In negotiations on first contract, North Star Steel dropped anchor

August 1, 2013 by

North Star Steel approached “a new level of absurdity” in an attempt to avoid negotiating a first contract with 30 clerical and sales employees at its Newport facility, The Advocate reported in August 1988.

The workers had voted a year earlier to join the United Steelworkers, but management refused to bargain with the union. After the National Labor Relations Board ruled the company must sit down and negotiate with workers, the company announced plans to appeal the decision.

The Advocate projected the appeal would delay the collective-bargaining process by at least six months, calling it “an example of how the system can be used to stifle the rights of the people it is supposed to protect.”

Steelworkers organizer Mike Denardo put it this way: “They’re delaying us to death.

“With the money they’ve spent on fighting these few workers they could have given them a good first contract with good wages and benefits,” he added.

Unfortunately, the delay tactic lives on among anti-union employers. Look no further than HealthEast, which has been dragging out negotiations with nurses in its Home Care division since they voted to join the Minnesota Nurses Association three years ago. (See story on Page 7.)

North Star Steel dragged its feet into 1990, when the Steelworkers announced plans to target North Star’s parent company, Cargill, with a publicity campaign.

[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.]

Demonstrators targeted Walker Methodist in August 2003.

Demonstrators targeted Walker Methodist in August 2003.

10 Years Ago: Rally for justice at Walker Methodist

Speaking of employers notorious for stalling… In August 2003, more than 400 people marched down South Bryant Avenue in Minneapolis to a rally outside Walker Methodist Health Center, which dragged out contract negotiations with about 340 AFSCME members for nearly five years.

Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the national AFL-CIO, attended the rally. “If you’re not going to live up to the principles of the Methodist Church, why are you using the Methodist name?” she asked.

It was the beginning of a long contract struggle – one workers finally won in April 2008.

50 Years Ago: Labor leaders, Twins players team to lift spirits in children’s hospitals

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Delegates to the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly joined Twins players in cheering up patients at two Twin Cities children’s hospitals in August 1963. Together, they distributed Twins souvenirs and “Miss Union Maid” dolls (dress, decorated with union labels, included!). From left: Assembly President Charles Rafferty (left) and Secretary-Treasurer E.D. McKinnon at Gillette State Hospital; Margaret Kelly of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers at the Shriners Hospital; and Mrs. Tobey Lapakko, chair of the assembly’s Human Rights Committee, at Gillette Hospital with Twins third baseman Rich Rollins, who “was as big an attraction as the gifts,” The Advocate quipped. “Rollins was still able to hold a bat after developing writer’s cramp autographing each of the Twins yearbooks handed out.”

75 Years Ago: Minimum wage faces legal challenge

A law establishing a minimum wage for working women, passed by the 1938 Minnesota Legislature, drew a swift legal challenge from owners of two businesses, a laundry in Detroit Lakes and a café in New Ulm, who claimed the law “would in effect bankrupt them,” The Union Advocate reported.

The plaintiffs filed suit in federal court, and a three-judge panel heard arguments in August 1938.

A number of “interveners,” including the Western Union Telegraph Company, joined the suit. According to The Advocate, these companies were eager to test the validity of the minimum-wage law, which established a sliding wage scale for women workers ranging from $11 per week in rural areas to $15 per week in cities.

The plaintiffs’ suit alleged the state’s industrial commission, in enforcing a minimum wage, “unlawfully, wrongfully, illegally and arbitrarily . . . deprived the plaintiffs … of their property without due process of law,” and in doing so violated the 14th Amendment.

The Minnesota State Federation of Labor said it would intervene to help uphold the minimum-wage law. Presumably, the federation took issue with the argument that laundry and café workers be considered “property” of their employers.

The justices deferred their decision, but the lawsuit was later withdrawn.

100 Years Ago: Plumbers love a parade

As has become customary in recent years, the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation will sponsor a marching unit in the daily parade through the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on Labor Day this year.

The event draws hundreds of union members from a wide range of RLF affiliate unions, from teachers and nurses to public employees and members of the Building Trades, all marching together behind Labor’s banner.

It’s a family-friendly, positive event, and – as an added perk – it comes with a free ticket to the State Fair for anyone who marches.

One hundred years ago there were no such enticements for union members in St. Paul’s Labor Day parade. In fact, it was less carrot and much more stick.

According to the Aug. 29, 1913, edition of The Advocate, Plumbers Local 34 was so “dead earnest in its determination to make its part of the Labor Day parade a great success” that it threatened members who failed to participate with financial penalty.

“Every member who fails to appear in the line without a reason that is satisfactory to the union will have to pay a fine of $5.”

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

AFSCME, MAPE reach tentative contract agreements with state

July 1, 2013 by

AFSCMECouncil5Workers in Minnesota’s largest public-employee bargaining unit reached a tentative agreement Friday on a new two-year contract that includes annual raises of 3 percent and requires workers to cover more of their health care costs, the union said in a statement released today.

The tentative agreement covers 17,000 craft, service, health care, clerical and technical workers represented by Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The agreement does not cover correctional officers and radio communications operators, who are covered by separate AFSCME contracts.

UPDATED: The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees announced its 12,000 members who work for the state have secured a similar tentative agreement. According to an announcement on MAPE’s website, state employees will bear 5 percent of the cost of single health insurance premiums starting Jan. 1, 2015.

“Bargaining involves give and take between labor and management,” Jo Pels, chief negotiator for Council 5, said in a statement. “The employer didn’t get everything it wanted – and the union didn’t get everything we wanted. This is a fair agreement for hardworking state employees and the citizens of Minnesota.  Our negotiating team unanimously recommends support.”

Further details of the tentative agreement will not be made public, the union said, until union members have an opportunity to review the information.

Council 5 members’ current contract expired Sunday. Union members will vote on the 2013-15 contract within the next six weeks.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , ,

Unions: Dayton’s State of the State provides roadmap to a better Minnesota

February 7, 2013 by

capitolMinnesota Gov. Mark Dayton’s State of the State address last night drew glowing praise from the state’s union leaders, who applauded the DFL governor for his honesty, vision and commitment to middle class families.

“In his address, Gov. Dayton rolled out a strong, reasonable path to a better Minnesota, a brighter future for our state,” said Jim Monroe, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, which represents more than 12,000 state workers. “Minnesotans finally have a governor who is willing to take the bold steps needed to achieve tax fairness, invest in education and strengthen the middle class in this state.”

Addressing a joint session of the House and Senate, Dayton reiterated his support for a balanced budget that mixes spending cuts with strategic investments in education, infrastructure and vital services to bridge a projected $1.1 billion shortfall over the next biennium – and pay back the $1.1 billion borrowed from public school districts to balance the current budget.

Dayton also called on legislators to pass a tax reform bill that restores fairness and balance to the system, while protecting the middle class. He pointed to a recent analysis by the think tank Minnesota 2020 showing “middle-class Minnesotans pay 26 percent more state and local taxes per dollar of income than do the top one percent of our state’s income earners.”

“Making taxes fairer requires asking more of those citizens and corporations who now pay less than their proportionate share,” Dayton said. “Today, more and more hard-working, middle-class Minnesotans believe that the state’s tax structure is unfair to them. And they’re right.”

Shar Knutson, president of the 300,000-member Minnesota AFL-CIO, called Dayton’s honest approach to solving the projected budget shortfall refreshing, particularly after “a decade of billions in cuts to education, health care and vital state services, tax giveaways to big corporations and the rich, and budget gimmicks” at the Capitol.

Eliot Seide, executive director of the 43,000-member AFSCME Council 5, said Dayton is “honest about what he wants to buy with his budget, and he’s courageous about how he wants to pay for it.

“No more kicking the deficit down the road,” Seide added. “No more gimmicks and games that pass the buck to future generations.”

The question now is whether legislators will follow the governor’s lead. The answer likely won’t come until after the state releases its next economic forecast Feb. 28.

“Legislators have important choices to make that will impact all Minnesotans,” Knutson said. “Gov. Dayton has provided them a roadmap that leads to a better Minnesota.”

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

The economic debate hasn’t changed much in 25 years

January 14, 2013 by
A cartoon from the Jan. 27, 1938, Union Advocate presents a familiar problem.

A cartoon from the Jan. 27, 1938, Union Advocate presents a familiar problem.

Business owners say Minnesota’s economic climate is poor, urging lower tax rates and steep cuts to government spending. Union leaders say Minnesota owes its high quality of life to public investments in education and infrastructure that are a catalyst for economic growth.

That’s the debate likely to take place when state lawmakers return to the Capitol next month, and it sounds an awful lot like the “Great Debate” that took place between business leaders and labor leaders in a public forum 25 years ago in St. Paul.

As it turns out, the arguments weren’t all that fresh 25 years ago either, according to the Feb. 1 edition of The Union Advocate: “For the most part the comments were familiar, as both business and labor summarized their positions. The clearest conflict emerged over the questions of workers’ compensation and whether the state has a poor business climate.”

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

Sponsored by the St. Paul Labor Speakers Club, the Jan. 25, 1987, debate drew four participants, two from labor and two from business, including Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President Win Borden.

Businesses will flee Minnesota as the national economy recovers, Borden said, unless the state cuts spending for government services, reduces corporate property taxes and cuts the cost for unemployment and workers’ compensation.

“The tragic fact is some states will be left behind because some states are not as creative as they should be in creating new jobs,” Borden said. “Unfortunately Minnesota is one of those states.”

Eliot Seide, then the area director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, wasn’t buying what Borden was selling. He “chided the business lobbyists for failing to acknowledge what Minnesota gets for its tax dollars – excellent education, a good transportation system and a great quality of life – all factors that attract business,” The Advocate reported.

Seide even seemed a little disappointed to be repeating the same old, tired debate still echoing in the House and Senate chambers today.

“I came here hoping to hear something different,” he acknowledged.

Tom Majeski (left), a reporter for the Pioneer Press, distributed fliers outside the Xcel Energy Center Jan. 14, 2003. About 50 members of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, took part in the action to protest cuts sought by management during bargaining.

Tom Majeski (left), a reporter for the Pioneer Press, distributed fliers outside the Xcel Energy Center Jan. 14, 2003. About 50 members of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, took part in the action to protest cuts sought by management during bargaining.

10 Years Ago: Proposed wage freeze drew cold reception from PiPress workers

More than 50 Pioneer Press employees, members of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild Typographical Union, froze their tails off outside a Minnesota Wild game to protest management’s attempt to freeze workers’ wages for three years, The Advocate reported in its Jan. 23, 2003, edition.

Union members at the Pioneer Press, who had been working without a contract since July 2002, distributed handbills to Wild fans heading into the arena. The sheets featured team rosters on one side and bargaining information on the other.

In addition to the wage freeze, Knight-Ridder, which owned the newspaper at the time, sought to “raise the employees’ share of family health-care costs by 50 percent, freeze pension contributions, and extract other concessions, even though the paper is profitable,” The Advocate reported.

75 Years Ago: Minnesota Box Company landed on do-not-patronize list

The St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly put Minnesota Box Company on its do-not-patronize list, prompting the city’s unions begin pressuring area brewing companies and bottlers to make sure the union label appears on their crates and boxes carrying its products.

Trades and Labor President Ray Wentz put Minnesota Box on the list after management refused to include employees laid off during a “seasonal slump” in a union election.

Minnesota Box President N.J. Lennartson “has frequently stated that he did not believe any of his employees wished to join a union, and his attitude has been one of antagonism against unionization,” Wentz told The Advocate.

Landing on the list meant Minnesota Box would have trouble competing with manufacturers entitled to use the union label on their boxes and crates, Box Makers business representative Charles LaVaque said.

“The St. Paul Bottling company and the Superior Bottling company use nothing but union-made boxes for their soft drinks,” LaVaque said. “The Hamm Brewing company also uses union-made cases, and we urge our friends to insist on union-made boxes, shipping cases and wooden cartons.”

100 Years Ago: Democrats in St. Paul Fire Department fired

St. Paul Mayor Herbert Keller drew sharp criticism in a front-page story in The Union Advocate’s Jan. 31, 1913, edition, after the city’s Fire Commissioners fired nine St. Paul firefighters for being “too old to be efficient” any longer.

The Advocate suspected there was an additional reason for the firefighters’ dismissal: “the fact that they are all Democrats.”

Keller, who held office from 1910 to 1914, claimed to be running a non-partisan administration. The city’s union leaders weren’t buying it.

“None of (the fired firefighters) is really too old to be efficient, but the mayor wanted their places for some of his political friends,” The Advocate claimed.

The firings added insult to injury for city firemen, who had been granted only a “small increase in pay” by Keller’s administration months earlier.

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

Unions seek organizing rights for Minnesota’s home health care workers

December 13, 2012 by
Ziggy Norberg talks about the importance of quality home care, as his mother and personal care attendant, Karen Urman, looks on.

Ziggy Norberg talks about the importance of quality home care, as his mother and personal care attendant, Karen Urman, looks on.

Karen Urman of Mounds View works as a personal care attendant for her adult son, Ziggy Norberg, who has used a wheelchair since he was 3 years old. The work is a full-time job, one Urman gave up her career as a tax preparer and office supervisor to pursue.

For Urman it is rewarding work, even if it doesn’t always draw the attention – or respect – it deserves. “Being a PCA is rarely considered a real job, especially when you’re a PCA for a family member,” she said.

State legislators can count on hearing from home health care workers like Urman during the 2013 legislative session, as they push for changes to a state law that prohibits them from organizing a union – a step many believe is critical to making their voices are heard as the state plots its course for meeting the needs of a rapidly aging population.

The number of Minnesota adults over 65 is expected to nearly double by 2030, according to the Wilder Foundation.

What’s more, workers believe a union would help legitimize the home health care profession and ensure workers are treated with the respect they deserve. Urman pointed to nurses and teachers as “respected career” paths that afford their professionals the right to unionize.

“My job is not necessarily more important than them, but it’s definitely not less important,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I have the right to form a union too?”

Unions push changes to law

The answer stems from a distinction made in state law between workers employed by home health care agencies, many of whom are unionized already, and workers like Urman, who are providing so-called “self-directed” care. Considered more like independent contractors by the state, workers in self-directed programs are denied organizing rights.

That’s a law two of the state’s largest unions will push lawmakers to change when the Legislature convenes next month.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota launched its drive to organize home health care workers with a media event yesterday in St. Paul, where PCAs like Urman, joined by their clients and family members, talked about the challenges they face, including low wages, minimal benefits and limited training opportunities.

Sumer Spika of St. Paul, who provides in-home care for her friend’s daughter, said her take-home pay has fallen over the last four years to the point where she can no longer afford to take days off work.

“I have sacrificed financial stability, I live paycheck to paycheck, I have sacrificed health insurance for my family at times, and I do so because I love what I do,” Spika said at the SEIU event. “I believe as a society and a community … we should not only value the ones that we care for, but also the ones that care for them.”

Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has an active campaign to organize workers in self-directed home health care programs, according to Organizing Director Eric Lehto.

AFSCME has represented agency-employed home health care workers in Minnesota for more than 30 years, including 175 workers at Brooklyn Park-based Transition Health Care who won their first contract earlier this year.

“We have been advocating for workers in this industry for decades,” Lehto said. “We believe in collective bargaining rights for all workers, so we’ve been talking to and signing up (self-directed program) workers as well.”

Better Legislature provides hope

The drive to organize self-directed home health care workers parallels recent efforts to win union representation for child-care providers receiving direct subsidies from the state.

Last year, after Council 5 and SEIU Local 284 signed up thousands of child-care providers, Gov. Mark Dayton called for providers to vote in a union election, but a judge ruled Dayton lacked the authority to call an election without legislative approval.

Such approval may be easier to find next year, when labor-endorsed majorities take over both chambers of the Legislature. If they are successful in changing the law, it could pave the way for a union vote among the thousands of home health care workers statewide.

Ziggy Norberg, Urman’s son and client, said a vote to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota is one he hopes his mother gets to take – for her sake and for his own.

“She has given up a lot in order to take care of me,” Norberg said of his mother. “The fact that she does this work for me, on top of caring for my brother and sister as a single parent, all without the benefits and wages of a real career is ridiculous.

“I dread having to get a stranger to come take care of my needs, (but) if the day comes that I do need to find someone else to be my PCA, I should be able to find someone who takes the job seriously like my mom does.”

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

City of Stillwater workers protest stalled contract negotiations

December 5, 2012 by
City of Stillwater workers and their supporters demonstrate outside City Hall.

City of Stillwater workers and their supporters demonstrate outside City Hall.

The City of Stillwater is stalling in contract negotiations with its workers, and members of AFSCME Local 517 are running out of patience.

Before the Stillwater City Council convened its Truth in Taxation hearing last night, city employees and their supporters demonstrated outside City Hall, raising awareness that they have been working without a new contract since 2011.

And Local 517, which represents Stillwater’s building inspectors, city planners, engineers and administrative professionals, is not the only bargaining unit whose contract with the city has long since expired, according to Local 517 member Brad Junker, a community service officer in the Stillwater Police Department who testified during the public hearing.

“Tonight, as far as I understand, all but one of the city’s union contracts remain open,” Junker said.

Before a standing-room-only crowd, Junker questioned how the city could hold a Truth in Taxation hearing on its proposed budget – including labor costs – without first settling its union contracts.

“I ask that you urge your staff to promptly negotiate fair contracts for all city employees,” Junker said. “It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the responsible thing to do.”

A lifelong Stillwater resident who also works as a part-time firefighter, Junker said he and other city employees deserve better than the treatment they are receiving from city management.

Brad Junker, flanked by fellow Local 517 member John Nobels, urges the Stillwater City Council to settle its union contracts.

Brad Junker, flanked by fellow Local 517 member John Nobels, urges the Stillwater City Council to settle its union contracts.

“The employees of this city and the work we do, we touch so many people in so many ways,” Junker said. “We are the face and the voice of the city. We help carry out the ordinances and the policies that have been set forth by the council.

“We like working here. We love working here. We’ve worked diligently and faithfully day in and day out.”

After picketing outside City Hall for an hour before the meeting began, supporters holding signs reading “We Make Stillwater Happen” and “Fair Contract Now” moved inside the hearing room, and they applauded as Junker concluded his remarks to the council.

Local 517 is a part of Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

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

Strike threw a monkey wrench into Montgomery Ward’s holiday plans 75 years ago

December 1, 2012 by

Kris Kringle has graced The Union Advocate’s pages in several forms over the years. In 1962 his beard was used as a symbol of the union advantage.

More than 30 workers in St. Paul threw a monkey wrench into Montgomery Ward’s holiday-shopping rush Dec. 6, 1937, walking off the job after management at the mail-order company’s University Avenue plant refused to negotiate with their elected union representative, Warehouse Employees Local 20,297.

The picket line drew 300 supporters on the strike’s first day, according to The Union Advocate.

A week later police conducted a “mass arrest” of picketers, who were charged with disorderly conduct. Police levied the same charge against a Montgomery Ward detective accused of entering Local 20,297’s strike headquarters and “using abusive language.”

Despite the bluster, the strike fizzled out after its second week as a result of lukewarm support from the labor community. The St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly voted against placing Montgomery Ward on its “do not patronize list,” noting that several craft unions, including the Electrical Workers and Operating Engineers, had members working inside the University Avenue plant.

While some of the workers were reinstated after the strike ended, those who were unwilling to “repudiate their union membership” were not, according to National Labor Relations Board charges filed the following July. The NLRB charges also alleged Montgomery Ward “maintained an espionage system among its employees to not only discourage unionization but to virtually prohibit it,” the Advocate reported.

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

In 1997 Santa joined volunteers in the Minneapolis skyway to call attention to sweatshop labor.

100 Years Ago: Shoe Cutters staged organizing drive

St. Paul-based Shoe Cutters Union No. 281 scored a major organizing victory in December 1912, expanding its membership rolls to include roughly 85 percent of all shoe cutters in St. Paul.

The union, which represented workers at only one local shoe manufacturer prior to the organizing drive, successfully appealed to non-union workers, according to the Dec. 27 edition of The Union Advocate, with a mix of economic and social incentives.

A circular letter sent to all shoe cutters “contrasted the conditions in the factories where … a minimum wage for cutting prevailed with those in the unorganized factories where cutters were paid a sliding scale based upon the necessities of the employer.”

Later, Local 281 hosted a “stag party” for the city’s union and non-union shoe cutters. The party netted “a large number of applications for membership,” giving the local enough clout to present a price list – with a minimum wage scale – to several manufacturers in St. Paul.

All but one of those manufacturers agreed to the union’s terms, The Advocate reported. “A strike was called against the factory which held out, and in less than a day afterward this factory also conceded the demands of the union.”

The new price lists resulted in wage increases for the city’s shoe cutters of between $1.50 and $3 per week.

In 1987 Santa urged shoppers to buy union.

25 Years Ago: Carpenters targeted chain restaurant builders

A non-union construction firm building Bonanza Steakhouse restaurants across the Twin Cities suburbs found itself the target of an aggressive campaign of leafletting, picketing and consumer boycotts, staged by Carpenters Local 87 in the fall of 1987.

The campaign eventually led to victory for all Building Trades unions, the Dec. 14 Union Advocate reported, as Alexandria-based Don Getz Construction agreed to use union labor on all future construction jobs. Getz signed the agreement in a donut shop with Local 87 business representative Jerry Beedle, after approaching him during an action outside the Bonanza in Stillwater.

Beedle said the agreement marked a big victory in the trades’ battle to keep fast food and retail chains from building non-union. “If you allow one fast food operation to go non-union, then the danger is another and another and another will take the same route,” Beedle said.

Discount retailers don’t often care about the value in hiring construction workers who are better trained and more productive, he added, making public pressure necessary. “We use every negotiable way to try to get employers to the bargaining table, and when we have to, we use consumer pressure,” Beedle said. “We’ve found that’s been very effective.”

10 Years Ago: Bush, Pawlenty eyed privatization

Minnesota’s public employees were bracing themselves for privatization battles at the federal and state levels in December 2002, as Union Advocate Editor Michael Kuchta reported.

Republican executives in the White House (George W. Bush) and in St. Paul (Governor-elect Tim Pawlenty) were touting alleged cost savings taxpayers would realize by outsourcing public employees’ jobs to the private sector.

But public sector union leaders called the privatization push crony capitalism at its worst. “The Republican Party at the state level is doing the same thing the Republican Party is doing on the federal level – paying back their contributors,” said Jim Monroe, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees.

As for the cost savings of privatization? U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum wasn’t buying what Bush was selling.

“While the stated goal of this move is cost savings, the administration has been unwilling to back up this claim with facts,” she said. Because private companies need to make a profit, she pointed out, they often achieve low bids only by undercutting wage, benefit and safety standards.

McCollum also raised fears of increased fraud and other bad behavior.

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

Letter to the Editor: Bachmann isn’t invincible

November 29, 2012 by

Election night was a great night for Democrats across Minnesota, with the exception of three congressional races. Three Republican incumbents won re-election to the U.S.  House, including Michele Bachmann in the 6th District.

To say that Congresswoman Bachmann is a polarizing figure in American politics is an understatement. Bachmann is so extreme that the GOP leadership in the House has denied her a leadership position. If Bachmann is too extreme for somebody like Eric Cantor, that really reveals where her priorities lie. Her views certainly aren’t representative of mainstream America, and they are far from being representative of her constituents.

The only reason Bachmann won a fourth term Nov. 6 is because Republican-controlled Legislature redistricted (gerrymandered) Minnesota congressional districts, making the 6th even more advantageous for Republicans. If the 6th had been the same geographic area it was in 2010, Bachmann’s opponent, Jim Graves, would have been elected.

Graves has demonstrated Bachmann isn’t invincible. So how do you put a Democratic candidate over the top in the 6th District? There are four areas a candidate should concentrate on.

First, let the constituents know that you will represent them. Michele Bachmann represents herself.

Next, remind voters that Michelle Bachmann voted against increasing the federal minimum wage in 2007 – George W. Bush signed the bill into law – and that she is staunchly opposed to raising the minimum wage in the future. Ask Bachmann why she is so opposed to workers being guaranteed to make a paltry $7.25 per hour.

A Democratic candidate should focus on improving the economy of the 6th District, and promote tax breaks for businesses that move into the district and offer employees competitive wages and salaries above the federal minimum wage. Graves did a superb job promoting business growth in this campaign and it is one of the reasons why he almost won the district.

The last thing a Democratic candidate needs to do is to reassure voters in the 6th District that sanity will be restored to the congressional seat. Let the voters know that you will bring a common sense approach to Washington and will reach across the aisle.

Jim Graves did a great job in three of these areas. He was clearly the sane choice (he certainly implied it), but in the 6th District it is necessary for a candidate to be explicit that they are, in fact, the sane alternative to Bachmann. If a candidate would also point out that Bachmann is against the federal minimum wage law and hold her to account for it, the tide would turn. Exposing Bachmann’s views on fair wages and more grassroots support than in 2012 for the Democratic candidate would seal Bachmann’s fate.

That will be a great day for America.

– Jeffrey Couillard, AFSCME #844

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

August 2012: Electrical Workers Local 110 formed a century ago

August 1, 2012 by

It’s not a “golden anniversary” – that would be 110 years – but Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will turn 100 years old this month, and members planned to celebrate July 28 with a picnic on Harriet Island.

The St. Paul-based union traces its roots to a division that took place in July 1912, when members of Electrical Workers Union No. 23 (now IBEW Local 23) voted to allow inside electrical workers to form their own local if they wished to do so.

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

The split was amicable, as the Minnesota Union Advocate reported in its July 26, 1912, edition. “The membership of this union has increased so rapidly and so extensively during the last few months that the advisability of dividing it into two unions, a linemen’s and an inside wiremen’s union, has been seriously considered,” Editor Cornelius Guiney wrote.

Inside Electrical Workers’ Union No. 110 held its first membership meeting Aug. 16 at the St. Paul Trades & Labor Federation Hall. The new union, according to Guiney’s report in The Advocate’s Aug. 16 edition, boasted “seventy-five members and an all-conquering spirit of determination to get every inside electrical worker in the city on its roster.”

Local 110 Press Secreatry A.J. Velat told The Advocate the wiremen “intend to make their union one of the best of their craft in the history of St. Paul,” adding that they already have “struck a winning pace” with a “spirit of enthusiasm that stops at no obstacle.”

“If all the members stick and work, as they seem determined to do, there can be no doubt of early and great success,” Velat said.

One hundred years later, Local 110 members are still sticking, still working and, without a doubt, still succeeding. Congratulations!

• 75 Years Ago. In August 1937, beauty salons were a hotbed for organizing drives in St. Paul.

Ellen’s Beauty Shop, located on Cedar Street downtown, was the target of an ongoing action staged by members of the Beauty Workers Unit, a newly formed arm of Journeymen Barbers Local 31. The Advocate reported Aug. 12 that Ellen’s initially refused to recognize the local, prompting six beauty workers to picket outside the shop and the Journeymen Barbers to pull their working member from the salon.

Perhaps after watching what happened at his neighbor’s salon, Allan Goldman, owner of the Sha-Ri beauty salon at 6th and Cedar, “intimidated his employees and compelled them to sign individual contracts with him in addition to signing a statement … in which the employees declared they were satisfied with their employer,” Local 31 reported in the The Advocate’s Aug. 26 edition.

Goldman went so far as to seek an injunction to stop picketing outside Sha-Ri. “It was set up in the complaint that pickets were intimidating prospective customers, using abusive language, blocking the entrance to the shop and in other ways interfering with the conduct of the business,” The Advocate reported.

Goldman withdrew his complaint after a judge ruled picketing could continue – provided the wording on picketers’ signs was truthful. Court battles between Sha-Ri and the union would continue, however, for the next two years.

• 50 Years Ago. The nation was mired in an “economic lag” in August 1962. Unemployment had been stuck above 5 percent for 57 consecutive months. The Union Advocate’s Aug. 23 edition trumpeted the AFL-CIO’s plan to achieve full employment: a 35-hour workweek.

The nation’s largest labor federation urged its affiliate unions to push a 35-hour workweek at the bargaining table, and called on Congress and President Kennedy to pass an “amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act to require that all time worked in excess of 35 hours a week, in operations in interstate commerce, be paid double time.”

• 25 Years Ago. Unions representing workers at Continental Baking Co., maker of Wonder Bread, Twinkies and other products, rallied inside Minneapolis City Hall in August 1987, protesting the city’s role in the company’s decision to cease operations in the Twin Cities.

The city purchased Continental’s plant at 1200 Third Ave. South to make room for construction of the Convention Center. The company announced it would not relocate in the Twin Cities, displacing more than 100 workers, members of five local unions.

In the Aug. 24 Union Advocate, union leaders warned the decision would impact the freshness of Continental’s products.

“We want people to realize this is a fresh product made here in Minnesota,” said Bakery Local 22 steward Dave Bentley, who handed out Twinkies to the large group at the rally. “If they close the plant down it won’t be made fresh here. It will be made in another state.”

• 10 Years Ago. The Minneapolis Convention Center hosted 3,500 delegates to the American Postal Workers Union’s biennial convention in August 2002. When Vice President Dick Cheney dropped into town to help Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Pawlenty raise money at the Hilton Hotel, most of those delegates were waiting to greet him.

“Postal workers engulfed the sidewalks around the block and across the street from the Hilton, chanting ‘Cheney No! Union Yes!’ and ‘Cheney is a crook!’” Union Advocate intern Hannah Clark reported. “In a point missed by most media reports, the protesters outside clearly outnumbered the guests inside.”

• 5 Years Ago. Among the 13 people killed when the Interstate 35-W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed Aug 1, 2007, was Greg Jolstad, a member of Operating Engineers Local 49 working to resurface the bridge at the time it collapsed. Members of AFSCME and the Laborers also were working on the bridge that day.

In the days that followed the disaster, union leaders joined the chorus of voices calling on policy makers to reevaluate the public’s level of investment in infrastructure.

“It’s been talked about for years – something’s going to happen like a bridge falls down,” said Jim Brady, president of the Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota. “It’s not popular to spend money on this stuff. It tends to get ignored. Then something like this happens and you can’t ignore it.”

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Author sees reason for hope in Wisconsin recall campaign

May 8, 2012 by

John Nichols’ book “Uprising” provides an insider account of the union protests that swept across Wisconsin last year.

Progressive writer John Nichols energized and entertained during a May 2 lecture at the Carpenters Union Hall in St. Paul, providing a first-hand, insider’s account of union protests that swept across Wisconsin last year, sparking a renewed interest in grassroots democracy and progressive activism nationwide.

Nichols, a Wisconsin-based writer for The Nation magazine and author of the new book “Uprising,” appeared in St. Paul as part of The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s annual labor-history series, “Untold Stories.”

(That series continues tonight at 7 p.m. with “Czechs & Paychecks: Working-class History of West 7th,” a panel discussion at the CSPS Hall, 383 Michigan Street; and tomorrow with a post-show discussion following the Guthrie Theater’s presentation of “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been,” a play about Langston Hughes’ appearance at the McCarthy hearings. Click here for more information.)

Nichols brought a roomful of about 30 people back to the winter of 2011, when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Republican majorities in the State Legislature outraged union members across the state with plans to strip teachers, nurses and other public employees of most of their collective-bargaining rights.

The governor’s plan was mean to address a budget “crisis” the Republicans created by handing out $140 million in tax breaks to corporations after sweeping into power during the 2010 elections. The so-called “budget-repair bill” eliminated public employees’ ability to deduct dues out of their paychecks, forced them to hold elections every year to “reconstitute” their unions and stripped them of their ability to negotiate for health insurance and pension benefits.

According to Nichols, Democratic lawmakers and many union leaders responded by throwing up their hands and warning union members to brace themselves for bad news.

But one local union of graduate-level teaching assistants from the University of Wisconsin decided to fight back. The union’s decision to protest inside the State Capitol, crowding the hallway outside Walker’s office, was a “light-bulb moment” for angry public employees across the state, Nichols said.

“Suddenly, everybody watching the TV news saw people protesting,” Nichols said. “And if you have an ongoing protest, it’s something people can join.”

And join they did. Emboldened by the demonstrators, Democratic state senators fled the state, preventing a vote on the union bill and forcing Walker and Republican lawmakers to face the public backlash and outrage it had created. Students and workers occupied the Capitol for 18 consecutive days, “assembling and petitioning for the redress of grievances, as they had been taught to do in school,” Nichols said.

“People weren’t waiting for politicians to solve their problems. They were demanding their basic rights, demanding their basic freedoms. That’s what Wisconsinites did.”

Although Walker’s attacks on public workers and their unions eventually passed into law, protests outside the Capitol drew hundreds of thousands of people, sowing the seeds of grassroots democracy that have now grown into a political effort to recall Walker, his lieutenant governor and four of his closest allies in the Legislature.

More than 1 million Wisconsinites signed onto the Walker recall, the highest percentage of a state’s population ever to petition for removal of a leader. The state is holding a primary election today to determine Walker’s opponent in the June 5 recall election.

Nichols said he remains hopeful the recall will succeed, pointing to Walker’s sliding poll numbers. “We will be told again and again that we’ve been defeated, that we have to accept what we are told, that we can’t win this fight,” he said. Then Nichols offered the advice of Wisconsin’s former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold: “This fight isn’t over until we win it.”

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