St. Paul’s union-endorsed candidates aim to build on city’s new labor standards

November 1, 2019 by

In November 2015, when St. Paul last held regular City Council elections, the city had no earned sick and safe time ordinance on the books, and hardly anyone at City Hall was talking about a $15 minimum wage.

What a difference four years make.

When voters in St. Paul go back to the polls Nov. 5, they will weigh in on an historic shift in the council’s agenda. Raising labor standards within the city limits, many council members said, is work that would not have gotten done without the partnership of local unions.

“It was definitely the catalyst,” said Ward 3’s Chris Tolbert, a lead author of both the sick leave ordinance and the $15 minimum wage. “My plan is to continue to partner with labor and look for ways we can enhance those protections, make sure there’s compliance across the board and continue to look for ways to have better working conditions for St. Paul workers.”

Tolbert is one of five labor-endorsed incumbents seeking reelection, along with Rebecca Noecker in Ward 2, Mitra Jalali Nelson in Ward 4, Amy Brendmoen in Ward 5 and Jane Prince in Ward 7. Nelsie Yang, a member of the Communications Workers of America, is the labor-endorsed candidate in Ward 6.

• Click here for a full list of labor endorsements in the Nov. 5 elections.

• Click here for information about voting, including your polling location.

In interviews with The Union Advocate, all six endorsed candidates voiced support for backing up the city’s new labor standards with education and enforcement. Nelson called it “the next step to protecting our hard-fought victories … so working families in St. Paul receive every dollar and day off they have earned.”

Already, workers have come forward with complaints they are not getting the sick leave mandated by the new ordinance. Prince said that’s something the city needs to fix soon – before the citywide minimum wage kicks into effect next year.

“The city hasn’t been in the business of enforcing labor laws before,” Prince said. “So now that we are, it’s really important that we be deliberate and intentional about it.”

“Our endorsed candidates have proven they’re serious about listening to working people,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said. “They’ve earned our support Nov. 5.”

Here’s more of what the endorsed candidates had to say in interviews with the Advocate:

• Amy Brendmoen, Ward 5

In the eight years Amy Brendmoen has served on the City Council, St. Paul has emerged as a leader in advancing policies that improve working families’ quality of life.

Now, she says, it’s time for the rest of the country to catch up.

“The $15 minimum wage and earned sick and safe time will be the best policies when they’re statewide and national policies,” Brendmoen said. “We need to take the momentum from the city level and help move that platform on a statewide basis.”

That won’t happen, she added, unless the city can show its new labor standards work. Brendmoen wants to see the city take steps to adequately educate the community about its new labor standards and, of course, enforce them.

After being elected council president last year, Brendmoen now chairs the city’s budget committee. That means she’ll play a critical role in securing funds for the city’s new office dedicated to implementing labor standards.

Brendmoen knows she’s likely to hear from her partners in the labor community along the way.

“They know that I’m accessible and approachable, so I feel like I get calls, texts, emails and in-person visits often,” she said. “It helps make sure we plan our policies right from the get-go.

“It seems like with lots of other advocates, the response comes after a policy is in place. But with labor it happens before, after and during.”

Mitra Jalali Nelson, Ward 4

Running in a special election to fill the Ward 4 seat last year, Mitra Jalali Nelson campaigned eagerly in support measures to address inequities that plague the city. She won decisively, just in time to cast a vote in favor of the $15 minimum wage.

But Nelson isn’t about to stop fighting.

“We have a lot of work to do to make sure that St. Paul is an equitable and safe place for working people to call home,” she said. “But we’ve made tremendous progress in just the one year alone that I’ve been in office.”

As someone who rents her home, Nelson has been a fierce advocate for measures that make housing more attainable and affordable in the city. It’s an essential part, she says, of making St. Paul a place that’s livable for working families.

Nelson is currently working to pass new protections for renters, and she helped secure a $10 million investment in the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. At the same time, she works to make sure city-backed development deals uphold community – and labor – standards.

“City development deals that receive public subsidy or other public benefit should always have to meet community benefits agreements that include strong hiring, labor, prevailing wage and contract standards for developers and workers involved with the project,” she said.

Rebecca Noecker, Ward 2

Rebecca Noecker isn’t running for school board, but she is putting public education at the forefront of her reelection campaign in Ward 2.

Noecker is leading the push for St. Paul 3k, a city-led effort to ensure all families have access to high-quality, affordable early childhood education. Noecker lists the initiative among her top priorities, along with affordable housing and supporting small businesses.

“I am deeply invested in creating opportunities for young people,” the former middle school science teacher said. “While the St. Paul School Board sets major policy for schools in the city, I believe the city has an important role to play in supporting children and families.”

Quality childcare and preschool are unaffordable for too many working families, preventing some parents from entering the workforce and leaving too many children unprepared for kindergarten. St. Paul 3K seeks to create more equitable access to early education by creating more options, simplifying the early-education system and joining forces with the county, school district and community.

It’s just one way the council member is putting kids first.

“I am also a strong voice on the council for the city’s Right Track youth-employment program, and have consistently supported increased funding for Parks and Recreation programs that are free to all kids in the city,” she said.

Jane Prince, Ward 7

After taking her seat on the City Council in 2016, Jane Prince posed a question to folks at City Hall, and she heard the same answer from pretty much everyone she asked.

There’s no way St. Paul will ever open a new city-staffed rec center again.

Three years later, Prince proved the doubters wrong, as she secured funding to reopen Highwood Hills, a rec center closed in 2008 when the city faced a deep budget shortfall. Prince and Mayor Melvin Carter cut the ribbon on Highwood Hills last April. And yes, the facility is staffed by AFSCME-represented city employees.

It’s a victory for families in Ward 7 and an example, Prince said, of what the city can accomplish by partnering with organized labor.

“Many of the best initiatives in our city come from our union brothers and sisters,” Prince said. “The workers know what’s best, so when things aren’t going right, there’s no one better to turn to than our employees.”

The rec center isn’t the only example Prince cites.

When the mayor floated the idea of eliminating fines and fees to make the city’s libraries more accessible, AFSCME backed it. And the city’s approach to snow plowing vastly improved last year after Public Works sought input from workers and their unions.

“Complaints went way down,” she said, “and I really feel confident that it was listening to our employees that made all the difference.”

Chris Tolbert, Ward 3

Chris Tolbert doesn’t take the labor endorsement lightly, and he’s proved it over the last eight years representing Ward 3.

He was the lead author of ordinances to raise the citywide minimum wage and guarantee earned sick and safe time to all workers. And Tolbert championed a measure to extend paid parental leave to all city employees.

A big reason why Tolbert supports labor’s issues? He’s a dues-paying member of a union himself.

Tolbert works as a lawyer in the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, and he is a member of Local 2938 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“I’m grateful for all that labor has done to improve the lives of workers not just in St. Paul, but across the state and across the country,” Tolbert said. “And I continue to appreciate the confidence unions have in me. It’s been an honor.”

While the council’s work to raise standards for people in low-wage jobs has drawn much attention, Tolbert is also working to attract good jobs to the city. He co-founded Full Stack, a public-private partnership focused on attracting, retaining and growing innovative jobs and businesses, last year.

“We have to continue to make sure not only do we have living-wage jobs, but we’re continuing to create more living-wage jobs,” he said, “so more people can support their families and be able to live in a city like St. Paul.”

Nelsie Yang, Ward 6

The culturally diverse East Side neighborhoods in St. Paul’s Ward 6 include some of the city’s highest levels of concentrated poverty.

It’s a very different city than the one Nelsie Yang sees in other neighborhoods.

“When I drive to more affluent, predominantly white areas, these places look drastically different from the East Side,” Yang said.

Now, the community organizer and daughter of Hmong refugees is running for City Council to make sure the people who live in her neighborhood get their fair share –“because we are not getting that on the East Side of St. Paul right now,” she said.

Yang wants to see the East Side get more infrastructure investments, like roads, transit, bike lanes and walkways. She wants the East Side’s rec centers to stay open longer and support children whose parents work multiple jobs. She wants the city to strengthen renters’ rights and mandate that developers doing business in the city commit to a minimum amount of affordable housing.

And Yang, a steward in the Minnesota Newspaper Guild-CWA’s bargaining unit at TakeAction Minnesota, wants to partner with unions to get those things done.

“Having the people power of labor unions and people working alongside each other, that’s how we will build toward a progressive future for all of us,” she said. “People are so ready to get invested and activated.”

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Labor gets behind school bonds, levies in East Metro

October 25, 2019 by

Organized labor is boosting efforts to fund new investments in several East Metro public school districts, including a record-breaking building referendum in the White Bear Lake Area Schools.

Levy and bond referendums empower communities to invest in their schools’ programming, facilities and technology – investments that always pay off in the long run, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said.

“Great schools are the bedrock of every strong community,” Kasper said. “They educate our future workforce and attract good employers to our area.

“That’s why, as a labor movement, we usually support operating levy and bond referendums as down payments on our economic future.”

The St. Paul RLF, which unites local unions from Ramsey, Chisago, Dakota and Washington counties, has endorsed levy requests on the Nov. 5 ballot in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage, Lakeville, Mounds View and Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan districts, as well as a separate bond request in Lakeville.

But the referendum in White Bear Lake is the biggest of the bunch.

District leaders have pitched a $326 million package of technological, facility and safety improvements that would touch every building and program in the school system.

It’s the largest school bond referendum ever to appear on a ballot in Minnesota, and it comes after months of strategic planning, which brought together residents with and without children, business owners, teachers and other district staff.

Even if it passes, property owners in the White Bear district would still be paying less toward school debt, about $275 per year, than their counterparts in neighboring districts, who average about $317 per year. And taxpayers who file for the state’s property tax refund would see their burden cut by as much as 80 percent.

Meanwhile, the building referendum provides an opportunity to address issues that have been bubbling to the surface within the community for over a decade, like concerns about school safety and changing technology, as well as an expanding student population.

Tiffany Dittrich, president of the White Bear Lake Teachers Association, said the district anticipates an influx of up to 2,000 students over the next 10 years.

“We’re currently at capacity,” Dittrich said. “So it’s critically important that we have additional classroom space to be able to support those students.”

The building referendum also would fund construction of a unified high school in the district, which currently splits students between north and south campuses. Dittrich, in her 23rd year as a language arts teacher at White Bear, said a single-site high school is “something the community has wanted for a long time.”

With improvements proposed at every school site, and a brand new elementary school in Hugo, the White Bear bond would create hundreds of construction jobs. It would also strengthen and support existing jobs in the district, which maintains 11 different collective bargaining agreements with local unions.

Dittrich said she isn’t taking anything for granted, but she remains hopeful the referendum will pass Nov. 5.

“In my experience, the residents of the White Bear community support their schools,” she said. “That support has contributed to an environment that empowers me to support students and allow them to thrive educationally.”

 

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Bill to stop wage theft advances in Minnesota House

February 6, 2019 by

Supporters of House File 6, a bill to crack down on wage theft, staged a press conference at the Capitol.

A labor-backed bill to protect Minnesota workers from wage theft advanced out of its first committee hearing at the Capitol today. The bipartisan measure would crack down on employers that don’t pay workers what they are owed – and create an even playing field for employers that do.

“Those good employers are getting burned by these criminals – and that’s what they are,” said Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL-St. Paul), the bill’s lead author and a member of Pipefitters Local 455.

Working people nationwide lose billions of dollars to wage theft each year. They include an estimated 39,000 workers in Minnesota, according to an estimate from the state’s Department of Labor and Industry.

CTUL, a worker center based in the Twin Cities, has helped workers recover over $2 million in lost wages in recent years.

Wage theft can take a number of different forms. Employers who fail to comply with minimum- or prevailing-wage laws commit wage theft, as do employers who don’t pay overtime.

Sometimes, wage theft is obvious, as it was when Lakeville Motor Express abruptly shuttered its Roseville terminal in November 2016, claiming it had no money to pay 95 members of Teamsters Local 120 for their prior two weeks of work.

The same thing happened in 2014 to Robin Pikala, a personal care assistant from Fridley and member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. She was among 800 workers who lost a combined $1.4 million when Crystal Care, one of the largest in-home service provider in Minnesota, filed for bankruptcy – after stringing employees along without pay for 45 days.

“Wage theft is real, and it’s hurting too many families in our state,” Pikala said at a press conference staged in advance of today’s committee hearing by the Minnesota Coalition to End Wage Theft, which includes several of the state’s largest unions.

Other workers who spoke at the press conference described how wage theft can be embedded within an industry’s culture, or built into a complicated web of workplace relationships, like construction workers misclassified “independent contractors” to circumvent wage and benefit standards.

“In the restaurant world, wage theft isn’t the exception,” Kevin Osborn, a line cook in Minneapolis, said. “It’s the norm.”

Osborn said it’s “standard procedure” for cooks to set up their workstations before punching in and continue cleaning them after punching out. Sometimes employers will move hours around between pay periods to avoid paying overtime, he said; other times they don’t bother paying at all.

And if a worker complains? “We don’t call it retaliation,” Osborn said. “We call it getting your hours cut.”

New penalties for employers who retaliate against employees, commit wage theft or deny workers access to their payroll information are among the provisions of Mahoney’s bill, House File 6. In addition, the bipartisan measure would require uniform payroll record keeping, and empower the Department of Labor and Industry to subpoena those records if a worker brings forth a wage-theft claim.

Mahoney has 34 co-authors on House File 6, although there is currently no companion bill in the Senate.

House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, who attended the press conference, said addressing wage theft was a top priority in the DFL caucus. Winkler said he is confident the measure would pass the House, potentially as part of a larger “omnibus jobs bill.”

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Home care workers push Walz to address ‘crisis of care’ with higher wages

January 25, 2019 by

Home care workers and their clients plan to rally at the Capitol Thursday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m.

Home care workers in Minnesota are fighting for a $15 wage floor in ongoing contract negotiations with the state, and fighting alongside them are the clients and families they serve.

The connection is obvious to Lauren Thompson, a Minnesotan with cerebral palsy, who receives in-home care thanks to state and federal subsidies.

“Think about how you’d want to be cared for and the people you want taking care of you,” Thompson said. “A minimum wage of at least $15 an hour would start to create a stronger workforce. It would mean that good PCAs would be able to keep working.”

Thompson is part of a unique team bargaining on behalf of nearly 30,000 home care workers statewide. It not only includes members of the workers’ union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, but also the seniors, people with disabilities and families who rely on personal care to remain in their homes.

The united front reflects growing concern over a shortage of home care workers – there are currently 8,000 unfilled positions statewide, according to the union – at a time when the state’s population is aging.

The nonprofit research initiative Minnesota Compass projects the number of Minnesotans 65 and older will exceed those ages 5 to 17 for the first time ever “around 2020,” and nearly a third of people 65 and older have a disability.

The confluence of workforce and demographic trends amounts to a crisis, home care workers and clients warn. And addressing it starts with raising wages in the industry.

That’s the message they will deliver to lawmakers during a rally planned next Thursday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m. in the Capitol. [Click here to RSVP on Facebook.]

“We have a huge shortage of care workers in south central Minnesota where I live,” said Dalene Annen, a home care worker from Winnebago. “If we can win at least a $15 minimum wage in our new contract, it will give good people an incentive to be home care workers instead of choosing to work at the grocery store or fast food because they pay more.”

Annen and other workers hope one lawmaker, in particular, is paying attention next Thursday.

On the campaign trail, Gov. Tim Walz backed a $15 minimum wage for all workers. His administration’s contract negotiations with home care workers offer an early opportunity to back up talk with action.

In addition, home care workers say getting to $15 now would ensure their pay remains in step with rising minimum-wage rates in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where thousands of them work.

The current wage floor for home care workers in Minnesota is $12, and it’s risen steadily since workers formed a union with SEIU in 2014. The union also has won paid time off, holiday pay and increased training opportunities since organizing.

Yet in spite of those gains, too many Minnesotans still are not getting the care they need to stay in their homes. Patsy Gibson, a home care worker from Bloomington, hopes this is the year things change. 

“We are losing valuable people in such an important profession,” Gibson said. “I really hope our government is aware of what is happening… When we say we can only afford to pay poverty wages it means people’s lives are at stake. We need our governor and elected officials to help us get to a decent living wage.”

SEIU anticipates reaching a tentative agreement with the state’s Department of Management and Budget on a new two-year contract in the coming weeks, so that it can be included in Walz’s first two-year budget proposal, expected early next month.

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Smith pledges to fight for federal workers as shutdown hits home

January 11, 2019 by

TSA agent Celia Hahn speaks at a press conference inside MSP Airport with Sen. Tina Smith.

The political staredown in Washington is maddening. Its human toll grows more heartbreaking each day.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith stood at a podium in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport today holding a letter from Joseph, an air traffic controller from Lakeville. He sent the senator a photo of his newborn son, born 10 weeks early on the 10th day of the federal government shutdown.

Joseph told Smith there is just one Twin Cities hospital that provides care to babies born so early, and it’s not in his current insurance network. Because the government is shut down, Joseph can’t switch plans. He can’t apply for paid family leave, either.

“I take solace in what matters most,” Joseph wrote. “Oliver is getting a little stronger and a little closer to home every day.”

The government appears no closer to reopening, however.

Today 800,000 federal employees missed their first paycheck since the shutdown began. President Trump marked the occasion by holding firm to his position – one he has said he’s willing to maintain for months – that the government won’t reopen unless he gets $5 billion in funding for a wall along the nation’s border with Mexico.

Smith, who met with impacted federal workers at the airport today, called on Senate Republicans to stand up to Trump and put people before the president’s political stunts.

The Republican-controlled Senate unanimously passed a short-term funding package last month to keep the government open. But Trump refused to sign it, opting instead to leverage a government shutdown for his unpopular wall.

“We should not be using the people standing behind me as bargaining chips,” Smith says.

Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell knows a veto-proof majority of senators supported keeping the government open without funding for the wall, but so far he has refused to stand up to Trump.

“All that has to happen is for Mitch McConnell to bring those bills forward,” Smith said. “This shutdown could end as soon as tomorrow if we could come together and appreciate that we should not be using the people standing behind me as bargaining chips.”

The people behind Smith were a handful of the estimated 5,470 federal employees in Minnesota either furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown.

Some are tightening their belts, tapping their savings or taking out loans to cover daily costs until they get paid again. Workers at the federal prison in Rochester have opened a food bank to support each other during the shutdown, corrections officer William Axford said.

“The things that would normally be inconveniences, like car repairs or maintenance, become back-breakers,” Axford, an officer in American Federation of Government Employees Local 3947, added.

Other federal workers are looking for new jobs. Celia Hahn, a TSA agent with 16 years of experience at MSP Airport, said her agency already faces a shortage of workers. In fact, management has announced plans to hold a hiring fair later this month.

Letter and photo received by Smith from a Lakeville air traffic controller hit hard by the shutdown.

Working long hours, short-staffed, for no pay takes a toll on workplace morale – and public safety, Hahn added.

“It’s definitely not going to make travel more secure the long this goes on,”the president of AFGE Local 899 said. “And that’s not because of people not doing their jobs. It’s because of people just not being here.”

TSA agents and corrections officers are on the low end of the federal pay scales. Hahn said TSA agents’ wages start at around $17 per hour. Sandstone prison guard Mike Weber said new hires make less than $20 in his shop.

Smith has signed onto a bill that would make sure another group of low-paid workers impacted by the shutdown – contractor employees – are made whole with back pay when the impasse ends, something that has not generally happened, according to the senator.

President Trump has said he can “relate” to federal workers and contractor employees going without pay, suggesting they are able to “make adjustments.”

But those adjustments come at a price for many, including Weber and his wife, who also works at the central-Minnesota correctional facility. Weber, president of AFGE Local 683, said they are one of nine couples on the payroll.

“Savings don’t last very long when neither one of us is getting an income,” he said. “We can’t tell our 4-year-old we can’t afford mac-and-cheese; we’ve got to keep putting gas in our car to go to work. So I think we’re going to have to look at taking out loans, and that costs anywhere from 5 to 10 percent interest.

“I think we’re going to have to start planning for the next shutdown when this one ends. That’s pretty sad.”

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Working people plan big push for paid family leave next year

December 17, 2018 by

Miguel Lindgren, a state employee and member of MAPE, describe how valuable paid family leave – which state employees won in contract negotiations two years ago – in the process of adopting a child from Colombia last September.

Supporters of paid family and medical leave launched a lobbying push at the Capitol today, calling on state lawmakers to pass legislation next year expanding the benefit to all Minnesota workers.

“It’s simple, it’s popular and it’s the right thing to do,” Pastor Corinne Freedman Ellis of Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul said during a press conference at the Capitol, surrounded by fellow clergy, working people, retirees and business owners.

Ellis is a leader in the faith-based advocacy group ISAIAH, one of 25 local organizations leading the Minnesotans for Paid Family Leave campaign. Eight unions are on board, and the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, is a campaign co-chair.

The groups propose creating a statewide insurance pool that would cover the cost of replacement wages for workers who take time off for the birth or adoption of a child, or to be with an ailing family member. Workers would be eligible for up to 12 weeks of leave, with benefits ranging from 55 to 80 percent of their typical wages.

To build up the insurance pool, employees and employers would make mandatory contributions, similar to payroll deductions for health insurance or workers’ compensation. The median worker would pay an estimated $1.75 per week into the fund.

Similar policies are on the books in eight states, and two powerful lawmakers in Minnesota – Lt. Gov.-elect Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Melissa Hortman, the next Speaker of the House – have expressed support for making Minnesota the ninth.

The policy enjoys support among voters, too. A recent Pew poll found 84 percent of Americans back paid family and medical leave, but only 14 percent of U.S. employees have access to the benefit.

Jason Rathe, who owns a landscaping business in Minneapolis with over 20 employees, called the coalition’s proposal a win-win for working people and business owners.

“I really believe paid family leave is important to businesses because it creates a level playing field,” Rathe said. “It allows our employees and ourselves to do the things that are important.”

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

Two years after Thanksgiving shock, Teamsters aren’t letting FLE off the hook

November 1, 2018 by

Teamsters who lost their jobs when Lakeville Motor Express abruptly closed shop two years ago raise their hand at a picket-line rally.

Nearly two years after Lakeville Motor Express abruptly closed shop, 90 members of Teamsters Local 120 are still fighting for the wages, vacation pay and other benefits the Roseville-based trucking company owes them.

To show they aren’t giving up, former LME employees rallied Tuesday with fellow union members and supportive politicians on a picket line outside the Finish Line Express terminal in New Brighton.

“We’re out here every single day, Monday through Friday,” Local 120 President Tom Erickson said from the picket line. “We’re not going away.”

Finish Line, Local 120 officers claim, absorbed LME’s business after the company shuttered without warning Nov. 20, 2016 – three days before Thanksgiving – and refused to pay union members for the previous two weeks of work.

Finish Line and LME have ties that predate LME’s closing, including executives who worked for both companies. Local 120 alleges those executives gradually shifted work from LME to Finish Line until LME’s payroll dipped below 100 – the legal threshold at which companies must provide 60 days’ notice of plant closings under the WARN Act.

The bosses’ objective, Local 120 alleges, was to shed the Teamsters contract and escape all ties with the severely underfunded Central States Pension Fund, a liability of $90 million, according to the company’s bankruptcy filings.

“It was a company that was profitable, and they did this for one reason: to make more money,” Erickson said. “FLE is LME. Everybody here knows that.”

Julie Blaha, former Secretary-Treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO and labor-endorsed candidate for state auditor, tells Teamsters Blaha remembers walking the FLE picket line two years ago as “one of the first picket lines I got to be on.”
Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson spoke at a rally against wage theft at Finish Line Express in 2018.
Teamsters and their supporters outside Finish LIne Express.
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the labor-endorsed candidate for attorney general, tells Teamsters he’s running for a new job because “the best any member of Congress can do is write the right law… An attorney general can take their ass to court.”

Now, LME and Finish Line face legal challenges on a number of fronts: from the pension fund, from the National Labor Relations Board and from the state Department of Labor and Industry, which last year levied an $87,000 civil penalty against the firms.

A hearing on NLRB charges of unfair labor practices was postponed Monday after the employer expressed interest in negotiating a settlement. The two sides have since entered mediation, but it’s not the first time management has expressed interest in settling.

“They’ve asked what we want,” Erickson said. “What we want is these jobs restored. These should be good Teamster jobs.”

All 90 workers locked out of Lakeville Motor Express two years ago have since found other work or retired. But as the rally yesterday made clear, none has forgotten the debt LME still owes.

Local 120 invites supporters to join picketing any weekday between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., at 50 14th St. NW, New Brighton.

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Labor-endorsed Craig fighting to make sure everyone gets a ‘fair shot’

October 30, 2018 by

Angie Craig, the labor-endorsed candidate in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, speaks at a rally with labor volunteers in South St. Paul.

Angie Craig learned the value of a union early in life.

Craig was 9 years old when her mother became the sole provider for Angie and her two siblings. To help them make ends meet, Craig’s grandmother gave up retirement, moved into the mobile-home court where Craig’s family lived, and went back to work.

Angie’s grandmother was 50 at the time. The job she found was in a unionized shoe factory. She was able to keep that job as she grew older, Angie believes, because of the protections of her union contract.

“I can remember on two occasions that her union rep went in with her and talked to management, and it saved her job,” Craig said. “I grew up with a very distinct feeling that a union had helped my family survive.”

Now, as Craig makes her second bid for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd District, unions have her back again. She has earned the endorsement of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, as someone who will stick up for working people and protect their freedom to join together.

UA: What can Congress do to get more people into union jobs?

AC: What businesses tell me they are lacking are people with career skills and technical skills. I want to see us rethink vocational-technical education in this country, and that would include these first-class apprenticeship programs that labor unions and their employers have developed. I’d like to make sure that young people understand these apprenticeship programs are available to everyone.

The other thing that I think the Congress should do – and this is what really differentiates me from my opponent massively – is I think we should amend Taft-Hartley to make right-to-work laws illegal in this country.

UA: Income inequality is already at historic levels, and it’s only rising, thanks to the $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, which your opponent, Jason Lewis, backed. If you could go back do things differently, what would you do?

AC: I want to go back and do what we should have done in the first place, and that is focus on giving the middle class and working Americans a tax break. We’ve given over a trillion dollars away to large corporations – and at the same time we didn’t close tax loopholes that allow them to send jobs overseas. And now they’re talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security to pay for it.

UA: When it comes to health care, President Trump and Congressional Republicans, including your opponent, seem interested only in creating chaos and uncertainty for families seeking coverage. What approach would you take to health care policy?

AC: The first thing we need to do is to take on big drug companies and take on these health insurance companies. If we really wanted to control costs, we would be negotiating drug prices with Medicare. We would offer more competition into the marketplace, and we’d give consumers another choice by allowing them to choose to buy into a program like Medicare and compete with the large health insurance companies. But instead of taking on any of these special interests, the Republican-controlled Congress and the President have continued to just chip away at the current health care law for political purposes…

UA: Women voters appear to be especially energized this year. How can Congress make sure women who speak up about harassment, including at work, are heard?

AC: As the head of human resources for a Minnesota manufacturer, my team and I carried out investigations of harassment in the work place. In order for this moment to last, it’s important to strike the right balance between due process – including full, fair, and thorough investigations for the accused – with equal protection for everyone. Labor has led the way forward on forging the workplace protections Americans enjoy today, and I will work with our union brothers and sisters to continue strengthening them for everyone.

UA: It’s your second run in a district that hasn’t elected a DFLer in nearly two decades. What gives you hope this year is different? What keeps you in this fight?

AC: At the end of the day, I grew up in a family that had to work our ass off to get ahead, and that’s what I want to go fight for – to make sure that if you’re willing to work hard in this country, this country is fair to you and you have a fair shot to get ahead. That’s going to be my focus as a member of Congress. I grew up in a mobile home court, worked two jobs to put myself through school. I’ve got four boys, three of them are out of the house, two in college, one in trade school. I’m going to be fighting so that no matter how much money you were born into, you get a fair shot.

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

Enthusiasm high among labor volunteers as Election Day nears

October 29, 2018 by

Labor 2018 volunteers pack UFCW Local 1189’s union hall in South St. Paul for a rally before knocking doors in the East Metro.

With the finish line in sight, national union leaders and labor-endorsed candidates fired up union volunteers Saturday in South St. Paul, urging them to keep working to turn out labor voters for the midterm election Nov. 6.

“We’ve got 10 days until the day that will determine the direction of our nation,” AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride told over 150 people ready to knock doors in St. Paul and nearby suburbs. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

McBride was one of two national labor leaders who traveled to Minnesota for the weekend campaign push. Political strategists are closely watching congressional races here that could be pivotal in determining control of Congress for the next two years.

“The reason we came in from Washington, D.C. is because all eyes are on Minnesota right now,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler, the nation’s second highest ranking labor leader, said.

Keith Ellison, the labor-endorsed candidate for attorney general in Minnesota, gets backing from AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler.
St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper fired up volunteers during a Labor 2018 door knock in October.
A volunteer captures remarks by labor-endorsed lieutenant governor candidate Peggy Flanagan on video.
Angie Craig, the labor-endorsed candidate in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, speaks at a rally with labor volunteers in South St. Paul.
AFSCME volunteer Sheila Pokorny lets out a cheer.

 

Several candidates running with labor support in key races joined the rally.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is running to keep the seat she’s held since being appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton to replace Al Franken. Smith thanked union volunteers for getting more voters to the polls.

“We have a job to do in this democracy, and that is to participate,” she said.

Angie Craig is running “to make Jason Lewis a one-term congressman,” she said, in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. Craig lost the third-closest U.S. House race in the country two years ago. She scored a standing ovation from volunteers when she said Congress should amend federal labor law to make right to work illegal.

“If you want to make America great again, you make unions great again in this country,” she said.

Both Smith and Craig are getting a boost from the Labor 2018 campaign, which has union volunteers reaching out to working Minnesotans at their front doors, on their phones and on social media. Since August, volunteers with the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation – just one of six regional labor bodies in the state – have attempted over 80,000 direct contacts with union members, retirees or their family members.

Labor 2018 is the most ambitious political push the state’s unions have ever attempted, and it’s tapping into enthusiasm among union activists, women voters and others who have had Nov. 6, 2018, circled on their calendars since Trump took office.

The Labor 2018 campaign’s top priority is electing Tim Walz governor. Walz’s running mate, state Rep. Peggy Flanagan, attended the rally, hosted by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189.

“Let’s be the wave for Walz,” McBride urged volunteers. “Let’s be the workers’ wave, the women’s wave.”

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

To stop cycle of cuts, St. Paul educators back levy referendum

October 25, 2018 by

spps-levy-logoJust months after emerging from a fractious round of contract negotiations, St. Paul educators, board members and administrators are pulling in the same direction this fall, urging voters to approve an operating levy worth an additional $18.6 million in annual school funding for the district.

The new funds would help the St. Paul Public Schools address revenue shortfalls that have forced over $50 million in programming, staff and other budget cuts over the last three years. This school year, the district shaved an additional $17.2 million from its budget.

A number of factors outside the district’s control have contributed to the budget woes, but the biggest factor, district leaders say, is the state government’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t kept pace with rising education costs. Mandated special education services, for example, cost the district $42 million more annually than the funding it receives to provide those services.

With so much uncertainty, SPPS Superintendent Joe Gothard said the levy increase would provide the district with greater budget stability, freeing schools and educators to focus less on where to cut and more on the students they serve.

“We have great work happening every day in our schools, but it is a challenge to sustain our efforts,” Gothard said. “We see this levy as a investment in making sure St. Paul continues to be a great place to live, work and learn.”

Members of the St. Paul educators’ union began mobilizing in support of the levy as the new school year began, pursuing an ambitious plan to knock the door of every educator living in the district. Beth Swanberg, a music teacher at Highland Park Middle School, said her conversations at the doors have been positive.

“People in St. Paul are supportive of public schools,” Swanberg said. “There is a history of quality education here, and people have told me they want to continue that.”

A game of ‘what if?’

Indeed, the stakes are high for students, parents and educators. Long gone are the days when districts like St. Paul went to voters with levy requests to fund the extras that might enrich their schools’ programming.

“Now we’re trying to do a levy referendum to make up for the cuts that have come down from our state Legislature,” union president Nick Faber said.

Last month the North Star Policy Institute unveiled a new report, “Minnesota Backslide,” that charts the decline in state funding to local school districts. Researchers found 93 percent of school districts statewide are receiving less aid today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than in 2003, when state lawmakers overhauled the school funding system. In half of districts statewide, state funding has dropped by more than 10 percent.

The state’s failure to keep school funding steady has forced most school districts to seek property-tax levies to bridge the gap.

St. Paul is no exception. If state funding had kept up with inflation over the past 15 years, SPPS would have received nearly $620 more per student this year. That’s a total of $21.6 million in lost funds – a number that leaves a lot of educators wondering “what if?”

“If we could actually start to recoup the funding that we’ve lost over the last 20 years and have that referendum on top of it, imagine the things that we could do,” Faber said. “With the knowledge that our educators have here in St. Paul, with their willingness to tackle racial equity head on, we could accomplish so much with that kind of funding.”

“I often wonder what I would request for my students if we had more funds, and it’s hard to even imagine because I’m so used to not having any extras,” Highland Park Middle School teacher Leah VanDassor said. “It’s been so many years of cuts, cuts, cuts at every level.”

VanDassor, Swanberg and other St. Paul educators aren’t just talking with voters about the levy. They are also trying to paint the bigger picture, urging support for labor-endorsed candidates at the top of the ballot who will reinvest in public schools. That includes Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor.

But VanDassor acknowledged “any fundamental change will not be fast,” and the immediate needs of her students are great.

Trusting the voters

The levy campaign has broad support from the community. The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation has endorsed it, and so has St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who called SPPS the “lifeblood” of his community.

Only a year removed from campaigning citywide for the mayor’s office, Carter said he has faith people living in the school district will join him in voting “yes.” The investment, Carter added, goes hand in hand with his administration’s work to realign city programming to meet the needs of St. Paul’s changing population – and include more voices.

“We’re not just going to say we can do more for our children,” he said. “We’re actually going to do more for our children.

“I’m confident the city will step forward.”

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