction industry creates incentives for contractors like Batres to “cut costs on the backs of workers.”

“Large developers and finance behind those developers have learned that they can put downward pressure on contractors on their projects to build the projects as quickly and cheaply as possible,” the statement reads. “This has led to extreme fragmentation in the industry, with multiple layers of sub-contractors competing to offer the cheapest rates possible.

“The effect is that the one who gets the contract is the one who has figured out the most creative ways to skirt labor laws in order to put in a competitive bid.”

Moving forward

Fragmentation and transience may be facts of life for people working at the bottom of construction labor chain, but unsafe conditions, wage theft and abuse don’t have to be.

The report calls for a new, worker-driven model to hold Twin Cities developers and contractors accountable – and to stop traffickers like Batres before they get a toehold in the market.

The approach involves getting decision-makers at the top of the labor-contracting chain to enter a legally binding, standard-setting agreement with a human rights organization.

Similar structures have improved conditions for workers in other highly fractured contracting chains worldwide, CTUL Co-Director Merle Payne said. After years of organizing by tomato workers, corporate buyers and growers entered into a WSR structure – the Fair Food Standards Council – that monitors compliance with a set of unique standards in the Florida fields.

“This model will work effectively in a sector where the real power is so many tiers away from you as a worker,” Payne said. “It creates accountability through the entire structure by ensuring the people at the top are taking responsibility to ensure their profits are not made off of severe exploitation.”

Building dignity and respect

Workers organizing with CTUL already have launched a campaign to make the WSR model a reality.

They want large developers and general contractors in the Twin Cities to participate in the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council. The council, Payne said, would establish and monitor a code of conduct that participants would require their subcontractors to uphold at every strata of the labor chain.

Additionally, the council would educate workers about their rights and make it easy for workers to report any violations without fear of retaliation. Any employer found to have violated the code of conduct would face swift, meaningful consequences.

While Batres’ victims waited months for their day in court, in the Florida tomato fields, where workers now have access to a complaint hotline, most disputes are resolved in less than two weeks, according to the Fair Foods Standards Council.

“It really demonstrates the power of what this model can be,” Payne said. “When you have workers themselves empowered to enforce their standards, suddenly you have thousands of monitoring agents on the ground … making sure there are no violations in the first place.

“That’s deep enforcement, and that’s what this model builds. When that happens, in something like this case, Ricardo Batres does not exist.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday is Public Post Office Day in Minnesota

November 25, 2019 by

Postal employees rallied against privatization outside the Minneapolis post office on Tax Day last April, reminding the public that the USPS receives no tax dollars for operating expenses. Sale of postage, products and services entirely funds its operations.

Gov. Tim Walz issued a proclamation last week declaring Wednesday, Nov. 27, Public Post Office Day in the state of Minnesota.

The proclamation, signed by both the governor and Secretary of State Steve Simon, is a token of the state’s gratitude for the U.S. Postal Service and its employees as they brace for a busy holiday mailing season.

Aaron Young, president of Local 7019 of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), began lobbying Walz’s office for a Public Post Office Day in Minnesota after learning Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington signed a similar decree last year.

“I was very grateful to Gov. Walz that he did this for us,” Young said. “Hopefully, other states can follow our lead.”

Many post offices across the state are expected to print and display Walz’s proclamation Wednesday, Todd Elkerton, president of the APWU’s St. Paul-area local, said. He called it a well-timed gesture to postal workers and letter carriers.

“Our members work a lot of overtime, trying to deliver the packages and letters for Christmas,” he said. “So it’s great that we’re appreciating the workers that deliver the mail during the holiday season.”

But the proclamation also comes at a pivotal time for the agency.

Postmaster General Megan Brennan has announced plans to retire Jan. 31, 2020. Members of the Postal Service Board of Governors, who are appointed by the president, have begun the process of appointing Brennan’s successor.

The APWU and other postal unions fear President Trump will push the board to appoint someone who shares his hostility to the agency’s public mission.

Last year, Trump formed a task force on postal reform that recommended selling the USPS to corporations for private profit. Unions warn that would result in higher shipping and mailing costs, reduced service and the end of guaranteed delivery.

The U.S. Postal Service delivers 470 million pieces of mail each day to all 159 million addresses in the country. In contrast, private companies likely would deliver only to areas where they can turn a profit.

Trump’s privatization plan has stalled since its unveiling earlier this year, but union members, Young said, worry that could change if a privatizer replaces Brennan as postmaster general.

“A lot of people get depressed when they hear this constant push out of DC for privatization,” Young said. “It seems like it is inevitable, like we’re not going to be able to stop it.”

But the APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers and other postal unions aren’t giving up so easily. To keep the USPS public, unions are enlisting public support, gathering over 33,000 signatures (and counting) on a petition to “stop the postal sell-off” and ensure the new postmaster general doesn’t support privatization. (Add your name to the petition here.)

Unions are also lining up support in Congress and from elected officials like Walz.

“This proclamation, it gives people hope that we can stop the privatization push,” Young said. “It doesn’t have to be an inevitability.”

Filed Under: Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

To assess care crisis, Walz ‘walks a day’ in PCA’s shoes

November 22, 2019 by

Gov. Tim Walz applies deodorant to St. Paul resident Jay Spika, who has multiple sclerosis.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz walked in a home health care worker’s shoes today in St. Paul.

The governor helped 41-year-old Jay Spika, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis, bathe, dress and depart his St. Paul home. Walz worked alongside one of Spika’s home health aides, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota member Deb Howze.

The “walk-a-day” event offered Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who participated in a similar event in Minneapolis, a unique perspective on the state’s home health industry.

Federal and state subsidies allow thousands of Minnesota seniors and people with disabilities to stay in their homes, saving taxpayers the cost of providing institutional care.

But workers and clients warn of a labor shortage in their field, caused by low wages and lack of benefits. As the state’s population ages, they fear the crisis will only worsen.

As they worked together to get Spika’s socks and shoes on, Howze told Walz it’s difficult to retain good workers in such a demanding job at $13.25 per hour, the minimum wage in SEIU’s most recent union contract with the state.

“This job is exhausting,” she said. “We have so much turnover. I feel the pay is not enough. You should be able to get a PCA job and be able to live on it without working two extra jobs.”

Earlier this year, Walz and other lawmakers approved raising the minimum wage by 10.4% as part of a two-year union contract covering 25,000 home care workers statewide.

That’s “a starting point,” the governor acknowledged, to addressing the industry’s labor shortage. Walz noted the state has a backlog of thousands of qualified individuals and families who want a home care attendant but can’t get one.

“That means spouses leaving their work, giving up their careers to make sure the care is there,” he said.

Later in the event, Walz turned to Spika and asked what elected officials can do better from his standpoint.

“I think we need to invest in the PCA program,” he said. “It’s not a matter of if you’re going to need these services; it’s a matter of when… And you need a professional.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Trafficker’s plea deal reveals construction industry ‘in distress,’ advocates say

November 20, 2019 by

When a notorious wage broker pleaded guilty to two felony charges in Hennepin County this week, it was welcome news for unions and community groups working to rid Minnesota’s construction industry of labor abuses.

“We are grateful that the legal system is holding those who commit wage theft and illegal trafficking of construction workers seriously,” said Jessica Looman, the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council’s executive director, after Ricardo Batres pleaded guilty to labor trafficking and insurance fraud Monday.

The plea deal confirms that Batres recruited immigrant workers to fill jobs on Twin Cities construction sites, and he denied some their legally guaranteed rights on the job by exploiting their undocumented status.

Sentencing is not until January, but prosecutors will recommend Batres serve up to nine months in the county workhouse and five years of probation. He could also be barred from inclusion in future state or federal construction contracts.

The Building Trades Council, which represents the state’s unionized construction workforce, called Batres’ case the first big test of Minnesota’s labor trafficking and wage theft laws.

It’s unlikely to be the last.

In July, 14 Minnesota construction unions launched “Not On My Watch/Ya No Mas,” a campaign to heighten awareness of wage theft and labor trafficking and to assist exploited construction workers.

Dan McConnell, manager of the Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council, said Batres’ plea is an indication of the new initiative’s potential.

“The case against Ricardo Batres shows the strength of the construction community when we stand together against wage theft and labor trafficking,” he said. “It’s imperative that we protect the health of the construction community by continuing to call out bad actors who exploit our workers for their own gain.”

Unions are teaming up with community groups like Advocates for Human Rights and the local worker center CTUL to educate workers and identify abuses. CTUL organizers say they are currently investigating three other cases of labor trafficking and over a dozen cases of wage theft in the Twin Cities construction industry.

CTUL Co-Director Veronica Mendez Moore said the Batres case reflects “an industry in distress,” and added that the problem goes beyond labor brokers.

“Real estate developers and their financial backers are directly profiting from this kind of labor exploitation,” she said. “While some sectors of the construction industry are unionized and abide by human rights standards, there is a dark underbelly that does not.”

Minnesota’s new wage-theft law, among the toughest in the nation, will make it easier for officials to patrol that dark underbelly. Passed earlier this year, the law creates additional protections for workers and stiffens penalties for employers that commit wage theft.

Labor traffickers like Batres don’t just show up on construction projects, of course.

“This is a big problem in the industry,” said Burt Johnson, a spokesperson for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters. “Construction contractors and developers can no longer hide behind hiring a low-bid contractor when those bids are based on a criminally low price.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Voters back labor candidates, campaigns in local elections

November 12, 2019 by

Candidates carrying the unified labor endorsement performed well in local elections across the East Metro last week, and union members helped pass several school-funding measures as well.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, endorsed 25 candidates on the ballot in 2019, and 23 won their races. All six school levy and bond referendums endorsed by the federation won voter approval, including a record-breaking, $326 million facilities investment in the White Bear Lake school district.

“It was great to see our communities support investments in our schools – in both learning and infrastructure,” said Kera Peterson, the St. Paul RLF’s political director. “Our communities also voted to elect school board candidates who support public education and the schools our students deserve.”

In St. Paul, all six labor-endorsed candidates for City Council won in their respective wards.

Incumbent council members Amy Brendmoen, Mitra Jalali Nelson, Rebecca Noecker, Jane Prince and Chris Tolbert took a majority of first-choice votes, tallied by officials on election night.

Three days later, after the city’s ranked-choice-voting process played out, Nelsie Yang emerged the winner in Ward 6. A member of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild-CWA, Yang ran with the RLF’s endorsement.

Additionally, Council Member Dai Thao won reelection in Ward 1 with the support of several local unions. (The St. Paul RLF did not endorse a candidate in the race.)

All three unified labor-endorsed school board candidates in St. Paul won, as did Nicole Frethem, the labor-endorsed candidate in a special election for the District 1 seat on the Ramsey County Board.

Peterson said the election results confirm that most voters in east-metro communities share labor’s values, from fighting wage theft to lifting working families out of poverty.

“It’s exciting to know that union members helped re-elect the members of the St. Paul City Council who passed the city’s $15 municipal minimum wage and earned sick and safe time ordinances,” she said. “And it’s exciting to think about how we will work together to continue improving standards for workers in our community.”

Yang, meanwhile, was among several union members and retirees who won their campaigns for local office this year.

Tolbert, who won reelection in St. Paul’s third ward, is a member of Local 2938 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Allen, newly elected to the St. Paul school board, is a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators. And Angela Thompson, a member of Office and Professional Employees Local 12, won reelection to the White Bear Lake school board.

Three union retirees, all former members of Education Minnesota, also won seats on local school boards: Louise Hinz in South Washington County, Jackie Magnuson in Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan and Margaret Newmaster in White Bear Lake.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation unites more than 100 local unions in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago counties. Together, they represent over 50,000 working people.

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