Unions warn Trump-aligned ‘Project 2025’ puts target on workers’ rights

October 2, 2024 by

Bart Andersen, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, speaks during a rally against Project 2025.

Project 2025, the 920-page playbook for former President Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House, spells disaster for union members, Minnesota labor leaders and activists warned yesterday.

“Project 2025 is about one thing; it’s about dismantling the rights we’ve fought for, taking away our power and leaving us vulnerable,” AFSCME Council 65 Executive Director Shannon Douvier said during a rally outside the Capitol in St. Paul. “We cannot afford to let this happen.”

Written by a team of former Trump administration officials and funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 provides a sprawling but detailed blueprint for how a second Trump presidency would wield power.

Unions, labor standards and collective bargaining would be targets of that power, according to an analysis of the document by the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation.

The AFL-CIO highlighted several objectives that would undercut workers’ power at the bargaining table and stifle their voice in the workplace, including a complete ban on public employee unions like AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), Education Minnesota and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which organized the rally in St. Paul.

“The tools we use to keep our workplaces safe, our families healthy, our standard of living and … the equipment we need to get home at night to our families safe and sound are all at risk,” AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Bart Andersen said. “Our unions and our contracts bring us stability and peace of mind, and right now it’s all on the chopping block with Project 2025.”

The document calls on the Trump administration to defund federal services, eliminate agencies like the Department of Education and scrap civil service rules so that federal workers could be more easily replaced with MAGA loyalists.

Mechell Snider, a member of AFGE Local 899 who works as a TSA agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, said voters need to “stop Project 2025 in its tracks” to “protect an apolitical federal workforce” that is loyal to the Constitution, not to Trump.

“We need a federal workforce that has the right to unionize, to bargain in good faith and to show up to do a job safely, for the sole benefit of the American people,” Snider added.

Project 2025 takes aim at private-sector workers’ rights, too, calling for a ban on union organizing by card check, which speeds up organizing drives by allowing employers to recognize majority support for a union voluntarily, without a National Labor Relations Board election.

Project 2025 also supports allowing employers to push decertification campaigns at any time, making it easier to wiggle out of their obligations to workers in the middle of a contract.

Project 2025 also takes aim at union workers’ wages – Building Trades workers, in particular. It calls for a repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires construction companies to pay prevailing wages to workers on federally funded projects.

Additionally, the document calls on federal agencies to stop bargaining project labor agreements – so-called “PLAs,” which set the terms and conditions of employment for construction projects before bidding begins – with unions. That would open the federal bidding process to low-wage, low-road contractors.

Other provisions in Project 2025 would be bad for union and non-union workers alike, from eliminating overtime protections to allowing states to set their own minimum wage below the federal rate. Child labor laws, unemployment insurance programs, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration – Trump’s allies aim to weaken them all, according to Project 2025.

Education Minnesota Vice President Monica Byron, an elementary-school teacher, said Project 2025 is a game plan for making it harder for workers to get ahead and stacking the deck in favor of Wall Street and wealthy CEOs.

“We have a choice to make in this election,” Byron said. “We can support the freedom to come together in union and bargain for better lives and better schools, or we can choose the MAGA agenda of Project 2025 that would give greedy corporations even more control over our lives and decimate unions and public education.”

Learn more about Project 2025’s impact on workers at betterinaunion.org.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

AFSCME united for ‘substantive change’ in talks with U

October 18, 2021 by

AFSCME members rally at the U of M Twin Cities campus.

The maroon and gold that typically adorn the University of Minnesota’s campuses have been spiked with AFSCME green this fall, as frontline workers make a public push for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with the school.

Clerical, technical and health care workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have been in bargaining with the university since May. Their previous, two-year contracts expired June 30.

But the slow pace of negotiations has prompted unions to begin putting public pressure on the U to get serious about their demands.

AFSCME members staged rallies on the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses Sept. 22 and, two weeks later, marched on a Board of Regents meeting. Tomorrow, Oct. 19, workers will hold informational picketing from noon to 1 p.m. on the corner of Delaware St SE and Church St SE, near Boynton Health Services.

Union members say they will keep the heat on the university until its words of support for frontline workers translate into real gains at the bargaining table.

“The U is interested in image,” Local 3800 President Cherrene Horazuk said during a rally last month on the steps of Coffman Memorial Union. “U of M AFSCME is interested in substantive change. That’s why we’re here today.”

Demanding pay and respect

Wage raises and “essential pay” are among AFSCME locals’ top demands in bargaining.

All workers deserve wages that keep up with the rising cost of living, the unions say, and workers who kept the university running during the pandemic deserve “tangible appreciation for risking our lives,” said Deb Pavlica, the president of Local 3260 and a nurse at Boynton Health Services.

“The Board of Regents all stayed home safer. President Gable, management, leadership all stayed home safer,” Pavlica said. “But they sent us to the frontline for an extra $16 a day for less than three months…

“We want raises and compensation that acknowledge our sacrifices.”

Beyond higher pay, workers are pushing for contract language that would keep in place remote and flexible work schedules introduced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their demands also include a formal process for appealing management decisions related to remote work.

Diane Blumenfeld, a clerical worker in the university’s dentistry program, said all workers should have the right to “meaningful flexibility” in their work schedule. “During the last year and a half, we have proven that we do not need to be physically in the office to do our jobs well,” she said.

Other AFSCME members at the Sept. 22 rally demanded a more robust Regents Scholarship program for U of M employees. Sarah Vast, a transgender, nonbinary worker, called on the university to do more to make its workplaces “safe, healthy and just for workers of all identities, needs and abilities” and described having to “walk three buildings away to use a restroom that is safe and comfortable.”

Lei Simmons, a clerical worker at Masonic Cancer Research Center and member of Local 3800, demanded the contract reflect a commitment to racial and social justice that goes beyond “diversity training” and begins the work of addressing and eliminating bias.

“The University of Minnesota has a history of turning that blind eye. We have a history of managers rationalizing and justifying behaviors that demean people,” Simmons said. “Each person that is at the university as a student and as a worker has the right to be respected.”

Support and solidarity

University students and non-AFSCME staff joined the rally in support of the workers’ contract campaign. Members of other unions – including the Communications Workers (CWA), Service Employees (SEIU) and Education Minnesota – also showed their solidarity.

“We support the workers here fighting for what’s right,” CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson said. “No business as usual until there’s justice for the workers.”

Greg Namacher, president of SEIU Local 26, noted that U of M AFSCME members supported janitors when they went on strike in February 2020.

“It is critical that we stand with each other when we’re fighting for what’s right, especially in this moment,” he said. “It is also critical that we stand together to push the university to be an engine of economic and racial justice – and not an impediment to it.”

Filed Under: Organizing, 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.”

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Area Red Cross workers join AFSCME after first-of-its-kind union drive

November 14, 2016 by

Project1_Layout 1In his 16 years working as a phlebotomist for the American Red Cross, Roy Nodsle had seen union-organizing drives start and sputter before. But last summer, he finally saw one cross the finish line.

“I’ve never been union before, but the idea of a group of people having a voice to talk about our workplace always sounded like a good idea to me,” the 62-year-old Carlos resident said. “So I was excited and a little apprehensive, but compared to the other (organizing drives), it went really well.”

By a 3-to-1 margin, Nodsle and other North Central Region Red Cross workers voted in October to form a union, joining Local 3931 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The new bargaining unit includes nearly 300 phlebotomists, couriers, material coordinators and other frontline workers at Red Cross outposts in Minnesota, western Wisconsin and eastern South Dakota.

It’s the first successful organizing effort since AFSCME and seven other international unions reached a nationwide labor-peace agreement with Red Cross in 2013. The employer agreed to remain neutral during organizing campaigns, AFSCME Council 5 organizer Marybeth Juetten said.

“On our side of it, we weren’t running a negative campaign,” Juetten said. “We were really listening to the workers, and what we learned really quick was they really love what they do. They love their clients, love their work and want to keep this organization healthy and thriving.

“To do that, they need a voice in the workplace. And that’s what this drive was all about.”

Talks on a first contract have yet to begin, but Local 3931 has started pulling together a negotiating team. That’s no small challenge for a bargaining unit spread across three states, with members whose schedules change weekly.

“This group never sits still,” Juetten said. “They work all over the map, whenever and wherever blood mobiles are in demand.”

Nodsle said he hopes bargaining yields improvements in workers’ wages and benefits, as well as a pathway for “getting everybody” – management and frontline staff – “to work together toward the same cause.”

As for being the first major unit to organize under the nationwide neutrality agreement, Nodsle said it felt “pretty good.”

“But both parties – AFSCME International and American Red Cross – are working extremely hard at this, and it’s been amazing for me to watch,” Juetten said. “Both parties have taken a very professional approach.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

U of M workers: ‘Less than 1 percent won’t pay the rent’

September 29, 2015 by
Mary Austin, president of AFSCME Local 3937, reports on negotiations with the U of M during a rally outside Morrill Hall.

Mary Austin, president of AFSCME Local 3937, reports on negotiations with the U of M.

 

Unions representing about 4,000 workers in contract negotiations with the University of Minnesota took new momentum into a bargaining session today, after workers, students, faculty and other supporters rallied behind their fight for raises and respect.

“We’re only going to get what we’re organized to take,” Mick Kelly, a cook at Centennial Hall, said from the steps of Morrill Hall on the Twin Cities campus.

Workers are more organized than ever during this round of contract negotiations. Kelly’s union, Teamsters Local 320, planned the lunch-hour rally with four local AFSCME unions. Together, they represent clerical, technical, health care, facilities management, food service and other workers at U of M campuses across the state.

web.UofM-rally.crowdBut so far, talks with the university have made little progress. Unions report that management’s wage proposals amount to raises of less than 1 percent per year – “less than bus change,” Kelly said.

Workers’ top priorities also have met resistance, including equity in paid parental leave – administrators and faculty get six weeks, clerical workers two – and restoration of full funding for the Regents Scholarship, which supports tuition for workers’ dependents.

But what do workers mean by “respect”? Claire Thiele, a Teamster who works in the U’s veterinary lab, said it includes fair, honest sick-leave practices.

“My co-worker has two kids, she’s a single mother. Last winter they both got sick. They got her sick,” Thiele said. “She stayed home with them, and when she got back to work, she got written up by our bosses for using too much sick time.”

Frontline workers deserve better, students and faculty at the rally said, pledging their support for the contract campaign.

Grad studentCharmaine Chua: "Damn, my clerical workers are great! I am always learning from my clerical staff."

Grad studentCharmaine Chua: “Damn, my clerical workers are great! I am always learning from my clerical staff.”

Charmaine Chua, a graduate student at the Twin Cities campus, rolled off a long list of tasks – some in the job description, others not – that clerical workers in the political science department handle on daily basis. “You’re the invisible infrastructure that this university refuses to recognize,” Chua said.

“We know that the university wouldn’t run (without AFSCME and Teamsters workers), that it would shut down,” adjunct professor Michelle Lekas said. “(Administrators) need to know that too.”

AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide warned U of M President Eric Kaler against pleading poverty in negotiations.

“It’s not right to give a $300,000 raise to the coach of the football team,” Seide said. “It’s not right to give a big raise to the coach of the basketball team, which when I last looked hadn’t even made it into the tournament. We should take that, Mr. President, and apply it to these contracts.”

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

High court will hear case targeting public-sector unions

June 30, 2015 by

1024px-Supreme_Court_Front_DuskThe Supreme Court today announced it would hear arguments in a case challenging unions’ ability to collect fees from public-sector workers who choose not to join a union but, as members of the bargaining unit, enjoy equal access to benefits provided by the union contract.

Eliminating so-called “fair share fees,” ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court 37 years ago, is a top priority of the National Right to Work Committee and other right-wing legal groups that are bankrolling an assault on workers’ collective bargaining rights in the court system.

Unions pledged a vigorous defense of the fair-share structure, which empowers teachers and other public-sector employees to form strong unions for a collective voice on the job – while also ensuring no worker contributes to the union’s political activities without giving consent.

“It’s extremely frustrating that at a time when corporations and the super-rich have unprecedented power, the court would agree to take up a case that could further undercut working Americans,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said.

The case stems from California, where Orange County teacher Rebecca Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association for collecting fair share fees. The conservative, Washington-based Center for Individual Rights picked up Friedrichs’ legal fees and put the case on a fast track for the Supreme Court, arguing that forcing her to pay for union representation she doesn’t want amounts to “forced speech.”

The Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito, have signaled more than once that they are sympathetic to 1st Amendment arguments to overturn the 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which deemed fair share fees constitutional.

But union members like Kimberly Colbert, a teacher from St. Paul, warned overturning Abood would stifle workers’ speech – not support it – because public sector unions are required to represent all employees in a bargaining unit, regardless of whether or not they pay dues.

“When educators come together, we can speak with the district about class size, about adequate staffing, about the need for counselors, nurses, media specialists and librarians in schools. And we can advocate for better practices that serve our kids,” Colbert said. “With that collective voice, we can have conversations with the district that we probably wouldn’t be able to have otherwise – and do it while engaging our communities, our parents and our students.”

The court will hear arguments in Friedrich v. CTA during its upcoming term, which begins in October.

“While we hope that the court will not over turn their previous decision in Abood, an unfavorable ruling will not stop Minnesota’s labor movement from growing,” Knutson said. “Workers across our state and nation continue to stand up for their rights; we will continue to stand with them and their organizing efforts.”

Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, agreed.

“This will be a fiercely argued case and no one knows how it will be decided, or when, but I can promise one thing,” Specht said. “No matter what happens, the educators of Education Minnesota will continue to speak out for our schools, our students, our educators and the future of our state.”

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

With Fast Track vote looming, Minnesotans join ‘last-ditch effort’ to sway Wisconsin rep

June 10, 2015 by
Union members from Minnesota and Wisconsin stand together against Fast Track and the TPP outside Rep. Ron Kind's Eau Claire offices.

Union members from Minnesota and Wisconsin stand together against Fast Track and the TPP outside Rep. Ron Kind’s Eau Claire offices.

 

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – In a showing of cross-border solidarity, fair trade activists from Minnesota bolstered the ranks of local activists protesting today outside the offices of U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a lead proponent of legislation that would “fast track” more bad trade deals that threaten U.S. jobs.

Fast Track, or “trade promotion authority,” passed the Senate last month, and the bill could draw a vote in the House as early as tomorrow.

That means labor and environmental activists are in full campaign mode, urging lawmakers like Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, to reject the measure, which would limit Congress’ ability to influence trade agreements negotiated in secret, like the 1,000-plus page Trans-Pacific Partnership.

[Click here to tell your member of Congress to vote NO on Fast Track.]

“It covers 40 percent of the world’s GDP and 800 million people, and all we know about it has come through leaked documents,” said Bruce O’Brien of Altoona, Wis. “It’s a big deal, and it’s not just about trade. It’s about our sovereignty.”

Current proposals in the TPP would allow multinational corporations to challenge local ordinances governing food safety, setting wage and lending standards or establishing “buy-local” procurement policies – and to do so in extrajudicial trade tribunals.

web.RonKindFastTrack-marchingUnion members from Wisconsin said they’ve reached out to Kind with concerns that Fast Track would pave the way for more NAFTA-style, job-killing trade agreements.

“Labor standards, environmental rules – we can’t control those things in other countries,” AFSCME Local 1914 member Judy Gattin said. “American labor can’t compete with child labor.”

Don Stuttgen, a retired Communications Worker, said he’s urged Kind to “keep our businesses here in the U.S. Don’t give away all our jobs.”

But so far those concerns haven’t moved Kind out of the “yes” column on Fast Track. Today’s action, demonstrators said, is a reminder that they aren’t giving the congressman a pass.

“We’ve got to do things like this to make our voice heard, to hold him accountable,” O’Brien said.

A delegation of about 15 Minnesotans, including several members of the Communications Workers of America and activists from the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, traveled here today to support the Wisconsin action.

“I think it’s important for union members to stand in solidarity, even if it’s across state lines,” CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer said. “This is an international trade deal that will affect everybody.”

Meyer said Minnesota’s DFLers are solidly opposed to Fast Track, and activists were looking for ways to help out elsewhere.

“We’re taking a stand for all Americans, all working families,” she said. “It’s worth our last-ditch effort to see if we can help flip a yes to a no.”

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Unions backed comprehensive immigration reform bill 10 years ago … and still do

May 1, 2014 by
The Union Advocate ran this cartoon in May 1964, celebrating an agreement brokered by President Lyndon Johnson to end a four-and-a-half-year dispute between railroad companies and their unions. In an address to the nation, Johnson praised both sides, and called the agreement a victory for collective bargaining. “I tell you quite frankly there are few events that give me more faith in my country and more pride in the free, collective bargaining process,” he said.

The Union Advocate ran this cartoon in May 1964, celebrating an agreement brokered by President Lyndon Johnson to end a four-and-a-half-year dispute between railroad companies and their unions. In an address to the nation, Johnson praised both sides, and called the agreement a victory for collective bargaining. “I tell you quite frankly there are few events that give me more faith in my country and more pride in the free, collective bargaining process,” he said.

Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to provide a pathway to “legal residency” for an estimated 9 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. a decade ago. The measure drew support from unions, religious groups and immigrant organizations.

Ten years later, of course, the fight for immigration reform continues.

Unions 10 years ago made up a key part of the Alliance for Fair Federal Immigration Reform of Minnesota, and they announced their support for the “Safe, Orderly Legal Visas and Enforcement Act,” or SOLVE Act, which “focused on family reunification, earned legalization and reducing visa backlogs,” The Advocate reported.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

100 Years Ago: Call for public market in St. Paul

Farmers and consumers would benefit greatly from the establishment of a municipal marketplace in St. Paul – that was the conclusion reached in a report printed on Page 1 of The Advocate on May 29, 1914.

“Investigations in various places have shown that the cost of distributing food after it reaches the city is excessive and bears very heavily upon the consumer.”

Transportation costs – rail and shipping – were not to blame for high costs, the report determined. Rather, “the real problem is distributing the products after they reach the city. There are too many middlemen, and there is too much speculation and altogether too much waste.”

“Every large city should have a market municipally owned and operated, capable of handling train loads and equipped with adequate machinery for handling and cold storage facilities ample to care for any surplus of perishable goods. From this market produce could be sent directly to the retail stores or sold in retail market stalls directly to the consumer.

The report noted such markets were rare in the U.S., but pointed to successfully operated markets in European cities like Budapest, Brussels and London.

“We see the farmers everywhere organizing to get higher prices for their crops… The farmers are determined to take for themselves the profits that now go to the middlemen… If consumers would get their food for less cost they must organize for that purpose. Great terminal wholesale markets may furnish the machinery for serving the consumer, provided the consumer owns and operates those markets either by cooperation or municipal enterprise.”

75 Years Ago: Veterans sue governor over firings

Fifteen members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees who were war veterans sued the State of Minnesota after being discharged from state jobs without cause shortly after Gov. Harold Stassen’s inauguration in January 1939.

The union, according to a report in the May 11 edition of The Union Advocate, accused Stassen and members of his administration of “officially and personally maliciously” conspiring to remove the veterans from their positions with the Disabled War Veterans’ Relief Agency.

“On January 31, 1939, during office hours and without previous notice, moving men from the State Relief Agency came to the office where these men were employed and moved the desks, equipment, and records from under them,” The Advocate reported. “A number of the veterans, whose duties were outside of the office, came to work the next morning and found their desks, records and equipment were gone as well as their jobs.”

Other state employees were growing “panicky,” according to The Advocate, that their jobs might be lost to political patronage.

25 Years Ago: Union gives Brown & Bigelow a lift

A year after fighting off demands for major concessions, unions representing workers at Brown & Bigelow, the St. Paul printing company, announced they had helped the company bring in new equipment to increase its productivity, efficiency and bottom line.

Officers of Local 1-M of the Graphic Communications International Union called it a remarkable turn of events, considering Brown & Bigelow President William Smith, after acquiring the company a year earlier, had immediately demanded a 10 percent wage cut and told workers to “take it or leave it.”

The company, which employed about 625 people at the time, installed $60,000 worth of plate processing equipment with assistance from the union. The equipment, provided on a loan basis, included a conversion unit for developing printing plates and an oven for baking and hardening them.

“The state-of-the-art units are faster, more efficient and safer than previous methods,” The Advocate reported.

Local 1-M officer Kevin O’Keefe struck an optimistic tone. “We are anxious to turn this thing around so we can bargain wage gains,” he told The Advocate.

Filed Under: From the Archives Tagged With: , , , ,

School board to senators: Raise minimum wage to boost student achievement

March 14, 2014 by

1911839_261359094030624_201300809_nSchool board members weighed into the minimum-wage debate this week, when all seven members of St. Paul’s Board of Education signed a letter urging state senators to help close achievement gaps in their district by supporting a substantial wage hike this session.

Louise Seeba, a board member and AFSCME Local 3757 member, spearheaded efforts to put the school board on record in support of raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2015 and indexing it to keep up with inflation.

Click here to download a copy of the letter, provided by Seeba.

“We realize we are not legislators, but feel it is our charge to do whatever we can to help reduce learning gaps,” the letter reads.

Board members pointed lawmakers to several studies proving a link between families’ economic stability and their kids’ performance at school. Among them was a 2011 study by the Brookings Institution, which found gains of as little as $1,000 in annual income for low-income families resulted in significant improvements in their children’s reading and math scores.

Closing achievement gaps has long been a focus of teachers, board members and administrators in the St. Paul Public Schools, which typify the “large gaps” identified by Brookings “across groups of children defined by family income” when it comes to school readiness.

“As board members of the most diverse school district in the state and with over 25,000 students that qualify for free and reduced lunch, we feel compelled to address this vital issue,” board members said.

If lawmakers agree to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour, an estimated 20,000 workers in St. Paul would see a raise, according to an economic analysis by the JOBS NOW Coalition.

“We have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children,” board members said. “Please stand with us and support the increase in the minimum wage (indexed to inflation) to help stabilize families income and to improve learning readiness for students.”

[Click here to tell your representatives at the Capitol you support raising the minimum wage to $9.50 and indexing it to inflation.]

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

St. Paul unions urged public boycott of ‘Nazi-made’ goods 75 years ago

December 1, 2013 by
web.archives-cartoon

A cartoon from the Dec. 8, 1938 Advocate, entitled “Ajax defies the lightning,” reveals growing concerns about German aggression.

Three years before the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the U.S. into World War II, American union members declared economic war on Nazi Germany.

Unions in St. Paul scrambled in December 1938 to coordinate a local boycott of German goods after American Federation of Labor President William Green, speaking to a nationwide audience on CBS Radio, called upon union members to “intensify their militant action against the Nazi dictatorship until its victimization of the Jews is terminated.”

In fact, German goods had been on the AFL’s boycott list since 1933. The Union Advocate, in its Dec. 8, 1938 issue, noted one of Hitler’s first acts after the Nazis seized power was to arrest and imprison labor leaders.

But Green’s speech on CBS ramped up efforts to build support for the boycott among the general public, and labor leaders in St. Paul heeded the call.

The St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly named a committee to formulate plans and methods to make the boycott effective locally, The Advocate reported on Dec. 15.

“The action of the Assembly grew out of a resolution offered by Max Flushman calling attention to the vicious persecutions of Jews, Catholics, Masons and trade unions in Germany and seeking the co-operation of Labor in protesting the German atrocities.”

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

100 Years Ago: Streetcar company draws rebuke

Want to operate your streetcars on public streets? Then you’re going to have to respect your workers’ rights.

That’s the standard labor unions in St. Paul asked elected officials to uphold in dealings with Twin City Rapid Transit after hearing reports the company was denying its workers living wages, reasonable hours and the right to organize.

The Dec. 19, 1913 edition of The Union Advocate reported the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly passed a resolution putting the streetcar company in labor’s crosshairs.

“The cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have from time to time granted said corporation the use of their streets free of charge,” the resolution said. “Said company has, through its policy of preventing the organization of its employees, been able to pay the very cheapest wages, work its men long hours and grant them the poorest conditions.”

Unions called on lawmakers to refuse the company “any more favors or the use of any more streets” until the streetcar company ended its campaign to prevent workers from organizing for “such conditions as will enable them to better their condition and give their families greater opportunities for advancement and the enjoyment of a few of the good things of this world.”

50 Years Ago: Skill survey controversy

Chamber of Commerce groups on both sides of the Mississippi drew ridicule from organized labor in December 1963 for their refusal to endorse participation in a Twin Cities-wide employment-skills survey being conducted by the Minnesota Department of Employment Security.

The chambers argued participating in the survey might put businesses at risk of revealing sensitive information – an argument The Advocate called “unfounded” and “bordering on the preposterous” in a scathing Dec. 26 editorial.

“There are many special occupations in which the supply of workers is far short of meeting the demand,” The Advocate editorial argued. “And it is to find the answers to the questions of what skills are needed that the Twin Cities skill survey is being made.

“One Chamber of Commerce objection was that it opposed the study because it concentrated in the area of skilled and technical jobs, rather than unskilled jobs.

Has anyone heard of a great and growing demand for UNskilled workers? Does this objection by the Chamber make sense to you?”

10 Years Ago: ‘Do you hear what I hear?’

Walker Methodist Health Care Center was the Grinch, but members of Local 34 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees weren’t about to let management steal Christmas. They caroled outside the care center in December 2003 at the start of a five-year struggle waged by about 400 workers who voted for AFSCME recognition earlier that year. Workers finally won a contract in April 2008.

Pictured below are Local 34 members Cliff Robinson and Audrey Lennox, who, The Advocate reported, “were among those singing ‘Rudolph the Union Reindeer,’ ‘We Wish You a Union Christmas’ and other cleverly modified seasonal tunes.”

Cliff Robinson and Audrey Lennox sang "cleverly modified seasonal tunes” outside Walker Methodist in 2003.

Cliff Robinson and Audrey Lennox sang “cleverly modified seasonal tunes” outside Walker Methodist in 2003.

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