St. Paul’s minimum wage will increase July 1. Here’s how one local restaurant is adapting

May 3, 2021 by

Kyatchi restaurant in St. Paul’s Lowertown district has embraced the city’s new minimum-wage ordinance.

By Alicia Thoj, guest columnist

As I settled into a comfortable spot in Kyatchi’s dining room, I remembered all the previous times I had been to this restaurant to enjoy the ramen and hot dog with yakisoba noodles. It was a nostalgic feeling because it had been a couple of years since I had gone inside and ordered from the menu.

Before I placed my order, I met with Kyatchi manager Trevor Garcia to hear about the benefits of him receiving a livable wage while working in the restaurant industry and why he loves working at Kyatchi.

“I fell in love with the Kyatchi culture because it is very different from other bars and restaurants,” Garcia said. “I take pride in the food and service. We have time to teach people about our menu and give them an experience.”

Not only is the customer service great, but even on a slow night the staff is guaranteed pay. That’s because Kyatchi owner Sam Peterson decided years ago, when the City of Minneapolis began discussions about increasing the citywide minimum wage, to sit down and look at his numbers. He knew he would make it work and came up with a dollar amount to increase revenue for the Kyatchi Minneapolis location. He started paying the staff $15.00 per hour at that time and had zero pushback from the staff or his customers.

“As a business owner I can make this (minimum-wage increase) work,” Peterson said of his response at the time. “This can be done. You can have a successful business and pay your people well and still make a profit.”

The profit increase was the reason Kyatchi was able to open its St. Paul location four years ago, creating opportunities for more customers to be able to enjoy their food.

As I pondered Peterson’s words, I thought of the many businesses that have been in a bind during the pandemic and have survived, barely survived or are now shut down. The City of St. Paul’s first annual minimum-wage increase is around the corner on July 1, 2021, and I acknowledge the challenges and difficulties this can create for employers within the city.

Yet I also think about how families have fared during this time, how we are all in this together and how no one has been exempted from COVID-19. Employers need to earn a profit, and employees need to earn livable wages to sustain their families.

How did Kyatchi rise to the challenge when they reopened for indoor dining? Kyatchi’s owner decided to increase food prices by 19% and added a no-tipping policy for indoor dining, so the restaurant could maintain its ability to pay employees a livable wage.

The new approach “prevents a high employee-turnover rate and gives them passion for the job,” Garcia said. “It also decreases anxiety because a steady paycheck really helps people to live their lives and have money management.”

You can review the hourly minimum wage increase on the City of St. Paul’s website, which displays the four business sizes: Macro, Large, Small, and Micro. The Minimum Wage Ordinance rolled out in early 2020, and will bring the first wage increase this July. The wage increases will continue over the next three to seven years, depending on the business size, in order to reach the full $15.00 per hour.

The Minimum Wage Ordinance also includes youth employees, 14-17 years of age, who must be paid not less than eighty-five percent of the city minimum wage for small employers, and after more than ninety days after the date of hire, employees should be paid the applicable city minimum wage.

– Alicia Thoj is a labor standards investigator with the City of Saint Paul’s Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity department. 

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events 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.”

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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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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Fight for $15’s next target: MSP Airport

November 26, 2018 by

MSP Airport workers and supporters march for $15 on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Emboldened by minimum wage victories in St. Paul and Minneapolis, workers seeking a raise at MSP Airport used the busiest travel day of the year to inject new energy into their fight for $15 and union rights.

The rally outside Terminal 1 last Wednesday brought together the people who make MSP work: unionized janitors, servers, cooks, cart drivers, bag runners and other frontline staff. They marched outside the ticketing area, carrying signs and joining chants calling on the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) to raise the minimum wage to $15 for all airport workers.

Glen Brown, a wheelchair assistant and member of Service Employees International Union Local 26, earns just $10.65 per hour working for airline contractor G2. At the rally, the St. Paul resident recalled watching his city council and mayor pass a minimum wage ordinance earlier this month – and resolving to fight for the same at MSP.

“We deserve the same pay and respect as workers in cities that border the airport,” Brown said, noting that U.S. airlines raked in $15.5 billion in profits last year – profits that “our work helped make possible.”

“There are thousands of us making around what I make, while Delta CEO Ed Bastian makes $6,300 per hour,” Brown added. “A $15 wage floor at MSP would mean stability and security for so many families.”

 

Although workers like Brown are pushing the MAC to follow Minneapolis and St. Paul on the path to $15, it was initially Minneapolis and St. Paul that followed the MAC’s lead in setting higher labor standards than the state requires.

In June 2015, airport commissioners approved a measure raising the minimum wage to $10 for most workers at MSP, which does not fall under the legal jurisdiction of either Minneapolis or St. Paul. That raise came on the heels of a measure passed in December 2014 requiring airport employers to offer earned sick and safe time benefits.

But historic $15 minimum wage ordinances on the books in neighboring St. Paul and Minneapolis are poised to erode airport workers’ minimum-wage advantage. That could lead to under-staffing, workers at the rally warned.

Advocates say nearly 3,000 workers would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15 at the airport, a boost of close to $13 million into the Twin Cities economy for the people and families who need it most.

Feben Ghilagaber, a UNITE HERE Local 17 member who has worked in food service at MSP for 13 years, said she supports a $15 minimum wage because one job at the airport should be enough for workers to support themselves.

“When I see my co-workers working 16-hour days, I always wonder who’s watching their families?” Ghilagaber said. “Who’s raising their kids?”

Other unions that supported the rally included Teamsters Local 120 and the Machinists, which is supporting Delta Air Lines ramp workers organizing for a voice on the job at MSP and airports around the U.S.

“Delta Workers helped to start the movement for $15 here at the airport four years ago,” ramp worker Marty Knaeble said. “We will be there at the finish.”

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Kip Hedges: Labor has a big stake in St. Paul’s fight for $15

August 1, 2018 by

Former Delta baggage handler Kip Hedges was fired for speaking up in favor of $15 for all workers.

There’s no question, the labor movement is under severe attack. The Janus decision is only the latest example of damage inflicted on workers by the billionaire class of the United States and their political allies.

How can we rebuild? How can we, as a union movement, be relevant to millions of workers who know little of unions? Because of nearly four decades of defeats, retreats and attacks on labor, many of these workers have never been in a union and don’t have family members or friends who have been in unions.

The fight for a $15 minimum wage must be part of any fightback strategy. Why? First, because using 15 as part of a union organizing strategy can pay real dividends. At MSP airport the demand for $15 was a key part of the Service Employees International Union’s ability to bring 700 aircraft cleaners and cart drivers into the union. Like many positions that had once been career jobs, outsourcing had turned these into minimum-wage jobs. When SEIU Local 26 became a champion of $15 for all airport workers, aircraft cleaners started to pay real attention to the union.

Another string of impressive organizing victories came when United Food and Commercial Workers Local 653 used the demand for $15 to win union representation for hundreds of grocery workers at Minneapolis food co-op stores.

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), a Twin Cities worker center, has been at the forefront of the Fight for 15. It has effectively organized to bring hundreds of mostly immigrant workers into the labor movement. This is, in no small part, because workers saw CTUL fighting alongside them for higher wages and dignity even before they were in a union.

The second reason why 15 must be part of rebuilding the union movement is because we must break out of our isolation. The labor movement was at its strongest when we took on fights that benefited the entire working class, like the 8-hour day, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, social security and an end to child labor. By leading these fights, unions brought many unorganized workers into the labor movement.

Too often we have moved away from the philosophy of solidarity, the idea of social movement unionism. Instead of fighting for Medicare for All, the fight becomes for better health insurance for just our members. Instead of fighting for real increases in Social Security, we fight just for our pensions or an increase in company contributions to our 401(k).

We know from years of experience how this ends up. Our employers are able to isolate us from other workers and then pick us off. If the working class as a whole is drowning, it’s only a matter of time before the rising waves wash union workers away as well, no matter how skilled we are or how secure we feel.

If we are able to attract and become relevant to young workers, workers of color, immigrant workers and workers on the low end of the pay scale, then unions actually have a bright future. The fight for 15 is a key part of that future.

Here in St. Paul we expect that the City Council will be voting on an ordinance to raise the minimum wage by late November. We still face a fight over carve-outs like a lower minimum wage for tipped workers (often called a tip penalty), an expanded youth training wage and a lower minimum wage for personal care attendants and other workers. We are demanding One Fair Wage for all St. Paul workers, no carve-outs or exemptions.

Unions and union retirees have been at the center of the Fight for 15 in St. Paul. Union members always show up strong at 15 rallies and turn out for public listening sessions. There will be another opportunity to have an impact on Saturday, Aug. 4, during the next minimum wage listening session sponsored by the city. It’s scheduled from 9 to 11:15 a.m. at the Metropolitan State University Student Center, 690 East Seventh Street.

Please come to support One Fair Wage of $15 for St. Paul!

– A former baggage handler fired by Delta for his support of 15 for all airport workers, Hedges remains active in local organizing campaigns, including the 15 Now campaign and the union drive at Delta Air Lines.

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Women workers take on MN restaurant lobby over tip penalty

June 28, 2018 by

St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman joins a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul.

Women workers delivered a message to the state’s powerful restaurant lobby yesterday that an attack on tipped workers’ wages is an attack on women.

Tipped workers joined union members and other supporters in a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul, where the women staged a rally and delivered a letter demanding the organization end its campaign to carve out a subminimum “tipped wage” in St. Paul.

“I want to keep one fair wage in my industry,” St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman told other activists at the rally. “I want the MRA out of the way, and to stop putting profits over people.”

Mayor Melvin Carter, who made a $15 citywide minimum wage the centerpiece of his 2017 election campaign, wants an ordinance on the books by the end of the year. Among the biggest questions he and City Council members face in drafting the ordinance is whether to include a tipped wage.

MRA is lobbying hard for a carve-out, as the organization does any time elected officials consider raising the minimum wage. (The MRA also supports a statewide law stripping cities like St. Paul of the power to raise labor standards in their communities.)

Minnesota is one of seven states without a “tip penalty,” which allows restaurants and bars to pay workers a lower wage as long as they make up the difference in tips. Not only is the arrangement highly susceptible to wage theft, but it also puts servers and bartenders – 70 percent of whom are women – at a greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment and abusive behavior.

Zuckerman, who has five years of experience in the industry, said she’s been hit on by customers and harassed by managers.

“Skewed power dynamics,” she said, are a big part of restaurant culture. The more reliant workers are on tips, the less likely they are to push back.

“Men who are already feel entitled treat female workers even worse knowing that they hold so much over us, as the minimum wage now is not enough and we need tips to survive,” she said. “The Minnesota Restaurant Association knows that making us rely on tips means workers are disempowered, and they just don’t care.”

A restaurant owner from Seattle, where the minimum wage is on track to reach $15, also spoke at the rally. Shirley Henderson urged St. Paul servers not to buy into the MRA’s warnings that service jobs will disappear or customers will stop tipping if servers’ wages increase.

“In Seattle, groups like the MRA use the same fear-mongering about $15,” Henderson said. “The sky is not falling in Seattle. Small business is thriving.”

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