Candidates for governor vie for labor support at state AFL-CIO forum

February 16, 2018 by

The four leading DFL candidates for governor made their pitch to union activists from across Minnesota today at a forum in St. Paul, promising to support working people and their organizations if elected.

State Reps. Erin Murphy and Tina Liebling, U.S. Rep. Tim Walz and State Auditor Rebecca Otto were united in their opposition to right-to-work legislation and support for union organizing and collective bargaining.

[Watch the full debate on the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Facebook page.]

Bargaining rights and professional standards would be off the table in Capitol negotiations with Republicans under her administration, Murphy said. Otto pledged to be the “most pro-labor governor since Floyd B. Olson.” Walz cast himself as an “organizer in chief.” Liebling spoke of finding inspiration in the iconic photos of Memphis sanitation workers carrying “I am a man” signs.

Unions, Liebling added, are “about human dignity and freedom, about being able to stand together and fight to have a decent life.”

The candidates also brandished their union credentials. Murphy is a member and past executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, Otto and Walz are former members of Education Minnesota, and Liebling was a steward in her union when she worked as a public defender. All four said they had walked a picket line in the last year – “in heels,” Murphy quipped.

When it came to issues, the candidates frequently agreed. They supported raising the minimum wage, expanding free access to higher education and protecting public pensions. Minnesota’s next governor, they agreed, should get the state on track to a single-payer health care system, crack down on wage theft and make needed investments in infrastructure and public schools.

The candidates differed, of course, over who among them could best sell a bold, progressive vision for shared prosperity to Minnesota voters.

Otto, the only candidate on stage who has won a statewide election, said her focus on “bread and butter issues” would resonate best. “The DFL should never be afraid to run on an economic populism message,” she added.

Walz and Liebling touted their success winning in traditionally conservative areas, flipping red districts to blue. Voters are anxious about their economic security, Walz said, but in 2016 they didn’t hear a message from labor-endorsed candidates that spoke to their concerns.

“This is about us taking a message beyond the four walls that we’re in,” he said. “As much as having the right idea, it’s being able to articulate it to those very people who are casting votes and are going to be impacted by it.”

Instead of taking shots at each other, the candidates targeted their criticism at President Trump, likely GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Pawlenty and Wisconsin’s anti-worker governor, Scott Walker.

Murphy said her administration would take action where the federal government is failing to lead, on issues like immigration and rising student debt loads, which are “inhibiting young people’s ability to participate fully in our economy,” she said.

Otto said she would “clean Pawlenty’s clock” in a general election matchup. Walz said he would aggressively recruit teachers and high-road businesses from Wisconsin, where Walker’s anti-union agenda has driven educators away from the profession and left wages stagnant.

“If the states are the laboratories of democracies … that laboratory’s on fire right now,” Walz said of Wisconsin.

The debate capped the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2018 Campaigns Conference, two days of workshops, panel discussions and trainings for political activists and organizers.

The event kicked off labor’s statewide political campaign, Labor 2018. Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy, the state’s highest-ranking labor leader, said electing a labor-endorsed governor will be labor’s No. 1 goal in a busy election season. The state House of Representatives is up for election, as are both of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seats.

“It’s going to be up to all of us to get the word out to fellow union members why this election is so important,” McCarthy said. “I think you heard (why) from the candidates here today.”

Marcia Avner, a nonprofit leader and longtime progressive voice, moderated the forum. She did not mince words about the stakes for 2018.

“We need to elect a governor whose values and actions serve the working people of Minnesota,” Avner said. “We cannot afford to lose.”

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AFL-CIO picks Minnesota to debut course in strategic research

May 11, 2016 by
Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy welcomed participants to a three-day training in strategic research.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy welcomed participants to a three-day training in strategic research.

In union-organizing and contract campaigns, information is power. And a first-of-its-kind training in Minnesota this week aims to equip more unions with the skills needed to access – and utilize – information that builds power for working people.

More than 40 officers, organizers and activists from 27 local unions, labor federations and community allies are attending the AFL-CIO Strategic Campaign Research Training today through Friday at Education Minnesota’s headquarters in St. Paul.

“This is the first time the national AFL-CIO has brought this training to a state,” Minnesota AFL-CIO Strategic Research Director Melissa Hysing said. “So it’s exciting.”

The nation’s largest labor federation developed the training to help its affiliates meet the challenges of a changing economy.

Corporations are now global entities with assets worldwide, and workplaces are increasingly fragmented, with layers of contractors, subcontractors and temp agencies. Strategic research, Hysing said, helps unions “identify who has the power over the workers and how to approach that power,” whether it’s at the bargaining table or in an organizing campaign.

“Our current regulatory environment doesn’t do enough to support workers who want to organize,” she added. “Combined with the ongoing attacks on unions, it’s a really challenging environment in which to organize. So we have to be strategic.”

That starts with digging deep into an employer’s operation, from its balance sheets to its foreign subsidiaries – information corporations aren’t often forthcoming about sharing with the public.

“We’re not going to spend two and a half days training you how to Google,” Julie Farb Blain, director of the AFL-CIO’s Center for Strategic Research, told participants at the beginning of today’s session.

As important as gaining access to information about an employer is knowing how to use it.

“You can have a collection of facts about a company, but how do you use that to analyze the company?” Hysing said. “And how do you use that analysis to put together a campaign plan?”

The Minnesota AFL-CIO offered the training in collaboration with the Center for Strategic Research. The national AFL-CIO wanted to roll out the initiative here, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy said, in part because the state’s unions – and labor federations – are receptive to new methods of building worker power.

“At our regional labor federations and at the Minnesota AFL-CIO, we don’t organize workers directly, but we can lend support, including strategic research,” McCarthy said. “That’s how we create a culture of organizing throughout our local labor movement.”

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Labor federation looks to put union members on ‘Path to Power’

January 28, 2015 by
Lynn Barton, a child care provider and AFSCME member from Alexandria, joined in a workshop at the Path to Power training.

Lynn Barton, a child care provider and AFSCME member from Alexandria, joined in a workshop at the Path to Power training.

Lynn Barten stood up in a conference room Sunday morning in St. Paul and gave a stump speech for a campaign she isn’t running – not yet, anyway – before a roomful of people who couldn’t vote for her anyway.

Barten, an AFSCME member from Alexandria, was one of more than 70 people who enrolled in the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Path to Power training, a two-day boot camp in the most basic skills necessary to run an effective campaign for public office – skills like messaging, fundraising, networking and, yes, writing a stump speech.

“There are all these things like messaging, how you present yourself, how you sell your campaign,” Barten said. “It’s campaign basics, but had I thought of it before? Probably not.

“If it weren’t for an event like this, I’d just be doing everything on Google, searching for how to write a stump speech.”

The best advocates

When union members like Barten win election to public office, they make the best advocates for working families. That’s the idea behind the new Path to Power initiative, introduced by the Minnesota AFL-CIO last year.

[Click here to check out details regarding the next Path to Power training, April 25-26 in Little Canada.]

In many ways, program coordinator Bill Emory said, Path to Power is a response to the proliferation of attacks on the middle class. Corporate-backed lobbying groups like ALEC have turned state capitols into battlegrounds for workers’ rights, and billionaires like Michael Bloomberg are using personal fortunes to push their agendas on an increasingly local level.

“We need more people at all levels of government who actually know what it’s like to balance a checkbook on a middle-class paycheck, know what kind of impact unions have on building a stronger, more fair economy and know how important it is that our public dollars are spent well,” Emory said.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, hopes Path to Power will create a “pipeline” of leaders capable of standing up for the labor movement and its values. The state federation teamed with the national AFL-CIO to develop curriculum for the training.

“We want to make sure that union members have the best preparation possible before they run for office,” Emory said.

Path to Power trainings took union members through the steps of running for public office.

Path to Power trainings took union members through the steps of running for public office.

Everyone welcome

Participation in the training was not restricted to union members. Ira Jourdain, a losing candidate for school board in Minneapolis last year, enrolled in the training to increase his familiarity with unions, how they operate and how their issues relate to campaigns like his.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “I had so many people, even after the election, who were part of a union tell me to run again. Being here today, I’m learning more about making connections with unions and other groups sooner in the campaign.”

Building confidence

Emory said there appears to be a strong appetite for Path to Power candidate trainings among union members and the progressive community. Registration for the first training more than doubled expectations, and already 15 people have signed up for a second training April 25-26.

“I hope that participants will come away feeling confident that they can build a team of committed volunteers, communicate a strong message that includes a focus on economic justice, raise money, talk to voters and do all those things they’ll need to do to run for office successfully,” Emory said.

Barten, who is eyeing a run for Minnesota House of Representatives, said the training moved her one step closer to taking the plunge.

“I was so excited to be here today,” Barten said. “Putting these tools in my toolbox gives me a little more confidence that I really can do this. Maybe it’s not that tough.”

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Minnesota AFL-CIO sponsors candidate training

January 7, 2015 by

mnaflcioAs part of its Path to Power program, the Minnesota AFL-CIO will sponsor a two-day training to equip potential candidates for public office with the tools they need to win and be an effective advocate for workers once elected.

Workshops will focus on developing a message, building a campaign team, raising money and targeting voters, as well as a rundown of issues facing the labor movement and working people today.

The Jan. 24-25 training will take place at Education Minnesota’s offices, 41 Sherburne Ave., St. Paul.

Click here to register online, or contact Path to Power coordinator Bill Emory at wremory@mnaflcio.org or 651-600-6095.

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New endorsements give shape to Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2014 political push

June 18, 2014 by

mnaflcioThe state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, added to its list of endorsed candidates for state and federal offices yesterday, as Labor’s 2014 political push continued to take shape locally.

Most notably, the Minnesota AFL-CIO backed 55 DFLers running for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

The DFL Party will look to defend its 12-seat majority in the House in balloting Nov. 4. Members of the Minnesota Senate, where the DFL also controls a majority of seats, will not stand for re-election until 2016.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO also announced yesterday its endorsement of Minnesota Rep. Steve Simon for Secretary of State, incumbent U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson in the 7th Congressional District and Sharon Sund in the 3rd District.

Earlier this year the state AFL-CIO endorsed Gov. Mark Dayton and his running mate, Tina Smith, along with six DFL candidates for federal offices: Sen. Al Franken; Reps. Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Rick Nolan and Tim Walz; and Mike Obermueller, Rep. John Kline’s opponent in the 2nd District.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the federation and its 1,000-plus affiliate unions will work to get the state’s 300,000 union members – and 250,000 members of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, Working America – to the polls in support of labor-endorsed candidates this fall.

“When the Minnesota AFL-CIO endorses a candidate, it means that working people can count on that person to be their voice when they are elected to office,” Hunter said. “We look forward to electing these candidates to office and working with them to continue building a better Minnesota and country.”

In the East Metro, endorsed House candidates include incumbent Reps. Barb Yarusso (District 42A), Peter Fischer (43A), Leon Lillie (43B), Sandra Masin (51A), Laurie Halverson (51B), Rick Hansen (52A), Joe Atkins (52B), JoAnn Ward (53A), Dan Schoen (54A), Will Morgan (56B), Erin Murphy (64A), Rena Moran (65A), Carlos Mariani (65B), Alice Hausman (66A), John Lesch (66B), Tim Mahoney (67A) and Sheldon Johnson (67B).

Other East Metro candidates endorsed yesterday include Paul Gammel (32A), Laurie Warner (32B), Greg Pariseau (38B), Tim Stender (39A), Tom DeGree (39B), Kay Hendrikson (53B), Don Slaten (54B), Denise Packard (57B), Amy Willingham (58A), Marla Vagts (58B) and Dave Pinto (64B).

The federation noted it expects to add to the list of endorsed candidates in the coming weeks and months.

capitol

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In second term on school board, O’Connell will continue her collaborative approach

October 31, 2013 by
Jean O'Connell

Jean O’Connell

St. Paul school board member Jean O’Connell worked at 3M for 34 years. As an engineer, she learned quickly that it wasn’t enough for an idea merely to work on paper; it also had to work on the factory floor.

It’s an approach O’Connell hopes to expand upon in a second term on the St. Paul Board of Education.

“All of my years as a manager at 3M, I felt the reason I was successful was because I listened to the people who really did the work,” she said. “I spent a lot of time at 3M in manufacturing and quality, listening to people on the floor, trying to make their ideas a reality.

“I’d like to figure out ways in my second term to make that happen in the district.”

That collaborative approach is, no doubt, among the reasons O’Connell, who has served as the board’s chair for the last two years, is one of three labor-endorsed candidates for school board in St. Paul this year.

Project1_Layout 1O’Connell is pointed in her critique of what she views as one of the district’s biggest issues – a “disconnect between the people who do the work and the folks who manage.”

“Our work on the school board is to approve budgets and approve direction, but if it is clear that the employee base doesn’t understand the ‘why’ of that direction, then you’re setting the whole system up for failure,” she said. “It’s important to figure out where people who do the work are at, and try to explain to them, from my perspective, why something is a good idea – and to listen to them.”

In general, O’Connell said, the school district is on solid footing. Voters in the district last fall approved a levy referendum that extended funding levels for eight years, ensuring the students will have access to technology necessary for a 21st century education.

The school’s strategic plan, she said, is sound, but it won’t work if front-line staff and management are not on the same page.

So how do you get everyone in a district with 6,000 employees to buy into a common direction?

“I think its about trying to influence people,” O’Connell said, “trying to influence the administration to really think about how they’re approaching something and whether they are engaging this group or that group.”

Communication can’t only happen between labor and management when something is wrong, she added.

“What can we do to help recognize our employees better?” she said. “We definitely need to create more opportunities for recognition.”

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Farm Bill stalls, McCollum and Ellison join call for Crystal Sugar to end lockout

September 26, 2012 by

American Crystal Sugar appears to be losing favor in Congress at a time when the company needs it most.

With the federal Farm Bill stalled in the House of Representatives, 37 members of Congress, including Minnesota Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison, advised Crystal Sugar CEO Dave Berg to get serious about finding “common ground” with the 1,300 union workers locked out of their jobs for nearly 14 months.

In a letter addressed to Berg and union negotiator Steve Bertelli (download as PDF), federal lawmakers noted the union’s “willingness to meet and discuss the issues,” and called Crystal Sugar’s take-it-or-leave-it approach to negotiations “troubling.”

“A final agreement requires negotiation,” the letter says. “It is incumbent upon the parties to bargain in good faith and genuinely seek to find common ground so that a final agreement can be reached.”

Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz sent a similar letter to Berg and Bertelli last month.

Moorhead-based Crystal Sugar locked out its workers Aug. 1, 2011, after members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union voted overwhelmingly to reject the company’s final contract offer.

The two sides have met occasionally since then, and union negotiators have agreed to meet most of the company’s demands for economic concessions, including higher health care premiums.

Rather than meet workers in the middle, Crystal Sugar countered with no notable changes to its offer, and workers have voted twice to reject it since the lockout began. They say Crystal Sugar insists on contract language that will give management the authority to contract out union members’ jobs, ignore seniority in personnel decisions and bypass hard-fought grievance procedures.

Although Crystal Sugar is seeking to strip its workers of their safety net, the farmer-owned cooperative is lobbying fiercely in Washington D.C. to protect a safety net of its own.

Provisions in the federal Farm Bill known as the Sugar Program keep sugar prices artificially high by limiting domestic producers’ exposure to foreign competition. Many in Congress view the Sugar Program as an unnecessary intervention in the free market, but supporters call it a necessary boost for rural economies.

Those supporters include many urban, pro-labor lawmakers like Ellison and McCollum. But with the current Farm Bill likely to expire at the end of the month, Crystal Sugar’s lockout isn’t helping efforts to get a new Farm Bill passed into law.

Locked-out Crystal Sugar workers picket outside a Crystal Sugar shareholder’s home in Crookston.

The lockout “isn’t in the best interests of working people, and it’s not in the best interests of the Sugar Program,” said Bill Harper, McCollum’s chief of staff.

Ellison said the labor dispute is “pulling apart the building blocks of a good relationship” that has served workers and farmers well in the past.

“The company and the workers have always been supportive of the Sugar Program because it’s made the company profitable and, historically, has allowed the company to pay the workers in a way that’s fair,” Ellison said. “If they want to break that arrangement, it’s not going to help anyone.”

Perhaps with an eye toward going it alone on Capitol Hill, Crystal Sugar has spent more than $1.8 million on federal campaign contributions this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In a letter sent Aug. 21, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on labor-endorsed members of Congress who received Crystal Sugar cash to use their “influence and stature to insist that the company resolve this dispute immediately and end the lockout” – and to return the donation if Crystal Sugar refuses.

McCollum is among a handful of lawmakers who have returned the cash, Harper said.

Ellison, meanwhile, holds out hope that continued pressure from members of Congress who have worked with the company in the past will prod Berg and Crystal Sugar’s farmer-shareholders toward the middle ground in negotiations.

“Why would they not want to do the right thing by the union?” Ellison said, recalling two speeches he made on the House floor about the lockout. “This is a question I’ve raised and I’m going to continue to raise.”

Take Action:

For more information on the lockout and how to support locked-out workers and their families, go to www.CrystalGreed.com.

For more information on the toll Crystal Sugar’s lockout is taking on the company’s productivity and efforts to pass the Farm Bill, go to www.CrystalSugarFacts.com.

Click here to thank Rep. Betty McColllum for her continued support of Crystal Sugar’s locked-out union workers.

Click here to thank Rep. Keith Ellison for his continued support of Crystal sugar’s locked-out union workers.

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Letter to the Editor: In this election, union members must keep their eyes on the prize

September 24, 2012 by

Mike Mazurkiewicz

I’ve been retired for a few years now. Although I don’t always know (or care) what day of the week it is, I do try to stay informed, and I brush up on national, local and postal issues – especially those affecting seniors and retirees. That leads me to some thoughts on something I do care about – the important 2012 presidential election. We have one political party saying government is the problem. The other says it’s the solution. It’s that simple, right?

I’m not so sure.

I see it this way: While government will sometimes be a problem and other times a solution, it will always be the prize. Why else would candidates and political parties spend millions upon millions of dollars on a job that doesn’t pay much? Because with the prize comes enormous power and control. The party winning the prize will have a dramatic impact on your jobs, your family, your retirements – and the future of our country.

Will they be a solution or a problem? Who deserves the prize? Cynics will say this election is a question of the lesser of two evils. Others will say it’s the evil of two lessers.

Maybe, but maybe not. I have voted in every election since I was 21, and over the years cast my vote for different political parties based on what I felt was important. But during the last few decades or so I have become increasingly disgusted with and opposed to the party that calls itself “conservative.”

Their policies turned our country’s budget surplus into a multi-trillion dollar deficit. What’s conservative about that? They continue to say that tax cuts for the wealthy will have a positive, “trickle down” effect for the middle class. But have they? No, they haven’t.

Now these “conservatives” want to double down on trickle down. I cannot simply stand by and let them run our nation into the ground and turn us into a third-world country.

I watched with disgust as “conservatives” approved (but didn’t fund) an unnecessary war, voted for wealthy tax cuts and sent American jobs to foreign countries via the passage of NAFTA and CAFTA. They warn us about their opposition party’s “socialist” policies, but they willingly sold the debts their policies created to Communists in China, and actually made socialists out of us all by using taxpayers to bail out Wall Street and the Banks. (Apparently profits belong to capitalism, but socialism is OK for losses).

“Conservatives” really stuck it to postal workers with “Postal Reform,” which put the only government agency that regularly made money into bankruptcy.

Oh sure, they say they care about us middle class people – while we’re in the womb! But after that – well, you’re on your own. Forget about supporting education, good jobs, social services, health care and a clean environment; you have to use your own personal responsibility and care for your own needs, until you’re needed for the next war.

I won’t allow the same political party most responsible for the declining state of our union try to tell me that they are the solution. And I won’t let its “Tea Party” faction try to convince me that their outdated and failed ideologies are a “new direction.” I’m not even going to listen to them anymore.

Well, maybe just a little bit. I did watch some of the Republican National Convention. What a joke! They accuse the president of not doing his job when they have done nothing but obstruct every piece of progressive legislation he proposed. They condemn the president for proposing a plan that is identical to a plan their own candidate proposed while governor of Massachusetts. They’re not just clueless; they’re shameless.

The fact is that our Congress hasn’t been doing its job – unless you think supporting an oligarchy while dissolving a democracy is their job. I’m done putting up with them.

– Michael Mazurkiewicz, St. Paul Area American Postal Workers Union retiree

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