Minnesota gained 46,000 union members last year, reversing decade-long decline

Working people’s voice grew stronger last year in Minnesota, where organizing gains pushed union membership to its highest point since 2004.

Appeals court sides with home care workers’ union – again

Corey Van Denburgh, a PCA from Anoka, called the legal challenge a “tragic misuse of time and energy.”

Prominent activist to talk $15, #MeToo with tipped workers in St. Paul

Saru Jayaraman’s work reveals the tip penalty’s troubling impact on working conditions in the restaurant industry, especially regarding sexual harassment.

Teamsters to vote on U’s final contract offer [UPDATED]

Members of Teamsters Local 320 have voted to accept the U’s final offer, the union announced yesterday.

Teachers to large nonprofits: ‘We all have a stake’ in St. Paul schools

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 […]

Skyway march targets tax-dodging corporations

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 […]

Construction of St. Paul soccer stadium gets vertical

Union tradespeople hoisted the first beam of St. Paul’s new professional soccer stadium Nov. 21, after a ceremony that drew local officials, Minnesota United executives and club sponsors to the Midway construction site. General contractor Mortenson Construction broke ground on the 346,000-square-foot site in June. Since then, workers have completed most of the excavation and […]

Learning Jet classroom gets lift from Trades apprentices, volunteers

The Learning Jet has been wowing kids since the cargo plane-turned-classroom opened at St. Paul’s Downtown Airport two years ago. The facility’s portable restrooms, on the other hand, have drawn a much different reaction. That will change when the Learning Jet’s expanded space opens next spring, thanks in part to volunteers and apprentices from area […]

Teachers look beyond ‘cookie-cutter’ signs and banners with community art build

Teachers in St. Paul are throwing out the playbook in contract negotiations with the district this year. Banners, signs and posters in the union’s storage closet are on the way out, too. Educators, parents, students and community stakeholders will work together on new, artist-designed signs and banners this weekend at a “community art build” co-hosted […]

AFSCME Council 5’s founding director to step down – but keep fighting

Eliot Seide was even more fired up than usual when he sat down for a Thursday-morning interview at AFSCME Council 5’s South St. Paul offices last month. News had just broken that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear a case with the potential to weaken public-sector workers’ collective bargaining power, and it had Seide and […]