Grocery union launches campaign to hold Hy-Vee accountable for ‘good jobs’

October 5, 2015 by
These signs are popping up around the Twin Cities as part of a joint campaign between UFCW locals based in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

These signs are popping up in lawns across the Twin Cities as part of a joint campaign run by UFCW locals based in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

As Hy-Vee moves into the Twin Cities market, union grocery workers are rolling out a campaign to hold the supermarket chain to local standards for “good jobs.”

That means high wages, guaranteed schedules, affordable health care and retirement plans – and the security of a union contract.

“The ability to negotiate guaranteed wage increases, hours of work and benefits allow our members to take care of their families and strengthen our communities,” UFCW Local 1189 Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Christensen said. “We are committed to making all retail grocery jobs really good jobs, meaning life-sustaining ones.”

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers staff grocery chains across the Twin Cities, including Cub Foods, Kowalski’s, Festival, Rainbow and Lunds and Byerly’s. These union shops represent “an oasis in the world of low-wage retail,” Christensen said.

Indeed, annual raises for members of Local 1189 who work in East Metro grocery stores take effect today, with part-time workers seeing a 45-cent hourly increase, keeping them on track to reach $14.90 per hour, according to the union. Full-time grocery clerks and journeyman meat cutters will see 50-cent raises, with senior clerks moving to $23.58 and cutters to $25.10.

Christensen said Local 1189 and Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 653 plan to reach out to Hy-Vee workers looking to organize for comparable wages and benefits.

But the chain, which so far has opened stores in New Hope and Oakdale, presents a unique challenge for union organizers. As an ESOP, Hy-Vee grants workers small shares in the company’s ownership structure as part of their compensation.

Of course, owning a few shares of stock is no guarantee of good wages, fair schedules or security at work. ESOP workers are able to organize for a voice on the job – a union – just like any other grocery store employee.

To drive home that message – and to warn Hy-Vee against interfering with workers’ efforts to join a union – the UFCW locals are teaming up on a “Union Jobs Are Good Jobs” campaign. Supporters are sending postcards to Hy-Vee management and workers, and lawn signs are popping up in neighborhoods across the Metro.

Click here to sign a petition in support of the “Union Jobs Are Good Jobs” campaign.

Click here to learn more about hosting a lawn sign.

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Still waiting on back pay, former workers spoil grocer’s grand reopening

May 6, 2015 by
Workers hold informational picketing outside Victoria's Market, formerly Fresh Seasons Market.

Workers hold informational picketing outside Victoria’s Market, formerly Fresh Seasons Market.

When Fresh Seasons Markets in Victoria and Glen Lake closed a year ago, owner Tom Wartman failed to pay his employees the vacation and personal-holiday pay they had earned, their union alleges.

Local 653 of the United Food and Commercial Workers has taken legal action to recoup workers’ pay, and the union’s Health, Welfare and Pension Fund trustees are suing Fresh Seasons to recover benefit contributions never paid.

In the meantime, Wartman has teamed with local investors who own the Victoria and Glen Lake properties to reopen the stores under new names: Victoria’s Market and Glen Lake’s Market.

It’s a move Wartman’s former employees aren’t watching silently.

As the stores opened their doors this month, workers and their supporters were on hand to distribute fliers denouncing Wartman’s failure to pay them what they’re owed, Local 653 President Matt Utecht said in a public letter.

“If Tom Wartman wants the stores to reopen with community support, he should start by doing right by those community members who used to work for him,” Utecht said.

Click here to read Utecht’s full letter.

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Bernie Hesse: Politicians, bad laws can’t stop workers from organizing

March 26, 2015 by
Bernie Hesse

Bernie Hesse

Our union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, organized a new group of workers in Luck, Wis., the day Gov. Scott Walker signed a Right to Work for Less bill. The workers at Pioneer Care Center, a nursing home in Luck, voted overwhelmingly for a union. The worker win was the bright spot on a day when the labor haters, with the swipe of a pen, further suppressed worker rights in Wisconsin.

In Luck, a group of workers decided that they needed a voice at work and built a strong committee. They fought back against management’s attempts to derail the organizing drive. The union election wasn’t about money, but rather respect on the job, along with working conditions, including better care for the nursing home’s residents.

The UFCW isn’t going to be stopped by RTW or any other attempts to suppress workers’ rights. We have organized the first group of medical cannabis workers in Minnesota, and we are ready to organize the second facility when the opportunity arises. We believe the emerging medical cannabis industry will provide a safe, secure source for patients along with jobs for thousands of workers in the industry. We intend to support the industry with training and legislative advocacy, in addition to ensuring workers’ ability to have a voice at work.

UFCW Local 1189 is part of a coalition working to advance an industrial hemp bill at the Legislature this year, and we see a real opportunity from the Federal Farm Bill of 2014 to set the table for hemp as a new agricultural commodity that can be used as food, fiber or fuel. Minnesota led the nation during World War II in industrial hemp production, and we intend to support the research necessary for the industry to thrive. Currently, hemp is imported from Canada and China. We believe we could create a vertical system of production and processing, perhaps creating a co-op system, which would be worker owned and organized. We also believe that worker-owned systems should be explored as an alternative to the usual owner-driven model. We live in an economic system that could be called the Golden Rules – if you have the gold, you get to make the rules. We will explore how to change that game.

The Twin Cities has many grocery options for consumers. Many grocery stores are union-organized, and we are proud of what we have built up over the years. But we need to put together programs to expand. We are currently meeting with groups of co-op workers at the Wedge, and hope to get to a point where we can achieve recognition. We believe that we can create a co-op worker movement which will allow the co-ops to grow and set standards for several thousand workers in the area.

Finally, it is the mission of our union to organize internally each day. Building solidarity in a worksite is a slow process. Building solidarity is about relationships. It isn’t transactional, but based on human values of support, respect and fairness. We know that solidarity, especially in tough times, works.

– Bernie Hesse is director of special projects, legislative and political action for UFCW Local 1189, based in St. Paul and Duluth. He is also a delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

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Electrical Workers crash Bonfe’s open house

September 26, 2014 by
IBEW Local 110 members (L to R) Jaime Hubbard, Dan Crawmer and Ray Lee called out Bonfe's for not paying area-standard wages and benefits to its electricians.

IBEW Local 110 members (L to R) Jaime Hubbard, Dan Crawmer and Ray Lee called out Bonfe’s for not paying area-standard wages and benefits to its electricians.

Bonfe’s Plumbing, Heating and Air Service held an open house for prospective employees last night in St. Paul, but not everyone on the guest list appreciated the invite.

About two dozen members of St. Paul-based Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers surrounded Bonfe’s property during the open house. They carried signs and banners, distributed leaflets and warned the public – and potential employees – that Bonfe’s does not pay its electricians wages and benefits that meet area standards.

Bonfe's, a non-union contractor, mailed open-house invitations to members of IBEW Local 110 in an apparent attempt to "poach" skilled workers.

Bonfe’s, a non-union contractor, mailed open-house invitations to members of IBEW Local 110 in an apparent attempt to “poach” skilled workers.

The open house drew IBEW Local 110’s attention after members reported receiving invitations in the mail, union representative Jeff Anderson said.

“They invited me here, and I came,” Anderson said. “Now they don’t want me here.”

Anderson speculated that Bonfe’s accessed Local 110 members’ mailing addresses via the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry’s registry. The open house, he said, was nothing more than an attempt to “poach” skilled workers from the IBEW and its signatory contractors.

Bonfe’s once was among Local 110’s signatory contractors, but it decertified about five years ago. The company no longer hires union electricians, plumbers or sheet metal workers. Bonfe’s is completely non-union.

“Not only do they not pay area standards,” Anderson said, “but from the reviews I’ve read online, it does not appear they are passing those saving on to their customers either.”

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AFSCME members lend Ramsey County golf courses a steady hand amid changes

June 2, 2014 by
web.golf-goodrich

Local 1935 members Dakota Gardner (L) and Scott Weik inspect the sixth green at Goodrich, which they rebuilt last summer.

It’s Mark Newton and Eric Swanson’s job to maintain the grounds at historic Keller Golf Course in Maplewood, but the members of AFSCME Local 1935 haven’t moved a pin or filled a divot in over a year.

Newton and Swanson will shake off the rust July 19, when Keller reopens for public golf after closing for major renovations to both the course and the clubhouse Oct. 1, 2012.

Keller, located at 2168 Maplewood Drive, is the crown jewel of the Ramsey County Parks Department’s five courses. A mainstay among industry lists of Minnesota’s top public courses, Keller’s rich history includes playing host to PGA Tour events that drew Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer.

Anticipation is high for Keller’s reopening, but the temporary closing meant an uptick in play at nearby Goodrich Golf Course, another Maplewood track, located at 1820 N. Van Dyke Street. Scott Weik, a lead maintenance worker at Goodrich, said the increased traffic has been good for Goodrich’s exposure, and the course withstood the additional rounds beautifully.

Ramsey County golf courses support full-time, year-round maintenance positions. Many employees pull double duty in the county’s ice arenas during the winter. “We wear many hats,” Weik said. “And we do as much in-house work as we can to save the department money.”

Last summer, Weik and Dakota Garnder, a parks aide who, like Weik, has experience working with turf, reconstructed the green on hole No. 6 at Goodrich. They dug out and refilled the area, laid drainage tile and seeded the new green on their own, so that the county did not have to bid out the job. This year, the pair will attempt to rebuild a practice bunker and level the tee boxes on Goodrich’s par threes.

At Keller the temporary closing freed AFSCME members to tackle a backlog of jobs – stump removal, for example – that they struggle to fit into the busy golf season. And, of course, some jobs remained – namely cutting the grass.

“I cut fairways,” Newton said. “I cut greens. I’m now in the process of cutting approaches. I cut tee boxes. I cut rough.”

Keeping both courses up to the standards their regular players have come to expect is a point of pride for maintenance workers at both courses.

“When people are out there golfing, you don’t want them to see dandelions,” Weik said. “You take pride in what you do out there.”

One moment that stands out for Gardner is when a men’s league player from Keller – forced to switch play to Goodrich last year – commented on the quality of Gardner’s course. “Our men’s league players – or any customer, really – when they’re appreciative of what we do, they tell us so, and that means a lot,” Gardner said.

Newton is looking forward to hearing familiar compliments in Keller’s 85th-anniversary golf season.

“We had people three years ago, gentlemen from Phoenix who had heard about Keller, they told me they loved this golf course,” Newtown said. “A couple guys from Chicago told me the same thing.”

Golf Union!

• AFSCME Council 5 represents workers at Keller and Goodrich, and at Como, Highland and Phalen golf courses in St. Paul.

• Hillcrest Golf Club, 2200 Larpenteur Ave. East, is owned by Pipefitters Local 455. Members of UNITE HERE Local 17 staff its banquet facilities, available for rent to non-members.

Keller maintence workers Mark Newton (L) and Eric Swanson.

Keller maintence workers Mark Newton (L) and Eric Swanson.

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When it comes to home improvement, skip the hassle, hire union

June 1, 2014 by

framing10In over your head on a home-improvement job? Whether it’s a leaky pipe or a kitchen remodel, your best bet for quality and value is a union contractor.

Fortunately, Building Trades unions and their signatory contractors are making it easier than ever to get a bid or a price quote on residential work. [For a list of links to union contractors in Minnesota, see the Buy Union page.]

Paul Berg, director of public relations and training for the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association, advised homeowners to know their limitations.

“Things can go wrong in a hurry, especially when you don’t know what you are doing,” Berg said. “Fixing a loose plumbing fitting can quickly turn into a watery basement. And if you want to repair your furnace we’d advise sticking to changing the furnace filter.”

The MMCA’s website, MinnesotaMCA.org, maintains a list of union contractors available to install or repair residential plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems. All contractors on the list are licensed, bonded and insured.

“Having these qualifications makes sure you don’t end up with larger problems than you started with,” Berg said.

Union contractors are able to guarantee quality work because they team with local Building Trades unions to invest in training, from their intensive apprenticeship programs to continuing education for journeymen.

Electrical Workers’ unions in the Twin Cities, for example, invest over $3 million per year into worker training, IBEW Local 110’s Jeff Anderson said.

“We put a lot of stock in training,” Anderson said. “Being on top of the new products, especially in the residential industry, where electrical code changes quite frequently, a guy really does have to pay attention, know the rules. And we do.”

Union contractors aren’t hiring “people who are just giving something a try,” Anderson added. Union tradespeople are invested in their careers, and they earn wages and benefits befitting that investment.

“With a union contractor you know that they are paying their employees a living wage, including benefits, that they are paying taxes, and are not illegally misclassifying their employees,” said Tracy Madden, communications director for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Madden pointed to several contractors that do residential carpentry work in the East Metro area: MLR, 612-328-7749; J&K Builders, Inc., 952-473-5033; Lemke & Sons LLC, 651-665-9477; Parkos Construction Co., 651-455-0031; Tim Lemke Construction, 651-602-9001; and Trudeau Construction, 651-450-1238.

The IBEW will soon roll out a new website, featuring the union’s five-year guarantee on all work, for local consumers seeking residential services.

In the meantime, Anderson said, homeowners can call his local for contractor referrals at 651-776-4239.

ibew-habitat-web6

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Lunds gives downtown St. Paul a full-service, union grocery store

May 23, 2014 by
UFCW Local 1189 members Diane Kramer (L) and Jillian Roemer ring up the first two customers on Lunds' first day open for business downtown St. Paul.

UFCW Local 1189 members Diane Kramer (L) and Jillian Roemer ring up the first two customers on Lunds’ first day open for business downtown St. Paul.

Good news: Downtown St. Paul finally has the full-service grocery store residents have been clamoring for. Even better news: It’s a union shop.

After years of planning and waiting, Lunds opened a 27,000-square-foot store on the ground floor of the Penfield Apartments at 10th and Robert streets May 15. The store’s 80 workers are members of Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

At the store’s grand-opening celebration May 15, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman touted the grocer’s arrival as more evidence that St. Paul’s downtown area is thriving.

“To be a full community, you absolutely have to have a full-service grocery store,” Coleman said. “This is a gigantic leap forward for the City of St. Paul.”

Bartara Gonzales serves a customer at the deli inside Lunds' downtown location.

Bartara Gonzales serves a customer at the deli inside Lunds’ downtown location.

St. Paul has added 1,100 new housing units downtown in the last year, Coleman noted. A new microbrewery, a new minor-league ballpark and, thanks to funding from the state bonding bill, a renovated Palace Theater soon will open just blocks away from Lunds.

Lund Food Holdings CEO Tres Lund acknowledged the “renewed vitality taking place downtown St. Paul” was a factor in the company’s decision to expand into the district.

“One thing the community has lacked, until now, is a full‐service grocery store,” Lund said. “Our store team of nearly 80 employees is eager to provide the community with this much‐needed amenity. Whether you live or work in and around the downtown area, we look forward to becoming your new neighbor.”

A ‘full-service’ grocer

Lunds and Bylerly’s, which Lund Food Holdings acquired in 1997, have 25 retail locations across the Twin Cities area. The chain, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, has established a reputation for upscale, full-service operations.

The downtown St. Paul Lunds figures to become a popular lunch destination among people working in the area, and the store has a café seating area to accommodate the lunch rush.

Deli workers celebrate the store's grand opening (L to R): Bartara Gonzales, Alaina Moseng and Kristina Kong.

Deli workers celebrate the store’s grand opening (L to R): Bartara Gonzales, Alaina Moseng and Kristina Kong.

The store’s deli features a salad bar, sandwiches, soups and other hot foods. There’s also sushi, prepared in the store daily, and a Big Bowl Chinese Express counter.

Other services and offerings include cake decorating at Lunds’ bakery, hundreds of specialty cheeses from around the world, the largest olive and antipasti bar in any Lunds or Byerly’s, and free knife sharpening from the store’s meat department.

Bachman’s Floral, Caribou Coffee and St. Croix Cleaners dry cleaning operate counters inside Lunds, providing additional convenience for shoppers.

Access to the store is equally convenient, with 95 stalls in an attached parking ramp and, beginning June 14, a Green Line light-rail stop just one block away.

Penfield pays off

The Penfield, which houses Lunds, is built on the former site of the St. Paul Public Safety Building, the façade of which has been absorbed into the new structure.

The 80 or so members of UFCW Local 1189 who staff Lunds are the latest in a string of union members who have found employment as a result of The Penfield development. But there was a time when many wondered if The Penfield would get off the ground at all.

After the housing market collapsed with the Great Recession, the development stalled, as did Lunds’ plans to open in the downtown market. Financing from the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, which invests union pension capital into union-built construction projects, helped revive the project.

“When I took office in 2006, the Penfield project was one of our No. 1 priorities. We knew it would help the rest of the city develop,” Coleman said. “The challenge was, as the economy collapsed, the resources that we needed [for] the project were scarcer and scarcer. It was the Housing Investment Trust that allowed us the resources we needed to get this project in the ground and get people to work building it.”

Now that investment is putting union members to work inside The Penfield as well.

web.lunds-outside

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Looking back on a century of support for buying union in St. Paul

June 3, 2013 by

archives-1989In the same spirit of The Union Advocate’s annual Buy Union edition, in which we encourage union members to support businesses that hire union workers, publishers of the Minnesota Union Advocate urged readers to “Buy Bread With the Union Label” in their June 6, 1913, edition.

archives-1913They weren’t afraid to lay it on thick 100 years ago, either:

“All residents of St. Paul who prefer clean, wholesome and well-made bakery products to those of another character; all who like to see skill properly recompensed, pluck win its contests and men get a square deal all around; and all who believe in helping those who help themselves, should patronize the Co-operative Baking Company and buy its products only.”

The baking company, owned by organized labor, was in stiff competition with corporate bakers – a “gigantic monopoly,” according to The Advocate, that threatens the existence of the Bakery Workers’ union.

“The world is largely indifferent to the struggle, and so, in order to look out for their own interests and supply here wholesome articles of food in their line, the union bakers of St. Paul have organized a co-operative baking company,” The Advocate added. “They should have all the support men in other unions and their families can possibly give them.”

At right, check out the Co-Operative Baking Company’s ad in The Union Advocate, along with some other “buy union” ads from our pages over the last 100 years.

[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.]

archives-196375 Years Ago: Labor backs Benson for re-election

In June 1938 the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly passed a resolution affirming its support for Gov. Elmer A. Benson’s re-election campaign, and as the assembly’s official publication, The Advocate laid out the case for Benson in advance of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s June 20 primary election.

Most notably, The Advocate commended Benson, elected governor just 18 months earlier, for “barring the Pinkerton Detective Agency from the state.” The Pinkertons were a private security firm popular among businesses looking to infiltrate unions, intimidate workers and break up strikes.

Labor’s support made a big difference in the DFL primary, in which Benson eked out a narrow victory over former Gov. Hjalmar Petersen. The Advocate offered a theory as to why Peterson drew so many votes against an incumbent DFL governor: GOP subterfuge.

“That a large number of Republicans went into the Farmer-Labor primary to support Mr. Petersen was quite evident from the number of votes cast for the Farmer-Labor candidates for governor as compared with those cast for the Farmer-Labor candidates for lieutenant governor.” .

25 Years Ago: Compensation for AmHoist workers

About 200 displaced American Hoist & Derrick workers attended a contentious meeting in June 1988. At issue: how to spend $4 million AmHoist was forced to return to the City of St. Paul after it was determined the company had illegally used a federal grant to move its crane operations from Minnesota to North Carolina two years earlier.

In a “highly charged discussion,” according to The Advocate, workers expressed frustration that many remained unemployed. “Several … said lack of health insurance, the inability to find work and family emotional and financial difficulties are serious problems.”

Later that year, the task force would roll out the AmHoist Reemployment Action Project, a partnership between unions and the City of St. Paul to find jobs for the estimated 700 to 1,200 displaced workers who remained unemployed.

Former U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento was critical in forcing AmHoist to return the federal money to St. Paul.

Workers at AmHoist were members of the International Association of Machinists.

10 Years Ago: Grand Hotel dropped from union list

Speaking of buying union, UNITE HERE Local 17 dropped a Minneapolis hotel from its list of union-represented properties in June 2003 after three years of unproductive negotiations on a new contract for 50 hotel employees.

Local 17 President Jaye Rykunyk made the decision after the Minneapolis office of the National Labor Relations Board refused to order Grand Hotel owner Jeff Wirth to sign a collective bargaining agreement, which the union claimed he had verbally agreed to sign.

“Once the board sent that message,” Rykunyk told The Advocate, “there’s no reason for the employer to bargain in good faith. We view the board as being a completely useless entity at this point. In our view, the board has wholesale abandoned its responsibility to enforce the law”

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Put your holiday shopping dollars to work at Fair Trade Coalition gift sale

November 5, 2012 by

Holiday shopping season is right around the corner. Shoppers looking to give gifts but avoid products made in sweatshops should mark Dec. 2 on their calendars; that’s when the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition will hold its annual Fair Trade/Union Made Holiday Sale.

The sale features products made by workers treated fairly and ethically by their employers or distributors, from artisan crafts from around the world to clothes made by union members right here in the U.S. Items for sale will be provided by Ten Thousand Villages and Union House, the all-American retailer based in Wyoming, Minn.

The sale will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 2 at the CWA Local 7200 Hall, 3521 E. Lake St., Minneapolis.

The holiday sale benefits the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, a nonprofit coalition of 50-plus faith, labor, environmental, family-farm, consumer and human rights groups, advocating for trade policy that promotes social and environmental justice.

“We know that workers across the globe get mutual benefit when they stand in solidarity for their rights, and this event is being held to promote the values of the movement for Global Solidarity,” coalition director Josh Wise said.

Entertainment and refreshments also will be provided. For more details contact Josh Wise at josh [at] citizenstrade [dot] org. Or call 952-828-5474.

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