TSA officers’ commemoration comes with warning against privatization

September 25, 2026 by Leave a Comment

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum joins AFGE Local 899’s commemoration of the 9/11 attack.As Transportation Security Adminis-tration agents at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11 last month, union leaders made a point of warning against new attempts by the Trump administration to privatize U.S. airport security.

American Federation of Government Employees Local 899 held its observance on the mezzanine level of Terminal 1, perched above the ticketing counters. Two members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation, Reps. Betty McCollum and Kelly Morrison, joined the event, as did a representative of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Speakers mourned the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and they reflected on the role TSA workers have played in protecting the nation’s airways from other attacks since then.

Local 899 Secretary Emily Woods was a child when the attacks took place, but she now works as a transportation security officer at MSP, serving in the agency created by Congress after 9/11 to standardize passenger screenings in the nation’s commercial airports.

“I may have been too young to understand Sept. 11 as it happened, but I understand its significance today,” Woods said. “Every time I put on my TSA uniform, I carry forward the responsibility that came from that day.”

“Every day, transportation security officers carry out that important mission,” Local 899 President Sharif Mehanna said. “They identify prohibited items, they respond to evolving threats and they protect millions of passengers – often under difficult conditions and without receiving the recognition they deserve.”

Difficult conditions have been all too common for TSA workers during the second Trump administration. They were forced to work without pay during extended Department of Homeland Security shutdowns, and Trump’s DHS appointees have sought to strip TSA officers of their union contract – a move AFGE has challenged in federal court.

Now, the administration is acting on a secretly devised plan, TSA Gold+, to privatize passenger screening at some airports. The agency recently informed AFGE of its intention to launch the program, which puts private contractors in charge of passenger screening and the screening technology itself, at three airports next year: Tampa, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; and Des Moines, Iowa.

At MSP Airport, union leaders and federal lawmakers called the privatization scheme a dangerous departure from the system that has worked to protect travelers in the 25 years since 9/11.

Morrison said she opposes any effort to “change airport security that does not include input from the real experts, TSA employees.” McCollum agreed.

“I fly in and out of a lot of airports, and every airport is different,” McCollum said. “But the one thing I know is consistent is the professionalism and the training (of TSA officers). If this starts being privatized, it’s going to be scattered all over. You can come in with the lowest contract? That’s not who I want watching out for my constituents when they fly.”

Local 899 Treasurer Neal Gosman said privatization threatens to undermine TSA officers’ healthcare and pension benefits and their wage standards. But it would also come at a price to accountability, which officers take seriously.

“It takes years to get someone trained up fully; to replace us all with a privatized workforce would be a tremendous loss to federal security,” Gosman said. “The message that we learned after 9/11 is that we aren’t just here to do airport security, we’re here to do national security. That is the oath that we take as federal employees, and we do that work every day.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Union educators tracking effects of federal funding loss

October 23, 2024 by

NEA President Becky Pringle spoke to media members alongside SPFE member Nicki Nolen before the “walk-in” at Adams Spanish Immersion school.

During the previous three school years, Nicki Nolen worked as Adams Spanish Immersion Elementary School’s reading support teacher. She spent school days dropping into kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms, where she led small, guided reading groups tailored to meet students’ individual needs.

Every elementary school in the St. Paul Public Schools had a reading support teacher like Nolen – until this year, when the federal pandemic-relief program that funded the position, known as ESSER, expired.

“This year I’ve had families coming to me in the hallway and saying, ‘Oh, you’re not a reading teacher anymore, what happened?’” Nolen, now a first-grade teacher at Adams, said. “And I have to say that the funding was cut.”

In a show of unity on Sept. 30 – the ESSER program’s official expiration date – St. Paul educators, school administrators, union leaders and lawmakers held two events to raise awareness of the impact the loss of funding will have on students and families.

“What will end are after-school programs,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said. “What will end are successful literacy programs. What will end is that one-to-one attention that our students need. What will end is making sure we have counselors and mental health services.”

Pringle, who leads the nation’s largest labor union, joined a “walk-in” event at Adams before the start of the school day, one of several staged by members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators at their school buildings Sept. 30. Similar events took place in 17 other states, Pringle said.

SPPS received approximately $207 million in ESSER funds as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). Among other things, the district used the money to expand arts and after-school programming.

It also went toward the literacy program that brought Nolen and other reading teachers into the classroom, known as What I Need Now (WINN). Due to its success, the district allocated $7 million this year to keep some WINN programming in place, but it came at the expense of other district offerings.

And WINN didn’t survive at many elementary schools, including Adams.

“COVID funds gave SPPS the opportunity to focus on what students actually need to be successful learners,” Nolen said. “Students, parents and educators all saw our students improve. The loss of these funds will be devastating for our community.”

Pringle said the NEA has been working in partnership with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools to track and evaluate the effectiveness of local initiatives funded by ESSER, like St. Paul’s literacy program.

“This is actually working,” Pringle said. “We have evidence that we are closing those reading gaps, we have the evidence that students are doing better, that their social, emotional and academic learning is increasing… We need to make sure that we have this funding permanent.”

Later in the afternoon, Pringle joined a press conference with school board members, educators and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who said the COVID aid provided a glimpse of the gains schools could make with fully funded Title I and IDEA programs, federal supports for low-income students and students with disabilities, respectively.

The 4th District representative has co-sponsored the Keep Our PACT Act to put the federal government on a 10-year path to full funding for both programs.

“As a former teacher, I understand the importance – as well as the challenges – of ensuring that every child receives a great education,” McCollum said. “We must fulfill our commitment to our nation’s youth, no matter their abilities, skin color, zip code or background.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Bussin’ baristas take Starbucks union campaign on road

July 10, 2023 by

Starbucks workers launched their bus tour a block from the Capitol in St. Paul.

Set to embark on a nationwide tour to pressure Starbucks into bargaining in good faith with their union, members of Starbucks Workers United rallied today in St. Paul with labor activists, community supporters and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who encouraged the baristas to keep up their fight for a union contract.

“I know firsthand the courage it’s taken to do what you’re doing today, and I salute you for it,” said McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District.

Workers at over 300 Starbucks locations nationwide, including six in the Twin Cities, have voted to unionize with the Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate since December 2021. None of them has a contract yet.

In Minnesota, bargaining committees from three stores – including the location at 300 Snelling in St. Paul – have held negotiating sessions, but the company’s representatives walked out of each meeting in less than five minutes, according to union members.

Rather than negotiate with its union, Starbucks has cut hours, closed unionized stores and intimidated workers – all textbook union-busting tactics, Wisconsin barista Charles Poulter said.

“It is my opinion that the Starbucks corporation intends to ignore this union to death,” Poulter said during a press conference outside a coach bus emblazoned with union logos and slogans. “They will slash hours until every union partner is forced to move on. And when they bargain with us, they will not bargain in good faith.”

Rep. Betty McCollum encouraged Starbucks workers to keep up their contract campaign.

Their union has appealed – successfully in most cases – to the National Labor Relations Board to force Starbucks to reinstate fired workers, reopen closed stores and bargain in good faith.

Workers United says 19 of 20 decisions handed down by the NLRB have been favorable for the union, with the agency finding Starbucks has committed 194 labor law violations. Another 77 complaints, encompassing over 1,300 alleged violations, are still pending.

But as the NLRB process plays out, union members are hoping to ramp up public pressure on the corporation with a summer road trip, building solidarity among workers at unionized stores, encouraging others to join and calling out members of Starbucks’ board of directors – like Beth Ford, president and CEO of Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes Inc.

Minneapolis barista Rev Beeby called Workers United’s bus tour a “new, big counteroffensive” in the contract campaign.

“We’re highlighting the victories we’ve had and the new stores that have organized, and we’re going directly to the board of directors and telling them to negotiate,” Beeby said. “Starbucks is scared of us. They know they’re losing, and they know that once we win a strong contract, even more workers will be inspired to join and organize and exercise their power.”

Locally, union baristas have shut down several stores with short-term strikes, protesting unfair labor practices, the company’s failure to bargain and short staffing in their cafes.

Workers at the 300 Snelling location have been on strike five times since forming a union in April 2022. The St. Anthony location saw picketing June 28 in response to allegations that Starbucks banned some LGBTQ Pride Month decorations.

With the bus tour, dubbed “The Union Is Calling,” Starbucks workers plan to extend those worksite actions to a larger public audience.

“By going on tour, these Starbucks workers are raising the stakes and escalating their fight, and Minnesota’s labor movement stands in solidarity with the thousands of Starbucks workers who are fighting for their right to form a union across the country,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said.

After the kickoff event at the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s offices in St. Paul, Starbucks workers traveled to Land O’Lakes headquarters, where they called on Ford to oppose union busting at Starbucks. Later this morning the bus stopped outside two non-union stores, where union members distributed campaign materials.

The bus leaving from St. Paul will wind its way to Buffalo, NY, where workers made history in forming the first union at a corporate-owned store in the U.S. Another bus tour is scheduled to launch later this week on the west coast, with union members traveling to the company’s headquarters in Seattle.

Supporters can follow the tour online.

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Community rallies around refinery workers as Marathon lockout enters third week

February 5, 2021 by

Gov. Tim Walz rallies with locked-out refinery workers in St. Paul Park.

ST. PAUL PARK – As picketing at the refinery in this small, suburban community entered a third week, members of Teamsters Local 120 and Gov. Tim Walz ratcheted up the pressure on Marathon last night with a rally highlighting workers’ safety concerns.

Each day the lockout continues, Local 120 steward Tylor Sardeson warned, Marathon is putting its workers and surrounding communities at risk.

“We’re on this side of the fence,” said Sardeson, a crude operator at the facility. “It’s the wrong side of the fence to make sure this place stays safe.”

Nearly 200 Teamsters are standing together to resist the company’s demand for dramatically different staffing inside the refinery, including the ability to replace union members with workers from lowest-bidder subcontractors.

“They’re going to add more jobs to my plate, and I don’t even feel comfortable with the ones I have right now,” Local 120 steward Dean Benson said. “Safely, it’s just not possible.”

Walz listened as workers and family members laid out the stakes of contract negotiations with Marathon. Rhiannon Sklavenitis fought back tears as she recalled a serious burn injury her husband suffered at the refinery, which left her more afraid for his safety than when he was deployed into combat with the Navy.

The governor then took the stage and called on Marathon “to get back to the table” and “make sure safety is at the center” of talks. He praised union members for taking a stand.

“It’s about the safety of this community,” Walz said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

Elected officials have tread a beaten track to St. Paul Park since the work stoppage began, offering their support to Teamsters on the picket line. Some lawmakers have taken managers at the refinery to task for locking out experienced workers.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, in a letter to local Marathon executive Amy Macak, noted ownership of the refinery has changed multiple times in recent years, but its “dependable, highly-skilled, local union-represented workforce” has been a constant presence.

“The breakdown of contract negotiations and use of outside contractors by Marathon raises serious questions about safety,” McCollum wrote, adding that the 2018 explosion at Husky Energy’s refinery in Superior, Wis., serves as a “grave reminder of the need to maintain the highest standards for safety.”

Members of other local unions are showing their solidarity with locked-out Teamsters as well, joining them on the picket line, providing food and other supplies, and contributing to workers’ defense fund.

“There are a whole bunch of unions in this crowd,” Kera Peterson, president of the 66,000-member St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, told locked-out workers during the rally. “This fight is Minnesota’s fight, and we are with you in this for the long haul, as long as it takes.”

Teamsters who work at the St. Paul Park refinery – electricians, operators, maintenance and other workers – originally went on strike Jan. 21, three weeks after their union contract expired.

After 24 hours on the picket line, striking workers offered to return to their jobs, but they were turned away at the gate – a move Local 120 President Tom Erickson called the most reckless he’s seen in 30 years negotiating contracts.

The two sides have held at least one bargaining session since the lockout began. But like the 24 sessions leading up to the lockout, it was negotiations in name only, union members said.

Jim Swanson, an electrician at the refinery, told U.S. Sen. Tina Smith on the picket line Saturday that union members make sure to bring their phones into bargaining, so they have something to read after the company’s negotiators walk out of the room.

Local 120 members Luke Naber and Tyler Sardeson demonstrate outside the Speedway in St. Paul Park, informing potential customers about the refinery lockout.

“They just haven’t negotiated at all,” Swanson said. “It seemed like they had an agenda right from the beginning. I think they planned to not even negotiate and have us go on strike.

“We never brought up money once,” he added. “I don’t think anybody here is concerned about money. It’s issues in the refinery – safety stuff and trying to eliminate positions.”

As the lockout drags on, Local 120 members have begun following trucks from the refinery to local freight yards and Speedway gas stations, looking to raise awareness of the lockout.

While they cannot legally call for a boycott of Speedway, workers can advise potential customers that the fuel being sold crossed a picket line, and that the company has locked out workers whose training and experience keeps St. Paul Park and its surrounding communities safe.

“We don’t want the Husky incident to happen here,” Sardeson said. “I live in Cottage Grove. My children go to school here in Cottage Grove. It’s very important to me that the facility stays running and stays safe.”

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Kera Peterson: To build back better, pass the PRO Act

February 4, 2021 by

Kera Peterson is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Millions of working people and their families are hurting in America right now. We’ve seen it firsthand at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, as our nonprofit Labor Studies and Resource Center has begun coordinating free food-distribution events with local unions. At four events so far, union volunteers have distributed thousands of packages of fresh food to families in need. During events at the Labor Center, the line of vehicles often spilled out of our parking lot and into West 7th Street.

These were families bearing the brunt of multiple crises facing our country right now: the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic collapse, chronic income inequality and systemic racism. While working Americans worry about eviction notices, job losses and exhausting their paid time off, U.S. billionaires are amassing even more wealth – over $1 trillion, combined, during the pandemic so far.

From Day 1 our federal government’s pandemic response has been bungled. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on a promise that we, as one nation, will build back even better than before.

At a time when working people are holding our country together, we have to do better than building back an economy where the rules are still rigged against us. The new administration understands that. The American people, who voted decisively and in record numbers to reject the politics of darkness and division, understand that too.

So what does building back better look like? It starts with direct and significant economic relief for workers and small businesses on Main Street, not Wall Street. Our local governments need aid too, as revenue shortfalls caused by the pandemic could force many to make steep cuts to services more essential than ever right now, like public health and public safety. And job losses resulting from cuts to public services would only deepen our economic crisis.

Building back better also means restoring fairness to our economy. It means leveling the playing field and giving working people more power to join together and bargain better wages, benefits and working conditions. Congress can do that by sending the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to President-elect Biden’s desk in the coming months.

The most significant labor legislation in 80 years, the PRO Act would address several weaknesses in our federal labor laws, giving workers more bargaining power on the job. It would put teeth into rules prohibiting employers from retaliating against workers who try to form a union. It would require employers to disclose payments they make to union-busting law firms and consultants brought in to stifle workers’ voices. It would speed up the organizing-election process and establish a mechanism for workers and employers to arrive at a first contract quickly after an organizing drive.

House Democrats passed the PRO Act last February, but it never stood a chance in Mitch McConnell’s Senate. Today, members of Congress introduced the PRO Act again, and President Biden, who has said he wants his to be “the most significant pro-labor, pro-worker administration” ever, has pledged support for the measure. It’s encouraging to see that two congresswomen from our area, Reps. Betty McCollum and Angie Craig, are co-sponsors of the bill.

But the ideals behind the PRO Act – collective bargaining, a voice on the job, the belief that all work has dignity – are not Democratic or Republican. They are American ideals. It’s time for our leaders to put politics aside, to think big and to act boldly. Click here to tell your representatives to make the PRO Act a reality.

Our labor movement stands ready to build back better, together.

– Kera Peterson is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

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McCollum focused on keeping workers, families safe during crisis

May 6, 2020 by

The global pandemic has elected officials spending less time shaking hands and more time taking calls – so much time, in fact, that Congresswoman Betty McCollum recently treated herself to a pair of Apple AirPods. 

“I am on the phone from about 8:30 in the morning to about 6:30 at night, then on and off a little bit on the weekends,” she laughed. “It’s not the most efficient way for us to legislate, but we’re figuring out how to do it.” 

After being endorsed by the Minnesota AFL-CIO last month, the 10-term DFLer from the state’s 4th Congressional District carved out 30 minutes of phone time for this interview with The Union Advocate, featured in our May 2020 edition.

The interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, took place before April 24, when Congress passed a $484 billion relief package with funds for small business loans, hospitals and testing. 

UA: Federal lawmakers have so far passed three sweeping measures to address the public health and economic crises caused by COVID-19. Where have you directed your focus during this process? 

BM: My focus first and foremost has been on working people and their families, and on making sure we have health care facilities that are open and able to run. That meant having the personal protection for frontline workers in our hospitals, as well as in our community clinics. 

And then we needed to make sure that we have testing, which the president has failed miserably at. In order to open up our economy, in order to lift some of these stay-at-home orders, we have to have tests. People need to be able to be diagnosed quickly and effectively … so that we can work on the next phase, which is coming up with treatment and coming up with a vaccine.  

So my focus has been on what we need to do to keep our families safe… 

UA: We’re still hearing alarming accounts from health care and other frontline workers about lack of PPE and medical equipment. Is there more Congress should do, or is it now a supply-chain issue that falls more on the executive branch and states? 

BM: This is a supply-chain issue that I have been concerned about since we had our last epidemic, with H1N1 and SARS. When I was in the Minnesota statehouse, I had the opportunity to work with (former state epidemiologist) Dr. Michael Osterholm. He has been a mentor to me on this. When we were going through the anthrax situation in Washington, D.C., I learned we don’t keep enough of a stockpile or manufacture enough of the things we need… Masks, gowns, syringes, the cotton swabs they need to do the tests – there are so many things we don’t manufacture in this country. When trade shuts down because of war, trade shuts down because of disruption or trade shuts down because of pandemic, we as a country make ourselves vulnerable.  

It’s something a lot of us in Congress have been talking about for years. Then the crisis goes away, and everybody doesn’t want to deal with it. We have to deal with it this time. I hope we’ve learned our lesson. 

UA: Congress has allocated a lot of money to make sure workers remain employed during the crisis, with access to paid leave if they need it. Are you confident that’s happening as the bills are being implemented? And is there proper oversight to ensure corporations benefiting from the stimulus are using that money to pay their workers? 

BM: Two great points that you bring up… With the CARES Act, we knew there were going to be a lot of people who would not be able to go to work. You look at the restaurants right now, they had to close down because of all the contact. We put in place unemployment insurance, and the State of Minnesota … had money in hand to get the money out the door even faster. Sure there’s been hiccups with that, but I feel confident a lot of these issues will get smoothed out and money will get out to families… 

But you also asked about oversight. And for the president of the United States to say (Congress) didn’t need any oversight, with the way he’s been firing people who have been in place for years to work with Congress on oversight of taxpayers’ dollars? Just because he doesn’t agree with them, he’s firing them. That’s wrong. Democrats in the House are going to do our very, very best to make sure these funds are spent the way they were meant to be: to save lives, to keep families from suffering more than they already have and to get our economy back up and running. 

UA: The Postal Service says it’s likely to run out of cash by September. Cities and other local governments are looking at historic shortfalls. Is there a chance Congress would act to address some of these things in a second stimulus? 

BM: I’m on the Appropriations Committee, and we were working with our authorizers on a major infrastructure bill, which, on and off, the president has been interested in working with us on. We could get people back to work, we could get people off the bench, building roads, bridges, broadband, energy efficiency in our schools. But we found out Mitch McConnell was not interested in doing that. 

We still know that our hospitals need money, and we need money for vaccine work. And we know social distancing works; we need to figure out a way to get the economy moving safely. So while these businesses lay in wait for that moment when it’s safe for workers to go back, we have to keep those small community businesses – the hair salons, the restaurants, the plumbing and electric companies – able to keep their employees on hold in a way that provides them some stability and security. 

UA: I know you’ve been a strong supporter of our postal unions here in St. Paul. What does Congress need to do to keep the post office open? 

BM: Well there are bills out there the postal unions have been talking about for years, we just need to pass them. Just think, in a presidential election year, as we’re slowly starting to recover from a pandemic, if we don’t have letter carriers out there delivering ballots. We know what the weather can be like here in November, to ask people to social distance and stand in line outside to vote like they did in Wisconsin? That would just be wrong. 

UA: You will once again be the labor-endorsed candidate on the ballot in the 4th district this year. Has the COVID-19 crisis heightened the stakes of our choice this November, not just locally, but nationally? 

BM:  I think it really has. When I saw what was happening in China in January, it took my breath away. That’s a communist government. We don’t hear about those things as fast as if it had happened in Canada or Australia. So when we hear about it, you know it’s been going on a long time. COVID-19 is an invisible enemy – that’s that only thing the president has said that I’ll agree with him on. His job was to work with world leaders, to work with the WHO to collect the information, to start gearing up and buy ventilators and PPE, to get what we need to keep America safe – and he just failed to do it.  

His comments speak for themselves. It’s just like the flu, or it will all be gone this spring. None of them were based on science; they were all based on wishful thinking. When the health and safety of the people that look to you for leadership is on the line, that’s not the time for wishful thinking. That’s the time for hard thinking. And he failed us miserably. 

UA:  The labor endorsement came despite positions you’ve taken on mining in northern Minnesota that are at odds with some Building Trades unions. What do you say to tradespeople who want an opportunity to work those jobs? 

BM:  First off, I’m not opposed to mining in northern Minnesota, the way it’s often stated generally. I’m a member of the Steel Caucus. I’m on the Defense Committee. I know how important it is to our national security that we have the ability to make it in America. And I’ve carried a lot of language in the interior bill so that steel for taxpayer-funded projects, we make it in America. 

In the early days of taconite mining we learned that it caused some great harm to our waterways, and we’ve been cleaning that up since then. We’ve learned how to be respectful of our environment and not damaging our water quality anymore when taconite mining. The sulfide-ore copper mining in northern Minnesota is a different type of mining than taconite. The waste product kills everything in the water. There is no second chance, no do-over. 

The Superior National Forest has 20 percent of the fresh water in our U.S. Forestry system. All the water adjacent to the Great Lakes on the Minnesota side is in the Boundary Waters area. We are known for fresh water. We are known for clean water. You need fresh, clean water in order to survive… We have a moral responsibility to protect clean, fresh drinking water for our children and future generations. 

I think jobs are important. I think jobs in northern Minnesota are extraordinarily important. The only thing I asked is … prove it to me scientifically that we can do this safely. And 20 months into a 24-month study, the Trump administration stopped the study. They will not show me one piece of paper from it, not one scrap. I’ve repeatedly asked for it. It was paid for with taxpayer money. And before the study was completed, they started removing the moratorium on the leases. I think a reasonable person could say, why did you stop the study? It should bring great concerns to all of us, including my brothers and sisters in northern Minnesota, why we can’t see the study. What don’t they want us to know?  

UA: Finally, how has COVID-19 impacted your office’s work? 

BM: We are here to serve you. Our office is open for business, and we are really anxious to help people navigate their way through COVID-19. 

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

House votes to restore worker voice on the job

February 6, 2020 by

Dee Ann Christensen and Mike Landers, both retired union members who attended the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s campaigns conference today, call their representatives in support of the PRO Act.

The U.S. House of Representatives tonight passed a bill to strengthen protections for workers trying to join together in a union.

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would create new penalties for employers who illegally intimidate or fire workers for organizing a union. It would repeal state right-to-work laws, protect the right to strike and give workers new tools for bargaining a first contract swiftly.

A top legislative priority for organized labor since Democrats took control of the House a year ago, the PRO Act would be the most consequential labor-law reform in 80 years – if it weren’t dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Still, the House vote affirms that labor-law reform remains a key piece of Democrats’ election-year agenda.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the PRO Act “the most significant piece of legislation that will come before Congress this year,” and said the nation’s largest labor federation would use today’s vote to draw a line in the sand.

“Those who would oppose, derail or delay this important legislation, do not ask us for a dollar or a door-knock. We won’t be coming,” Trumka said during a Capitol press conference. “But stand with us today, and we’ll stand with you tomorrow.”

Trumka’s message echoed loud and clear with federal lawmakers from Minnesota, who received calls from over 100 union members and retirees gathered for a conference in Minneapolis today.

“Our outdated labor laws are no longer effective to make sure working people have their voices heard,” the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Melissa Hysing told activists attending the federation’s two-day campaigns conference. “The PRO Act restores fairness to the economy and ensures working people share in the massive wealth we have helped create.”

Four DFLers co-sponsored the PRO Act: Reps. Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar and Collin Peterson. Rep. Dean Phillips also voted in favor of the bill.

McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, said the PRO Act would restore fairness to the economy and help curb rising income inequality.

“The PRO Act strengthens workers’ power to stand together and negotiate for higher pay and better benefits,” she said. “For women who are part of a union, the gender pay gap is nearly eliminated, and union members of color have nearly five times the median wealth of their non-union counterparts.

“Anti-union and anti-worker attacks have led to the decline of the middle class. It’s time we pass the PRO Act and restore the constitutional right to organize, putting power back into the hands of American workers.”

Despite polls showing historically high public support for unions last year, the percentage of U.S. workers who belong to unions continued a four-decade decline. An MIT survey from 2018 found about half of private-sector workers, or 60 million people, wanted a union. Only 6.4% actually have one.

The disconnect, union organizers say, stems from bosses’ increasing disregard for laws meant to protect workers during union organizing drives. Employers broke the law in 41.5% of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board in 2016 and 2017.

“They just view it as a cost of doing business,” Jeff Lachler, a Minneapolis-based organizer with the Communications Workers of America, said. “There’s every incentive in the world to break the law, and there’s no real downside as long as you succeed in keeping the union out.”

While federal law prohibits employers from harassing, threatening or firing workers for supporting a union drive, the penalties for breaking those laws lack teeth.

In many cases, employers found guilty of breaking the law must post a notice acknowledging their misdeeds or making workers aware of their rights. In the case of workers fired for union activity, employers have to reinstate them with back pay, if they haven’t already moved on to another job.

But the process, which includes board filings, hearings and appeals, is lengthy, and that works to employers’ benefit, Lachler said.

“Even if they have to bring the worker back, there are no punitive damages,” he said. “In the meantime, they’ve succeeded in scaring everybody else from going through with an organizing drive.”

In addition to giving the NLRB authority to fine employers who break labor law, the PRO Act allows workers to seek justice in court. That would be key for workers who can’t afford to wait for the lengthy NLRB process to run its course.

Other provisions of the bill would prohibit employers from permanently replacing workers who strike, and make so-called “secondary strikes” legal, allowing workers to strike in solidarity with their co-workers.

The PRO Act would make mediation and arbitration mandatory to settle lengthy disputes over first contracts. Nearly half of newly formed unions fail to reach a contract with the employers.

The bill also includes provisions to stop employers from misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid workers comp and other liabilities. It would make fast-food companies and other franchising corporations more responsible for labor practices throughout their chain.

And it would require employers to disclose whether they are paying an outside firm to help defeat a union organizing campaign. A recent analysis found employers pay about $340 million annually to outside firms for “union avoidance.”

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

McCollum, Craig hear workers’ shutdown stories – and safety concerns

January 19, 2019 by

U.S. Reps. Angie Craig (L) and Betty McCollum meet with federal workers at the St. Paul Labor Center.

Eventually, the federal government shutdown will reach a tipping point, federal employees told U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Betty McCollum in a roundtable discussion arranged by their unions at the St. Paul Labor Center Friday.

What that tipping point ends up being is a question keeping many around the table awake at night.

“I’m very afraid,” Erin Phelps, an air traffic controller at Minneapolis St. Paul airport told the DFL congresswomen. “Our systems are being degraded by this shutdown, and it’s scary.”

Air traffic controllers, members of NATCA, are being forced to work without pay during the shutdown, as are TSA agents and officers at federal prisons in Minnesota, members of the American Federation of Government Employees. They missed their first paychecks last Friday, and it appears likely they will miss another next week.

That means workers like Phelps, whose husband is an air traffic controller too, are dipping into their savings to pay for day care, gas, housing, health care co-pays and other costs – or taking out short-term loans.

The mounting stress and plummeting morale are making their workplaces less safe, workers warned, both for themselves and the public they serve. “I’m becoming more convinced someone is going to die in our prisons,” said one corrections officer, who drove from Rochester to attend the meeting.

McCollum, a DFLer who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, blasted President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans for dragging out the shutdown to gain leverage in their efforts to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

“We all took the same oath of office to protect and defend the United States,” McCollum said. “This is not protecting and defending… This is putting politics over country.”

Craig, a DFLer newly elected to the state’s 2nd Congressional District, noted the twisted irony that Republicans’ crusade to make the nation more safe with a wall is, according to workers in our airports and prisons, having the opposite effect.

“It makes no sense to me,” Craig told workers in the meeting, hosted by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. “Every Democrat I talk to is up for a conversation about border security, but we cannot keep holding federal workers hostage.”

Craig and McCollum want Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call a vote on budget bills negotiated in December, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. “It’s certainly not the budget I would have wanted, but I’m willing to support it” to end the shutdown, McCollum said.

A veto-proof majority of senators supported the budget, too – until McConnell pulled the bill in deference to Trump’s last-minute demand for $5 billion in wall funding.

Craig recalled her first vote as a member of Congress for “exactly the same bill the Senate passed three weeks before I got there.” She added: “The Senate needs to take up its bill again and end this.”

Furloughed workers from other government agencies, including the IRS, HUD and the FDA, also attended the meeting. They offered McCollum and Craig a litany of examples of how the shutdown is impacting Americans, from blocked access to tax forms needed to fill out financial aid documents to government-backed housing loans caught in limbo.

Workers also described mounting economic pressures as the shutdown drags on. “I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” one HUD employee said. “My lease is coming due, and I can’t sign a new lease because I don’t have any income. It’s appalling. It feels like we’ve been made invisible.”

To make matters worse, federal employees are barred from accepting certain gifts, making it difficult for labor organizations and other agencies to funnel support directly to them during this time of hardship.

St. Paul RLF President Bobby Kasper said the federation’s nonprofit arm, which provides emergency assistance to union members during strikes, lockouts or other financial crises, is seeking legal advice about how to make sure the labor community can provide assistance in solidarity with federal workers for as long as the shutdown lasts.

“The people impacted most by this shutdown didn’t go into public service to get rich, and they don’t deserve to be treated like a political football,” Kasper said. “The labor community is going to stand with our brothers and sisters in AFGE and other federal unions, and it’s reassuring to know we have friends in Congress who will do the same.”

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

Postal unions call National Day of Action to stop privatization

October 3, 2018 by

Postal Service employees and their customers will rally across the country Monday in opposition to President Trump’s proposal to privatize the U.S. mail.

The National Day of Action has support from all four postal unions, including the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU).

In the Twin Cities, union members and supporters will rally over the noon hour Oct. 8, outside the Minneapolis Post Office, 307 S. 4th Ave.

Trump announced his interest in turning over the USPS to private hands in June, and his administration later directed a task force to look into overhauling the mail.

That committee has yet to release its report, but the idea of privatization already has drawn formal – and bipartisan – resistance in Congress.

Last month, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith joined 26 colleagues from both parties in co-sponsoring a resolution to keep the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the federal government.

“It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the federal government and is not subject to privatization in whole or in part,” the resolution said.

A similar resolution in the House has drawn 197 co-sponsors, including four from Minnesota: Reps. Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, Rick Nolan and Collin Peterson.

Fully privatizing the Postal Service would require Congress to act, and the early, bipartisan support for the resolutions indicate Trump has a steep hill to climb if he pushes forward on the issue.

But postal unions aren’t taking any chances. They warn that privatization would increase prices for consumers, threaten service in rural parts of the country and undermine good jobs.

What’s more, privatization is a solution in search of a problem. The USPS is self-sufficient; taxpayers do not subsidize its operations.

“Privatizing the Postal Service is not in the public interest or the interest of postal workers and would be nothing more than a raid by corporate pirates on a national treasure,” the APWU said in a statement.

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

Delta touts ‘direct relationship,’ but workers eye strength in numbers

April 17, 2018 by

Delta workers cheer during a union rally at the St. Paul Labor Center earlier this month.

One of the largest union organizing drives in the world touched down in St. Paul earlier this month, as baggage handlers and flight attendants rallied for a voice on the job at Delta Air Lines.

Although the two groups, which include a combined 40,000 workers, are organizing separately, both have enlisted the support of the International Association of Machinists. The union represents more than 100,000 airline workers.

Union supporters at airports across the country are collecting signed authorization cards from their Delta co-workers, hoping to trigger elections with the National Mediation Board soon.

“This will happen by the end of the year,” Machinists District Lodge 142 President Dave Supplee told Delta workers at the April 4 rally. “If each one of you who have signed a card can get one more person to sign a card, we’re there. That’s all we need.”

Organizers estimate some 3,000 Minnesotans would be eligible to vote if both flight attendants and baggage handlers file for elections. Since acquiring Northwest Airlines a decade ago, Atlanta-based Delta has maintained a strong presence at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

But the company also has maintained its record of union avoidance.

Many workers at the rally began their careers with a union contract at Northwest. Bob Cannatelli, a Boston-based flight attendant, drew loud cheers when he talked about “getting back what we lost” when Delta took over.

It won’t happen overnight, Cannatelli acknowledged. “But what will happen the moment we certify is a seat at the table, a voice, mutual respect, just cause – no more at will – and defined discipline that will prevent the favoritism that we all see so much,” he said.

Rep. Betty McCollum shows the pro-union luggage tag she uses whenever she flies Delta.

The rally drew a standing-room-only crowd to the St. Paul Labor Center, but Delta workers weren’t the only ones in attendance. Elected officials, members of other unions and retirees rallied in solidarity.

Rose Roach, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, noted the similarity between concerns Delta workers are raising in their organizing drive – like sufficient and safe staffing – and the challenges MNA nurses face in hospitals and clinics across the state.

“Well what do you know?” Roach laughed. “And that’s thanks to an enemy that we share: corporate greed.”

Delta “would cease to exist if not for you,” Roach added. “I am confident that Delta would run just fine without that CEO – not so much without the flight attendants and baggage handlers.”

Rep. Betty McCollum, a DFLer from Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, held up a luggage tag with the Machinists logo on it and said she attaches it to her bag each time she flies back and forth from Washington.

Delta’s lobbyists approach her regularly, McCollum added, and she reminds them each time that she supports its workers’ freedom to a fair process in deciding whether or not to unionize.

Delta failed to live up to those standards, unions allege, in a series of narrow workplace elections after the 2008 merger.

In the fall of 2010, flight attendants voted 51 percent to 49 percent against union representation with the Communications Workers of America. Baggage handlers and passenger service representatives rejected Machinists representation by similarly narrow margins.

Both the CWA and Machinists accused Delta of running an illegal campaign to intimidate and harass its employees into voting “no” – bribing workers, monitoring them with surveillance and meddling in the secret-ballot process.

Workers at the rally warned that the company will use the same playbook this time around.

Dan McCurdy, a 21-year employee at MSP Airport, said Delta workers already face a barrage of messages celebrating the company’s “direct relationship” with its employees. “Delta’s trying to label us as outsiders, as a third party,” the ramp worker said. “That’s far from what we are. The people who I see in here tonight are the people I see every single day at work.”

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