Carpenters plan hiring fair, open house April 8

March 11, 2015 by

north-country-carpentersInterested in a career in the construction industry? The North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters will host a contractor hiring fair and open house April 8 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the union’s headquarters and training center in St. Paul.

The free, public event will feature contractors looking to hire new construction workers, tool vendors showing their wares, demonstrations by apprentices and a tool “shop-n-swap” with quality pre-owned tools for sale.

Community members also will have an opportunity to learn more about the Carpenters, with information available about the union’s crafts (carpenter, millwright, pile driver, floor coverer), its apprenticeship program, wages and benefits, and how to become a member.

The union also will host an American Red Cross Blood Drive at its hall the day of the event, from 2 to 6 p.m. To register to give blood, go to www.redcrossblood.org and enter “Carpenters” as the sponsor code.

The NCSRCC Carpenters Union and Training Center is located at 710 Olive Street.

For more information, go to www.northcountrycarpenter.org.

Click here to download a flier for the event.

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Trades showcase apprenticeship programs at Construct Tomorrow career fair

July 30, 2014 by
James, an Edina resident who attended the Construct Tomorrow event with Big Brothers Big Sisters, solders his first pipe at the Pipefitters Local 455 booth.

James, an Edina resident who attended the Construct Tomorrow event with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, solders his first pipe at Pipefitters Local 455’s booth.

Maria Meza watched intently as Robbie Luukkonen, a journeyman member of Bricklayers Local 1, installed ceramic tile onto a makeshift practice wall. When Luukkonen had finished the demonstration, Meza picked up the tools and tried tiling for herself.

This is the way Meza, who graduated from St. Paul Johnson High School in the spring, learns best. “I’m a hands-on type of person,” she explained. “I’m not the type of person to sit behind a computer all day.”

Meza and dozens of other young people received a hands-on introduction to careers in the Building Trades yesterday at Construct Tomorrow, an apprenticeship fair held on the outdoor quad on the grounds of the Humphrey Job Corps in St. Paul.

Several unions set up interactive booths around the quad, marketing their apprenticeship programs to young people – from middle-schoolers to 21-year-olds – from several educational and job-training initiatives, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Humphrey Job Corps and UnderConstruction, a program that introduces urban teens to the Building Trades.

Participants wandered from booth to booth, trying out the tools of various trades and firing questions at journeymen volunteers like Luukonen and apprenticeship instructors like Mark Szybatka of Sheet Metal Workers Local 10.

“They ask how people get into the trades, how long it takes to complete the apprenticeship,” Szybatka said. “Some ask us about injuries – cuts – because of the sharp edges we work with.

“I tell them as long as you like to work with your hands, there’s got to be something we offer that you’ll like doing, ”

Ravinia Walker (R), a 21-year-old from St. Paul, watched as M.J. Fackler, a second-year apprentice with Ironworkers Local 512, demonstrated different methods of using wire to tie rebar together.

Ravinia Walker (R), a 21-year-old from St. Paul, watched as M.J. Fackler, a second-year apprentice with Ironworkers Local 512, demonstrated different methods of using wire to tie rebar together.

Benefits of apprenticeship abound

Local 10, Szybatka said, will take on about 100 new apprentices this year. They will join more than 358,000 registered apprentices nationwide, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics from 2012.

With college tuition on the rise, apprenticeships appeal to aspiring workers looking to start earning good wages right away. Most apprenticeships mix coursework with paid, on-the-job training, and some Building Trades apprentices are eligible for health insurance and other benefits as a result.

“From Day 1 you start with a certain wage, and as the union negotiates wages with the contractors, our wages go up along with the journeymen’s,” second-year apprentice M.J. Fackler told two young women visiting Ironworkers Local 512’s booth. “After two years, I’m up to earning about 70 percent of what a journeyman earns.”

Each year, according to the DOL, Building Trades unions and their partner contractors invest more than $1 billion in apprentice and journey-level training, millions more in training facilities and about $10 billion in apprentice wages and benefits. That investment represents a major boost not only to the construction industry, but to the U.S. economy as well.

Maria Meza, who graduated from St. Paul Johnson in the spring, will enter the Carpenters union's apprenticeship program this fall.

Maria Meza, who graduated from St. Paul Johnson in the spring, will enter the Carpenters union’s apprenticeship program this fall.

Outreach to the underrepresented

Despite the benefits of apprenticeship, awareness among young people remains low, said Joe Navejas, a business representative for Roofers Local 96.

“When you go to school, people stress the importance of going to college, but not everybody is college material. Some want to do things with their hands,” Navejas said. “Many kids don’t get an opportunity to figure out that the trades are a career option too. Today, this is an opportunity for us to provide that experience for kids.”

Construct Tomorrow is also an opportunity for apprenticeship programs to reach out to women and young people from minority communities, who often are underrepresented in the Building Trades.

Brett Rickert, 20, of Avon attended as part of his curriculum at the Department of Labor & Industry’s Humphrey Job Corps, a free program that provides students 1,000 hours of pre-apprenticeship training in the basics of construction work.

Brett Rickert, 20, of Avon attended as part of his curriculum at the Department of Labor & Industry’s Humphrey Job Corps, a free program that provides students 1,000 hours of pre-apprenticeship training in the basics of construction work.

Dawn Zamora, a journeywoman with St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455, worried about how others would react to having a woman in their class when she began her apprenticeship six years ago.

“I did have concerns I wouldn’t be accepted, but I really have had very few problems,” Zamora said. “Just like in any workplace, people take their time getting to know you, but as long as you work hard and try your best, you are accepted.”

What’s more, Zamora found many journeymen were willing to share advice and tricks of the trade with apprentices on the jobsite – a quality Zamora carried forward yesterday, helping Construct Tomorrow participants solder copper pipes at Local 455’s booth.

“It’s important that young people get to know their options, that young women can know this career is a possibility,” Zamora said. “The union is like a family. I do not regret it at all.”

Click here for a directory of apprenticeship programs offered by Minnesota’s Building Trades unions.

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Carpenters Union plans vintage car show Aug. 9 in St. Paul

July 16, 2014 by

north-country-carpentersAttention muscle-car enthusiasts and family-fun seekers: Mark Saturday, Aug. 9 on your calendars. That’s when local Carpenters unions, for the third consecutive year, will host a vintage car show to benefit their food shelf.

Hot-rod owners will compete for 10 best-in-show trophies, and the first 50 vintage cars to arrive at the event will receive dashboard plaques. The event also will feature food for purchase, door prizes and special appearances by the St. Paul Police’s K-9 and Mounted Patrol foundations.

Admission is free with two non-perishable food items or a cash donation to the Carpenters Union Food Shelf.

The show will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters offices, at 740 Olive Street in St. Paul.

For more information contact John at 651-324-3648. Click here to download the event flier with map.

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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.

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Trades back measure putting teeth into bidding requirements

March 17, 2014 by
Minnesota Building and Construction Trades President Harry Melander addressed union members during a rally at the Capitol March 6.

Minnesota Building Trades President Harry Melander addressed members during a rally at the Capitol March 6.

Public construction projects in Minnesota are awarded to the “lowest responsible bidder,” according to state law. But how do public agencies distinguish which bidders are responsible?

It’s a question the state’s Building Trades unions want answered during the 2014 legislative session.

With lawmakers likely to pass a bonding bill containing roughly $1 billion in infrastructure investments, they also could act on a measure that would establish criteria for determining which contractors are “responsible” enough to bid on those projects.

The “Responsible Contractor Bill” (House File 1984/Senate File 1919) would require any vendor awarded a public construction contract valued at more than $50,000 meet certain criteria – including, most notably, a track record of obeying the law.

During a rally staged by Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council at the Capitol on March 5, Speaker of the House Paul Thissen called the measure, which has bipartisan backing, a matter of common sense.

“If you’re going to work for the State of Minnesota, you ought to obey the law,” he said.

Too often, though, that isn’t the case.

Case study on campus

In 2012 state taxpayers backed a major construction project on the North Hennepin Community College campus in Brooklyn Park. The project was rife with wage-and-hour violations, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

The agency collected $6,847 in back wages for five employees of B & D Plumbing and Heating after the contractor violated apprenticeship rules. Marbella, another contractor on the project, paid the DLI $54,000 after misclassifying its workers and underreporting their hours. And Beck Drywall paid $14,731 in back wages owed to eight employees not paid for their overtime hours.

In all DLI retrieved $77,000 in back wages and lost labor costs from five firms awarded work on the NHCC campus. While that’s a shocking amount of wage theft on a single construction project, it’s not surprising to observers familiar with the track record of firms like Beck Drywall.

Before the ink had dried on its contract to work on the NHCC campus, Beck already was the prime focus of a federal investigation into wage theft on taxpayer-funded projects in Woodbury and St. Michael. The investigation found Beck owed $430,000 in back wages for 59 employees.

But the federal investigation did not prohibit Beck from bidding for work on the NHCC campus. In fact, the contractor remains “responsible” enough under current law to bid for the next taxpayer-funded construction job, on equal footing with contractors that pay their workers in full and play by the rules.

Protecting taxpayers

That’s why the Trades are pushing the Responsible Contractor Bill – “to protect the taxpayers from hiring contractors who violate the state laws, particularly laws that govern the way they pay their employees,” said Kyle Makarios, political director for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.

The bill would require any outfit awarded a construction contract by a public agency valued at more than $50,000 meet certain criteria, including:

  • Compliance with the state’s workers compensation and unemployment insurance requirements.
  • Proof the contractor has not violated state or federal employment laws – including minimum wage, prevailing wage, overtime and employee classification – over the previous three years.
  • No existing tax liens or delinquencies.

The bill also would put general contractors on the hook for ensuring any subcontractor they retain meets the same criteria.

“Too often we have found contractors who commit significant prevailing wage violations or other violations of state law continue to be awarded projects that are paid for by the taxpayers,” Makarios said. “The Responsible Contractor Bill would say we are only going to award taxpayer funded contracts to contractors who follow the law and have not had serious violations in recent history.”

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Delegates debated beer’s ‘intoxicating effects’ 75 years ago

February 3, 2014 by

This headline from The Union Advocate’s Feb. 16, 1939 edition immediately caught our eye: “Assembly Opposed To Defining Beer As Intoxicating.”

Turns out, the headline was a bit misleading. The article reported that St. Paul’s central labor body, the Trades and Labor Assembly, passed a resolution opposing a bill before the Minnesota Legislature to define so-called “three-two beer” – beverages with 3.2 percent alcohol content or less – as intoxicating.

Unions joined the brewing industry in opposing the measure, which would have placed limits on the sale of beer “for the benefit of the hard liquor interests.” Whiskey distilleries, The Advocate reported, were not nearly as unionized as breweries, which were “practically 100 percent union throughout the nation” at the time.

“Proponents of the motion declared that such a law would drive hundreds of places out of business by reason of high license fees with consequent curtailment of employment in the brewing industry,” The Advocate reported.

We’ll drink to that.

[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.]

75 Years Ago: Café owner accused paper of libel

The Advocate’s coverage of wage theft at a St. Paul eatery drew charges of libel from the establishment’s owner in February 1939.

Workers at Gentile’s Café, a union shop on Payne Avenue, signed sworn affidavits in support of The Advocate’s reporting, the newspaper reported in its Feb. 9 edition.

The affidavits confirmed owner Charles Gentile had forced employees to endorse the backs of their paychecks without seeing the amount on the front. Gentile would then cash the checks himself and return a different amount to the employees, “holding out whatever he thought the employee would approve through fear of losing his or her job.”

The claims of libel were strange, given that Gentile had already reached a settlement with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, which called for the café to pay $350 in back wages to its workers.

Just because Gentile had made things right with his workers, The Advocate argued, did not change the facts of the story.

“In publishing the story … the Union Advocate followed its usual course in giving publicity to an affair of vital importance to organized Labor,” The Advocate reported. “Such publications are made for the sole purpose of serving as a deterrent to others against chiseling on union agreements.”

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

25 Years Ago: Spotlight on child labor

The Union Advocate put a spotlight on child labor in its Feb. 20, 1989 edition, reporting on a speech delivered by Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, at the University of Minnesota.

“Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse and the California Raisins can bring smiles to the faces of American youngsters. But in developing countries, these toys represent misery for the young girls and boys who spend long hours toiling to produce them,” Union Advocate Editor Barb Kucera wrote.

Gray’s speech detailed long hours, low wages and sweatshop conditions endured by children working in Asia’s developing countries, particularly China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

“An average work week for a 12-year-old girl in such a factory runs from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The girl receives a one-hour lunch break and often sleeps right on the factory premises in makeshift dormitories housing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of children.

“During the Christmas rush to get toy orders to the United States, the young workers have been ordered to put in 24-hour shifts,” Gray said.

International political pressure, he added, would be crucial to eliminating child labor, as it can help bring about the economic change that he called “the only real solution to the problem.”

“The real solution to child labor is prosperity,” Gray said. “The key is for Mom and Dad to have a job.”

100 Years Ago: Contractors pushed for ‘open shop’

St. Paul Carpenters Union Local 87 ramped up its efforts to strike an agreement for labor peace with the city’s Master Builders association in February 1914, and The Advocate’s Feb. 27 edition documented an exchange of letters between the two sides on its front page.

Representatives of the contractors’ group, however, declined the union’s offer to meet and negotiate a new agreement, prompting charges from the union they were pushing for an “open-shop” system.

Local 87 leaders warned the contractors – and the public – that such a push would be met with stiff resistance. “It is manifest that the Carpenters’ union is opposed to any disturbance in building trades activities in St. Paul this year, and if any upheaval or unpleasantness should come the Master Builders’ association will be wholly responsible for it.”

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Carpenters plan vintage car show to restock food shelf

July 10, 2013 by

north-country-carpentersMuscle-car enthusiasts and family-fun seekers alike will want to mark Saturday, Aug. 10, on their calendars. That’s when local Carpenters unions, for the second consecutive year, will host a vintage car show to benefit their food shelf.

Hot-rods owners will compete for 10 best-in-show trophies, and the first 40 vintage cars to arrive at the event will receive dashboard plaques. The event also will feature a garage sale, food for purchase and door prizes.

Admission is free with two non-perishable food items or a cash donation to the Carpenters Union Food Shelf.

The car show will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters offices, located at 740 Olive Street in St. Paul.

For more information contact Carpenters Local 322 at 651-379-0272.

Click here to download the event flier.

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

December 1, 2012 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

100 Years Ago: Shoe Cutters staged organizing drive

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1987 Santa urged shoppers to buy union.

25 Years Ago: Carpenters targeted chain restaurant builders

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

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

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

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

10 Years Ago: Bush, Pawlenty eyed privatization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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