Workers: Fair scheduling measure would restore work-life balance

February 20, 2015 by
Hourly workers listen as Rep. Rena Moran (second from left) describes her bill to bring balance to the state's work scheduling laws.

Hourly workers listen as Rep. Rena Moran (second from left) explains her bill to bring balance to the state’s work scheduling laws.

Pushing back against an upswing in reports of Minnesota workers struggling to meet their employers’ increasingly irregular scheduling demands, a coalition of worker-advocacy groups today unveiled legislation to bring fairness to the state’s workplace scheduling laws.

The House bill, authored by DFL Rep. Rena Moran of St. Paul, would require employers to provide hourly employees with their work schedules 21 days in advance, compensate workers whose shifts are cancelled within a 24-hour window and guarantee workers have access to adequate rest between shifts.

“This bill would make sure that employees who are forced to make themselves available to an employer’s scheduling needs are compensated accordingly and able to count on at least a minimum income every payday,” Moran said at a press conference in St. Paul earlier this week.

[Click here to take action in support the fair scheduling bill by e-mailing your state lawmaker.]

Several low-wage, hourly workers who stand to benefit from the legislation joined Moran, including members of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, Minneapolis-based Neighborhoods Organizing for Change and Working America, the AFL-CIO’s outreach initiative to non-union workers with more than 280,000 members in Minnesota.

Andy Barno-Iversen, a member of Working America, explains the toll "clopening" – working consecutive closing and opening shifts – takes on workers and their families.

Andy Barno-Iversen describes the toll “clopening” – working consecutive closing and opening shifts – takes on workers and their families.

Scrambling to get hours

Workers took turns at the podium venting their frustrations with practices gaining popularity among fast-food, retail and other service-sector employers, from “just-in-time” scheduling that allows managers to call in staff on a moment’s notice to “clopening,” Andy Barno-Iversen’s term for back-to-back shifts that ended late and began early the next morning.

Barno-Iversen described working full-time at a Minneapolis co-op grocery while also studying at the University of Minnesota. Twice each week, he would get home from work at 10 p.m. after closing the store, then go back to work by 4:30 a.m. the next day to open.

“I was exhausted,” the Working America member said. “I ended up dropping out of class because my academic performance suffered so badly. My work performance suffered.”

His department has since eliminated “clopening,” Barno-Iversen said, “but thousands of Minnesota retail workers, students and families do have to deal with those scheduling issues… To amend that is just a simple act of consideration.”

Other hourly workers recalled watching their paychecks shrink after their employers switched from conventional scheduling to on-call, “flex,” or “just-in-time” scheduling.

CTUL member Bobby Brown said his hours at a McDonald’s in Bloomington have dried up to the point where his last paycheck was $14. Ronda Jama, a wheelchair agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, used to work four days per week; now she works two – and waits “on call” in case AirServ, her employer, makes more hours available.

“It changed the cycle of our life,” Jama said. “It’s hard because we are on call right now. They call you whenever they want you.”

Bobby Brown's last paycheck from McDonald's amounted to $14.

Bobby Brown’s last paycheck from McDonald’s amounted to $14.

Both Jama and Brown earn minimum wage, $8 per hour. The employers most likely to utilize aggressive scheduling practices, Working America State Director Bree Halverson said, are also most likely to pay low wages.

“Unpredictable hours make economic mobility and achieving the American Dream even harder, especially if you’re already struggling to get by,” Halverson said. “Minnesota families need 21st-century scheduling policies that keep up with the changing nature of today’s workplace.”

‘Freedom and stability’

Moran’s proposal to bring fairness to workers’ schedules is another variation on an encouraging theme at the Capitol this session, with lawmakers looking to provide workers – and their families – with the stability and security they need to ensure a healthy work-life balance.

The day after advocates unveiled the scheduling bill, House DFLers rolled out their Working Parents Act, pulling together earned sick and safe time, wage theft, paid family leave and scheduling bills into an all-inclusive measure.

Moran called scheduling fairness “one brick in a road to a better life.”

“This bill is an important first step toward bringing more freedom and stability to employees who work hard, who want to receive hourly wages and who need to plan for their future and the future of (their) families,” Moran said.

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UPDATE: Airserv reverses pay stub policy after receiving workers’ petition

February 6, 2015 by
Airserv workers deliver a petition to a representative of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Airserv workers deliver a petition to a representative of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

After receiving a petition signed by 225 employees based at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, managers at Airserv agreed last month to provide its workers with paper copies of their paycheck stubs.

It was a small victory, but another step forward for a growing number of workers joining together to improve wages and working conditions at MSP Airport. [In December, workers cheered the Metropolitan Airports Commission’s decision to require airport employers to offer workers paid sick days.]

But Airserv worker Darcy Landau, who is active in efforts to organize a union, said the company refused to acknowledge the workers’ petition as a factor in its decision to reverse the pay stub policy.

Darcy Landau

Darcy Landau

“They say they did it for different reasons,” Landau said of Airserv management. “It is a victory for us, but they want to take the credit.”

After Airserv switched to an electronic payroll system, with paycheck information available only via a website, many workers reported trouble loading the site, and others said they lack the skills or resources necessary to get online.

Workers remain concerned about Airserv’s increased use of standby and “flex” scheduling, Landau said.

“This whole economy is based on 40 hours a week, and they won’t give us our 40 hours per week,” he said. “And customer service suffers because of it.”

SEIU Local 26 is supporting MSP-based Airserv workers’ efforts to organize a union.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

How do your wages stack up? New analysis pinpoints cost of living in Minnesota

January 29, 2015 by

cost_of_livingAs debate swirled at the State Capitol in recent years over whether – and how much – to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage, lawmakers found themselves confronted with a question their own experts could not easily answer.

How much do workers need to earn to meet their most basic costs?

To zero in on an answer, the Legislature charged the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development with conducting a study.

DEED’s Labor Market Information Office devised a plan to break down the cost of living not only statewide, but by county and region, taking into account geographic disparities in seven cost categories: transportation, housing, child care, health care, food, taxes and other necessities.

Now the results are in, and DEED’s new Cost of Living tool, available on the department’s website, sheds light on the challenges and difficult decisions Minnesota’s working families face.

The results, said John Clay, a research analysis specialist for DEED who devised the study’s methodology, don’t “represent a middle-class income. It also does not represent a poverty-level income. Rather, it’s a basic income that meets health and safety needs.”

The annual cost of meeting those needs in the seven-county Metro Area is $25,932 for a single worker without children, according to the new tool. Given a 40-hour workweek and year-round employment, a worker would require wages of $12.47 per hour to reach that annual income level.

In other words, even with the scheduled increases in the state’s minimum wage – up to $9.50 per hour next year for most workers – the Metro Area’s lowest-paid jobs are leaving workers without the resources necessary to meet their basic costs.

Those costs go up, of course, with family size. A single parent of one child in the Metro Area requires full-time wages of $24.97. For a two-parent family raising one child, the living-wage breakdown looks like this:

  • $21.16 with one full-time worker in the family.
  • $15.69 with two full-time workers.
  • $17.92 with one full-time worker and one part-time worker.

Not surprisingly, DEED’s analysis found the state’s highest cost of living in the Metro Area.

But there’s good news for Twin Cities workers: the median hourly wage paid by metro employers in the second quarter of 2013 (the most recent wage data available) was $19.92, almost $2 higher than the statewide median wage. Basically, that means half of Metro Area workers earn more than $19.92 per hour, and the other half earn less.

“At first look, it’s a good sign for the Twin Cities labor market that the median wage is above the cost of living for most families,” Clay said. “But is that enough that most people should be meeting their basic needs? That’s an open question.”

It’s an open question, in part, because for many workers – particularly in low-wage sectors heavy on part-time jobs – wages are just one factor determining their income. Increasingly, these workers report difficulty getting the hours necessary to piece together an income that will meet their basic needs.

Bree Halverson is statewide director of Working America, an organization of workers without the benefit of a union on their jobs.

Bree Halverson is statewide director of Working America.

Bree Halverson, statewide director of Working America, an organization of workers without the benefit of a union at their jobs, said with minimum wage in the rear-view mirror, a “fair scheduling bill” is the next challenge for lawmakers looking to ensure the state’s economic recovery benefits all workers.

Working America members, Halverson said, report “getting called as few as two or three hours before their shift and told, ‘Don’t come in.’ Or it’s the opposite, and they’re called that day and asked, ‘Can you come in?’

“That leaves the worker to scramble to find child care at the last minute, or to try making up the hours they were counting on with another job.”

More than 250 employees of AirServ who work at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport signed a petition earlier this month asking their employer for more reliable scheduling. Halverson said “flex” and “standby” scheduling have long been practices used by employers in the hospitality industry, but are on the rise now in the retail and service sectors.

Halverson recounted one member’s story of being required to work later than usual at his job, which pays $8.50 per hour. By the time he finished work, the bus that took him there had stopped running, and he faced a $20 cab ride home.

“We need employers to start scheduling more people full time, for 40 hours per week,” Halverson said. “And part-time workers deserve a schedule that they can depend on.”

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Airport workers win paid sick leave, continue fight to reinstate fired Delta worker

December 15, 2014 by
Members of the 15 Now coalition stand in support of Ahmed Ahmed, who testified at the Metropolitan Airports Commission meeting today in favor of a proposed paid leave policy, passed by commissioners later in the meeting

Members of the 15 Now coalition stand in support of Ahmed Ahmed, who testified at the Metropolitan Airports Commission meeting today in favor of a proposed paid leave policy, passed by commissioners later in the meeting

Airport workers’ campaign for better wages and conditions took a step forward today, as the Metropolitan Airports Commission unanimously approved a measure requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to all workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Supporters of 15 Now, a worker-led coalition seeking to raise the minimum wage at MSP to $15 per hour, cheered the MAC’s vote as a victory, but one that came at a steep cost for one of the campaign’s most vocal supporters.

Kip Hedges, a baggage handler and 26-year airline employee, was fired by Delta Air Lines recently for comments he made in support of the 15 Now campaign in an interview with the labor-news website Workday Minnesota. During the open forum portion of today’s meeting, Hedges and other airport workers urged MAC members to publicly denounce the firing.

“It’s important that MAC supports the rights of workers who are fighting for change,” AirServ worker Ahmed Ahmed said, “because we know there’s a lot that must change.”

Hedges praised MAC members for supporting paid sick leave, and he acknowledged they have no say over hiring and firing at Delta. “But what you do have is moral authority,” Hedges said. “I would like you to make it clear to Delta Air Lines that they stand alone on this.”

Fired Delta worker Kip Hedges speaks during the open forum portion of the MAC meeting. "I can assure everyone here that I, for sure, am not going to stop doing what I’m doing," he said.

Fired Delta worker Kip Hedges: “I can assure everyone here that I, for sure, am not going to stop doing what I’m doing.”

“Come out on my side,” he added. “Come out on Ahmed’s side, for the workers who make this the best airport in the country.”

[Add your name to a petition calling on Delta to reinstate Hedges.]

If the MAC fails to send a message, Delta and other employers will be emboldened to retaliate against other workers who, like Hedges, take a stand against low wages – or for collective bargaining.

Before being fired, Hedges was active in efforts to organize baggage handlers at Delta, a campaign supported by the Machinists union. He said a former co-worker reported being questioned last week by Delta management about his role in collecting signed cards in support of an organizing election.

“It was a shot across the bow,” Hedges said. “You can do something about that by using your moral authority to make sure that Delta and other employers understand that … workers have the right to raise their voice in the workplace and get a union.”

MAC members appeared receptive to workers’ concerns.

Carl Crimmins, a past president of the Minnesota Pipe Trades Association who serves on the MAC, said attempts by any employer to intimidate pro-union workers were unacceptable. He called for an ordinance to establish standards for labor relations at the airport.

“I think a good, healthy discussion on a labor peace ordinance is something this commission should take up,” Crimmins said.

Commissioner Erica Prosser said the work of drafting and implementing a paid leave policy, which will allow airport workers to accrue up to 72 hours of sick, family or emergency leave annually, would not fall on the MAC “if all the employees at the airport were allowed collective-bargaining rights.”

“We wouldn’t, as a commission, have to deal with these issues ourselves,” Prosser said.

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

Airport workers rally behind Delta baggage handler fired for activism

December 5, 2014 by
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison speaks in support of fired Delta baggage handler Kip Hedges (blue coat) at a rally at MSP Airport.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison speaks in support of fired Delta baggage handler Kip Hedges (blue coat) during a rally at MSP Airport.

Airport workers, union members and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison today called on Delta Air Lines to reinstate Kip Hedges, a pro-union activist fired just days ago for speaking publicly in favor of a $15 minimum wage at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

About 200 people joined the demonstration outside Termainal 1 at MSP Airport. They shut down the terminal’s Upper Level Roadway before being ordered by police to disperse.

Originally planned as part of the Black Friday Week of Action that also included Walmart and fast-food strikes, the airport protest became an outlet for activists and co-workers outraged at Hedges’ dismissal. Protesters carried signs and joined chants urging Delta to “bring Kip back.”

Hedges, a baggage handler and 26-year airline employee, told Workday Minnesota that Delta management issued the termination after citing comments he made in a video supporting of the “15 Now” campaign for a higher airport minimum wage.

In this video from today’s protest, Hedges recounts what he said about Delta, as his supporters echo his statement.

“In spite of being fired by Delta, I don’t plan to stop speaking out about low-wage workers at Delta, or the issue of unionizing,” Hedges said. “In the past two days, I’ve received massive support from my co-workers, from brother and sister flight attendants at Delta, the International Association of Machinists and the labor movement in Minnesota. This is the kind of force that it will take to win $15 at MSP, and it’s the kind of spirit that will lead to unionizing Air Serv and Delta ramp workers.”

About 200 people joined the march along outside the upper level of Terminal 1, calling for $15 wages and union rights.

About 200 people joined the march along outside the upper level of Terminal 1, calling for $15 wages and union rights.

Meanwhile, passenger-support workers at MSP, employed by contractors like AirServ, said Delta’s effort to silence Hedges would not keep them from working for a $15 minimum wage and a union.

“I do important work at the Airport for other peoples families,” said Randa Jama, a mother of two who works as a wheelchair assistant for AirServ. “I wish AirServ would support my kids the way I help Delta passengers and unaccompanied minors.”

Ellison, a DFLer from Minneapolis, called on Delta to reinstate Hedges. He also encouraged passenger-support workers’ to continue their organizing campaign.

“We can go a day, a week, a month without the CEO of Delta. We actually don’t need him,” Ellison said. “But you try to go even a short period of time without the cleaners or the drivers or the baggage handlers, and this whole place stops.

“You deserve respect, and you must be paid fairly.”

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

Airport workers confront Delta CEO during Minneapolis luncheon

September 25, 2014 by

Three workers interrupted Delta CEO Richard Anderson’s speech before a Chamber of Commerce luncheon Tuesday in Minneapolis. They questioned why Anderson’s salary increased to over $14 million last year, while workers who assist Delta passengers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport struggle to make ends meet.

“Mr. Anderson, Delta is making record profits, yet wheelchair agents who transport Delta passengers are paid minimum wage,” said Darcy Landau, a military veteran from St. Paul who works as a wheelchair agent at MSP. “We can barely survive. Will airport workers ever share in this growth?”

Video footage, taken by Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union, shows Landau and other workers being escorted out of the banquet room after interrupting Anderson’s speech.

Landau and other workers have been attempting to organize with SEIU Local 26 for the last few years. They do not work directly for Delta, but for subcontractors that handle the airlines’ passenger-service responsibilities at MSP.

Delta reported profits of $2.7 billion in 2013, but those record earnings have yet to trickle down into passenger-service workers’ paychecks. Outside of the luncheon, workers and supporters held a sign reading “Record Profits for Delta, Poverty Wages for Workers.”

Abera Siyoum, an AirServ cart driver at MSP, asked Anderson about a comment made by the CEO in reference to the corporation’s record success in 2013.

“Mr. Anderson, you said in the news that ‘across the board 2013 was an outstanding year,’ yet since I must work 70 hours a week to survive I hardly get to see my children,” said Siyoum, who works two jobs to support his wife and two children. “Do you think my family is as happy about Delta’s profits as you are?”

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

Airport workers, disability-rights advocates join in push for higher wages

June 16, 2014 by
Demonstrators block traffic outside Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, protesting low wages and poor conditions for workers who provide services to travelers with disabilities.

Demonstrators block traffic outside Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, protesting low wages and poor conditions for workers who provide services to travelers with disabilities.

A demonstration in support of low-wage workers who assist Delta Air Lines’ operations at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport began at today’s meeting of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) and spilled into the roadway outside Terminal 1’s ticketing area, forcing lane closures and resulting in 13 arrests.

The protest targeted low wages, under-staffing and other poor working conditions that, according to a report released last week, make travel more difficult for elderly passengers and those with disabilities.

web.MSP-arrests5“I’m embarrassed about the way we treat passengers and how long they have to wait for wheelchairs and electric carts,” Darcy Landau, who works as a wheelchair agent serving Delta passengers, told commissioners during an open forum before the MAC’s meeting. “Passengers get frustrated. It makes them feel like they’re not important. It’s discrimination, and that’s not right.”

Federal law requires airlines to provide assistance to passengers with disabilities while boarding and deplaning aircraft. Airlines are also required to train workers how to transport passengers with disabilities safely.

Airlines usually outsource passenger services to subcontractors that change as bids to service an airport are won and lost. But as their employers change, workers remain stuck in a cycle of low wages.

Abera Siyoum, a wheelchair agent employed by Delta’s latest subcontractor, Airserv, attended the MAC meeting between his morning shift at MSP and his second job. “Like many of my co-workers, my family cannot survive on what I make at this job alone,” Siyoum told commissioners.

Siyoum acknowledged that fatigue from working two jobs, coupled with the stress of rarely seeing his wife and two children, takes a toll on the service he’s able to provide for passengers who rely on wheelchair and electric-cart services.

“I don’t get enough sleep. I am stressed about being able to pay my rent,” he said. “It makes it hard sometimes to do my job.”

Airserv worker Abera Siyoum marches with his daughter Coket.

Airserv worker Abera Siyoum marches with his daughter Coket.

Siyoum, Landau and other Airserv employees at MSP are working to organize a union with Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union.

Local 26 already represents janitors at MSP, who are employed by Airserv’s parent company, ABM, and it’s not hard to see why passenger-service workers want to form a union too. While ABM pays its union employees at MSP average wages of $14 per hour with benefits, Airserv pays average wages of $8 with no benefits.

Local 26 President Javier Morillo called on the MAC to follow the lead of airports in Boston, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale by passing a “labor-peace policy,” which would make it easier for workers to form and keep a union as Delta shifts contractors at the airport.

After the open forum workers and their supporters, including several members of the disability-rights organization ADAPT, marched and wheeled themselves out of the MAC chambers, through the terminal and onto the road outside the ticketing area.

As police watched and a crowd of supporters chanted slogans, eight protesters sat down in the street, backed by three ADAPT members in wheelchairs and two more people standing behind them. All 13 were arrested for blocking traffic.

The civil disobedience follows last week’s release of a new report, “Able, But Not Willing,” that finds passengers with disabilities face continued problems at MSP – problems workers and ADAPT members pledged to work together to solve.

Police arrest Darrell Paulsen, a leader in the disability-rights organization ADAPT.

Police arrest Darrell Paulsen, a leader in the disability-rights organization ADAPT.

Earlier, airport commissioners listened as ADAPT leader Darrell Paulsen, who was among those arrested, recalled watching workers drop his then-pregnant wife, Nikki, while transferring her from a wheelchair to her seat on an outgoing plane at MSP.

Paulsen urged commissioners to consider whether their mission was to “make Delta millions of dollars in profits” or to ensure dignity for all travelers. “If you believe in dignity, it is time for you to take action,” he said.

Delta, in particular, has a track record of failing to serve its ticketed passengers with disabilities in accordance with federal law, according to the report, which found that Delta was fined twice in the last 10 years by the Department of Transportation.

The report included several recommendations to improve services, including proper training, higher staffing levels and better wages for workers who serve passengers with disabilities.

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