The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
More than a year after sending proponents of fast track back to the drawing board, Congress is poised to consider a modified version of the trade measure this spring. But unions and their allies in the fair-trade movement say the “new” fast track bill amounts to little more than lipstick on a pig. Like previous […]
Fast food workers kicked off a Twin Cities-wide day of action for higher pay early this morning, going on strike for the third time in the last seven months. Although McDonald’s recently announced it would raise its minimum wage to $9 per hour, striking workers, organizing locally with the low-wage worker center CTUL, pledged to […]
Been targeted with a high-pressure sales pitch at your bank recently? You’re not alone, according to a report released earlier this month exposing a “new era of predatory lending” in the industry. But Wells Fargo employee Michael Lewis offered this plea to frustrated customers yesterday: “The average bank workers, they want to work with you,” […]
After hundreds marched together outside Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis yesterday, the picket line shifted to United Hospital in St. Paul today, as health care workers kept the pressure on Allina Health to get serious about contract negotiations with their union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Workers like Dave Young, a nursing assistant at United, want Allina […]
“Everyone in this room is an expert in public service,” AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide told nearly 1,000 members of the union during its Day on the Hill rally yesterday. “You’ve forgotten more than (politicians) will ever know.” After the rally, held at a downtown St. Paul hotel, union members bused to […]
Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell warned senators on the Health, Human Services and Housing Committee that the video footage he would show in their hearing yesterday, taken during a patient’s attack on nurses at St. John’s Hospital last year, was disturbing and violent. The footage showed a typical hospital workstation that, in an instant and […]
Minnesota’s largest labor federation today added its voice to the chorus of community, faith and progressive groups calling on Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson to drop criminal charges against 11 Black Lives Matter members arrested at the Mall of America in December. The Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents more than 1,000 local unions with 300,000 members […]
Activists picketed outside Target Corp.’s headquarters downtown Minneapolis yesterday, calling on CEO Brian Cornell to make raising wages for frontline workers a part of the company’s massive restructuring effort. Organizers of 15 Now, a grassroots movement working to raise the minimum wage in Minneapolis, looked to pressure Target into following the lead of its primary […]
Unions are joining a national day of action to stop fast track March 4, and two members of Congress from Minnesota got an earful as to why last week at a field hearing in Richfield. DFL Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan heard testimony from trade experts, union leaders, business owners and advocates for family […]
After another third-grade teacher at the Community School of Excellence in St. Paul “got fed up with some of the disrespect” and resigned last October, Eric Johnson saw the number of students in his classroom swell from 22 to 31. “The third-grade teachers, we agreed we’d absorb the kids,” Johnson said. “It’s better than the […]
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