Report on AI’s impact a ‘wake-up moment’ for MN lawmakers, unions

February 5, 2025 by

Artificial intelligence is poised to have a greater impact on Minnesota’s workforce than most other states’, according to a report released last month. But it’s not too late for workers, unions and state lawmakers to erect guardrails that protect jobs and promote fairness and accountability.

Researchers at the Minnesota-based North Star Policy Action think tank found that the state ranks 10th nationally and second in the Midwest for workforce vulnerability to AI, with 500,000 Minnesotans – or 17% of the workforce – at “high risk” of having their jobs altered by the emerging technology.

Those impacts could be positive or negative for workers, but the implementation of AI is more likely to be good for workers, according to the report, if they have a voice in the process. And that means collective bargaining.

Aaron Rosenthal, North Star’s research director and author of the report, said he hopes its publication serves as a “wake-up moment for both unions and legislators.”

“AI is advancing rapidly in both its technological capacity and its workplace adoption,” Rosenthal said. “It’s time that workers are given protections to ensure that its implementation helps but doesn’t harm them, and that unions are aware of the need to bargain over AI in any negotiation.”

AI implementation can be a good thing for workers, employers and the economy, “but it has to be done in concert with worker welfare,” Rosenthal stressed.

An Al revolution?

AI systems are designed to perform complex tasks normally done by humans, like reasoning, decision making and creating. Generative AI systems like Chat GPT create content – text, images, music and more – from a human prompt, while machine learning AI systems analyze data, images or other systems to perform a task.

Unlike computerization and automation, which have impacted workers in blue-collar jobs like manufacturing, AI is more likely to impact workers with higher levels of education, according to the North Star report. AI is already impacting fields like medical research and health care, law and engineering.

The report points to Minnesota’s strong agricultural, software development and construction industries as areas AI is likely to impact moving forward, making the state more vulnerable than most others. But Rosenthal emphasized that AI is “probably going to touch every industry in the state, and it’s that breadth that’s going to require a similarly broad effort by legislators to respond.”

The stakes are high. AI’s potential impact “puts it into a class with only the most significant economic shifts, such as the Industrial Revolution,” during which labor lost a significant share of its income, according to the report.

Without protections for workers, the report warns, AI could “accelerate” income inequality and consolidate more wealth and power among the elites. One AI executive, Sam Altman, already has predicted the technology will create the world’s first trillionaire.

Legislative responses

What should lawmakers be doing in response? The report offers four policy recommendations, and they begin with strengthening workers’ bargaining rights.

Union density is low in many of the industries AI is poised to impact, but collective bargaining is an effective way for workers to “use their expertise to guide an effective employment of AI in their workplace,” Rosenthal said.

Other policy recommendations include worker training and transition programs, regulations governing AI’s use in employment decisions, and a long-term framework – or task force – for keeping tabs on the technology and its use.

State Sen. Erin Maye Quade (D-Apple Valley) co-sponsored a law passed last session to protect Minnesotans from AI-generated deep fakes and non-consensual sexual imagery. This session she hopes lawmakers will prohibit the use of AI in hiring decisions, as a first step toward regulating the technology’s impact on workers.

While the technology may be good at identifying the typical worker an employer has hired in the past, AI won’t be able to account for the racial or other biases that might have factored into those decisions.

“AI knows what, but it doesn’t know why,” Maye Quade said. “AI is built by humans, so it is rife with the same biases that humans carry. The thing about humans is we can be cognizant of our own biases and know that we have them and try to ameliorate that. AI is not going to do that.”

Maye Quade said she is hopeful that the hiring measure will gain bipartisan support in the Legislature. Other AI-related issues lawmakers could consider, she said, include the environmental impact of data centers built to support AI systems across the state and the technology’s use by state agencies.

“There’s only so much a state legislature can do,” Maye Quade acknowledged. “Even between last session and this session, we have seen AI be integrated almost against our will and in more places in our life. We just keep finding out more places.”

Space for unions to act

Some unions, meanwhile, already have taken steps to protect members against negative impacts of AI. In contract negotiations with entertainment studios in 2023, members of the Writers Guild bargained for language that allows them to use AI as a tool for script writing but protects against the use of fully AI-generated scripts.

And last month, National Nurses United – the umbrella organization that includes the Minnesota Nurses Association – put AI concerns at the forefront of its contract campaign covering more than 100,000 California nurses. The union conducted a survey last year that “found nurses repeatedly reported that their own assessments of patients did not match assessments from AI technology deployed in their facilities.”

North Star’s report suggests Minnesota unions should be taking similar action, whether it’s organizing new workers susceptible to AI’s impacts or bargaining to protect their current members.

“There’s an opportunity here for unions across the state to reach out to individuals in industries that are experiencing newly found precarity due to AI and build cross-class, cross-industry solidarity,” Rosenthal said.

“I think there’s a way of looking at this as Luddite panic about technology, but we’re not saying that AI innovation is a bad thing,” he added. “Far from it. It could complement existing work, making jobs more fulfilling by automating mundane tasks. But it could also produce income inequality by cutting wages, leading to job replacement.

“The difference comes down to legislative responses and, most importantly, the ability for workers to organize and bargain around the shape that AI implementation takes.”

Learn more

Read the full report, “Progress and Protection: Aligning AI Innovation with Worker Welfare,” online at northstarpolicy.org.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Museum workers rally public support for contract campaign

April 23, 2024 by

Science Museum of Minnesota workers supported their union’s bargaining team during an informational picket and rally outside the museum in St. Paul.

Union members at the Science Museum of Minnesota tapped into a well of solidarity during their contract rally April 2, pulling support from hundreds of fellow AFSCME Council 5 members taking part in a convention across the street.

Together, they turned Kellogg Avenue’s sidewalk into a river of AFSCME’s trademark green, holding informational picketing to demand museum management pick up the pace in negotiations over a first union contract for the newly formed bargaining unit of over 200 workers.

“It’s been a real slog,” Gretchen Haupt, a member of the Science Museum of Minnesota Workers Union, said. “But the small gains we have gotten usually come after some action or public pressure. That’s why we’re out here today.”

When Haupt and other museum workers voted to unionize in January 2023, they cited a need for pay transparency, fair grievance and disciplinary processes, and compensation increases to reflect their skill levels and experience. The union’s bargaining team has turned those issues into more than 20 contract proposals over the course of negotiations that began over eight months ago.

Getting management to counter their proposals, though, has taken as long as five months. And when they do get a response, Haupt said, it’s usually unproductive.

“They laughed, actually, at our initial pay scale proposal,” she said. “But they still haven’t said what they would rather have, other than the way it is now. It’s really disheartening.”

[Show your solidarity! Supporters can sign a petition calling on the Science Museum to stop committing unfair labor practices and settle a fair contract.]

During the rally, Science Museum workers described a growing frustration among their ranks. Several speakers wondered how the nonprofit could claim, in its statement of values, a commitment “to achieve collective liberation” while showing such disdain for collective bargaining.

For Megan Goeke, an evaluation and research associate, the frustration has been building for some time. She has been stuck at the bottom of the recommended pay range – or lower – for her job classification since accepting her current role with the Science Museum six years ago. As she gained experience and moved closer to her doctoral degree, Goeke asked for a pay increase, but management refused, keeping her at the bottom of the pay scale.

“I love my work, and I truly believe in the vision and impact the Science Museum of Minnesota has on our community,” Goeke said. “When I decided to go into nonprofit museum work, I knew I wouldn’t see the biggest paycheck in town, but what I didn’t know is that my pay would forever be limited by my initial pay.”

Her message to museum management: “I’ve experienced my share of delays. Let’s see some action.”

But instead of working swiftly toward a first contract, Science Museum management has been engaging in unfair labor practices, according to 12 separate complaints filed by Council 5 with the National Labor Relations Board since workers voted to unionize.

The NLRB has upheld three charges, and others remain pending. Many of the complaints allege that the museum has made unilateral changes to benefits and working conditions – and even layoffs – without engaging the union.

Bart Anderson, Council 5’s interim executive director, said Science Museum bosses seem to believe that ignoring their workers’ union will make it go away. In fact, he said, it’s only going to bring more public pressure on the museum.

“AFSCME Council 5, our union of more than 43,000 workers, is standing firm on our commitment to support our Science Museum of Minnesota members every day as they fight to secure a first contract that respects the rights, contributions and dignity of all workers,” he said.

By sticking together as a bargaining unit and rallying public support to their campaign, union members at the museum believe they have the formula to achieve a fair first contract, Haupt said.

“It’s not just a small group of people who are at the bargaining table, we have broad internal support,” she said. “And today we’re showing we have broad community support, too.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Investment, worker voice critical to addressing care crisis

September 23, 2021 by

Jacquelyn Kelly is a home care worker from Oakdale.

By Jacquelyn Kelly, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota

What we decide to do today will create the foundation on which our families will build their tomorrows. This is true for many parts of life, but it is especially true in the care field. As a home care worker and the mother of a child who needs care support, this issue is personal for me. As a leader in my union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, I’ve come to learn that my fight is more common than I ever could have imagined.

For most of our history, home care workers (also sometimes known as Personal Care Attendants or PCAs) have been paid the minimum wage (or less) with little or no benefits. In Minnesota that was the case before we formed our union, winning what is still the largest union election in Minnesota history and bringing together over 25,000 caregivers, mostly women and people of color.

From when before we had our union until now, we’ve seen wages almost double (we will get to $15.25 in our current contract) and now have paid sick time, paid holidays, training and much more. But we still have so much work to do.

Like most parents of teens who are quickly coming of age, I often think about my child’s future and transition into independence. As a home care worker for my 16-year-old son, I spend every day working to support his independence, but also worry about the systems we have in place to support him if I am not able to support him.

Even before COVID there was a “care crisis” that meant there were close to 10,000 open positions because people didn’t want to do this physically and emotionally challenging work for the meager pay and benefits. In many cases, like mine, a family member provides the care, but thousands of people hire someone they don’t know to provide this intimate level of care. If this was you or your loved one, you’d want workers who feel respected and like their work had value, wouldn’t you?

I know my family will likely need home care workers for that independence to be possible, and I worry a lot about how that is going to be possible if we don’t have the care workers we need. The care industry is one of the fastest growing jobs in the country. I worry that if I can’t offer a living wage, benefits and a viable long term career path, caregivers will choose to move into other employment situations that provide more stability and less risk.

That’s why it is critical that congress pass President Biden’s Better Care, Better Jobs act, which would see a historic $400 billion investment in care work. This would create over 1 million jobs and help workers in non-union states with tools to organize into a union.

An investment in home care is not only supporting care workers, but also our disabled and elderly friends and neighbors who simply want to be able to live safely at home. An investment in making sure all people have the right to choose the life they want for themselves. We need to pivot from treating care as a problem for individuals and toward understanding that it is a shared experience across our society.

We need to reckon with the fact that through most of our history our country has seen care work done by women, and especially women of color, as not real and valuable work. Care workers have been left out and left behind for too long. After COVID, I hope we all know better now. Our communities, our families, our economy, we are all depending on the women doing this work to keep all of our lives going, and what could be more valuable than that?

– Jacquelyn Kelly is a home care worker from Oakdale and member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. She wrote this “Labor Voices” column for The Union Advocate’s October 2021 edition.

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Ordway offers union-member discount on tickets to Sting’s ‘The Last Ship’

March 6, 2020 by

Union members can get steeply discounted tickets to see Sting’s Broadway musical, “The Last Ship,” at the Ordway in St. Paul next month.

“The Last Ship” tells the story of Gideon, a prodigal son returning home after 17 years at sea to find that the local shipyard his town was built around is closing, while Meg, the love he left behind, has moved on.

Tensions flare and picket lines are drawn as foreman Jackie White, played by Sting, rallies workers to take over the shipyard and build one last ship in the face of the gathering storm.

It’s a story about the power of collective action in the workplace, and in a nod to those who know it best, the Ordway is offering members of creative and labor unions tickets for just $49, discounted from the regular price of $90 to $155.

The discount applies to performances April 8, 14 and 15. Tickets must be purchased in advance at Ordway.org, using promo code UNION, or by calling the box office at 651-224-4222.

Union members must show a union card or other proof of membership to obtain their tickets at the box office.

“The Last Ship,” inspired by Sting’s 1991 album “The Soul Cages,” features a Tony Award-nominated original score by Sting. The performance, called “thrilling and stirring” by The Guardian newspaper, features some of Sting’s best-loved songs: “Island of Souls,” “All This Time” and “When We Dance.”

Learn more about the show, which runs April 8 to 19 on the Ordway Music Theater stage, on the Ordway’s website.

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Supreme Court ‘weaponizes’ First Amendment to attack public-sector workers

June 27, 2018 by

FB_DecisionDay2In a 5-4 decision along party lines, the U.S. Supreme Court today altered the landscape of public-sector collective bargaining in Minnesota and more than 20 other states.

The high court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME makes “right-to-work” the law of the land in all public-sector workplaces, opening the door for more workers to reap the benefits of a union contract without sharing in its costs.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, argued that states like Minnesota, which allowed public-sector unions to assess “fair-share fees” to non-members, violated those workers’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech – or, in this case, freedom not to subsidize speech on their behalf.

Alito’s decision overturns a precedent more than four decades in the making, and it gives corporate interests and billionaires who bankrolled the legal challenge a victory for which they had been angling for years.

Union leaders in Minnesota warned the decision would make it harder for working people to join together and advocate for their families and communities, rigging the economy even more in favor of corporations and the wealthy.

file-1

Working people rally in Minneapolis, pledging to stick together in the wake of today’s Janus v. AFSCME ruling.

But Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy, the state’s top labor leader, said working people aren’t giving up their voice.

“No court decision will ever stop working people from joining together in union to negotiate a fair return on their work,” he said. “No matter how many roadblocks corporate special interests put in our path, our state’s labor movement will continue to fight for working Minnesotans’ freedom to prosper.”

Public-sector unions have been bracing for a major blow from the Supreme Court for more than two years. During that time, most have taken steps to strengthen their membership and encourage as many fee-payers to become full members as they can.

Janus is the third in a string of decisions weakening public workers’ bargaining power on First Amendment grounds, and Alito has been a driving force behind all three. His arguments in today’s decision are at times nakedly political, blaming collective bargaining for some states’ underfunded public pension systems and the growth of government spending nationwide.

Alito’s decision also draws a disturbingly shallow parallel between public-sector unions and other advocacy organizations that purport to “speak” on behalf of a unique constituency, like the AARP and the VFW. Alito asks: “Could the government require that all seniors, veterans, doctors pay for that service even if they object?”

The point Alito either ignores or misses is that the VFW can offer unique benefits to people who join, while unions are required by federal labor law to provide the same contractual benefits and representation to everyone in a bargaining unit — even workers who choose not to join.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan accuses Alito and his fellow conservatives on the bench of waging a “6-year crusade to ban (fair-share) fees,” with disregard for precedent the high court has “rarely if ever” seen.

“Unions are — by law — in a different position, as this Court has long recognized” than other advocacy groups, Kagan writes. Fair-share fees “ensured that a union would receive sufficient funds, despite its legally imposed disability, to effectively carry out its duties as exclusive representative of the government’s employees.”

Kagan’s dissent points to equally troubling decisions ahead if the conservative majority continues, in her pointed language, “weaponizing the First Amendment.” She writes:

“Speech is everywhere — a part of every human activity (employment, health care, securities trading, you name it). For that reason, almost all economic and regulatory policy affects or touches speech. So the majority’s road runs long. And at every stop are black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices. The First Amendment was meant for better things. It was meant not to undermine but to pro­tect democratic governance — including over the role of public-sector unions.”

Time will tell how Janus impacts public-sector unions in Minnesota. But a string of wildcat strikes by teachers in West Virginia, Arizona, and other right-to-work states this spring prompted some to wonder if the deep-pocketed donors behind Janus are poised to wake a sleeping giant.

“Neither this ruling nor the right-wing groups that will weaponize it, will silence the voices of Minnesota’s professional educators,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said. “We will still stand for effective and welcoming schools for our students, proud and healthy communities for their parents, and salaries and benefits that will sustain the families of Minnesota educators.”

 

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Dave Zirin: The ‘megaphone of sports’ is more global, powerful than ever

January 31, 2018 by

As the NFL staged its Opening Night Party in St. Paul Monday, protesters shut down streets downtown, calling on Super Bowl sponsors to support local schools and racial equity.

Donald Trump has made politics part of nearly every reporter’s beat. The president’s policy proposals and inflammatory public comments spark reaction and resistance that spill beyond the Beltway, outside the traditional spaces reserved for political debate.

Nowhere, perhaps, has the spillover been more apparent – or uncomfortable – than in the world of sports.

When Colin Kaepernick chose not to stand during the national anthem at a preseason game in 2016, the “take a knee” movement against police brutality in communities of color caught fire. TV networks squirmed over the impact on their ratings, shock jocks lit up sports radio with hot takes, and sports reporters started asking questions that went beyond X’s and O’s.

Dave Zirin has been asking those questions for a long time. A former student at Macalester College, he is the author of “A People’s History of Sports” and other books on how sports and progressive movements intersect. Zirin is at work on a book with Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, and he writes and podcasts regularly at edgeofsports.com. He offered up his thoughts on what Minnesotans can expect during – and after – Super Bowl week in this interview, which has been edited (albeit lightly) for length (he had lots of good things to say).

UA: Teachers, low-wage workers and progressive groups here are using the Super Bowl spotlight to lift up their own campaigns, and some of their messages are obviously inspired by the way pro athletes have used their platform lately. This isn’t a new phenomenon in sports, but to what degree are we witnessing something historic?

Dave Zirin (photo credit: Jen Maler)

DZ: We’re certainly looking at a massive uptick in what is a historical continuum. Sports has always been this very powerful place. We’re taught that sports is this level playing field, this epitome of America, where anybody who’s good can make it. Yet the reality of sports is it’s a very unlevel playing field. It’s also one of the few places that if you come from a working-class or poor background, you have this immense cultural capital to tell your story – and to speak about what’s happening in the world.

I would argue that events like the Super Bowl become more and more these kind of global political events, almost like an economic Trojan horse in these communities. The spotlight is so bright. We’ve never been at a point where the megaphone of sports is more global and more powerful.

UA: What would you say to local activists looking to divert that spotlight into the streets?

DZ: I would say that they are doing the right kind of work. They are part of a tradition that’s really fired up recently in Olympic host cities, World Cup host countries and Super Bowl host cities, where people use the fact the world is watching this particular space to speak about everyday injustices in that space – and also how those injustices are aggravated by hosting these mega-events. People who are homeless find themselves under attack, sex workers find themselves under attack, union workers who might want to exercise their rights for the next week find themselves under attack. It’s not just about leveraging the spotlight, it’s about mounting a very real defense campaign against what these mega-events bring.

We’re talking about an increased police presence, the privatization of public space. We’re talking about the fact that the city is bending over backward to almost create a Potemkin village for the 1 percent that’s coming in. They seek to create this fake veneer of what the city actually is… And then as soon as those people leave and the media leaves, it all gets torn down. And when it all gets torn down, that’s also when it gets really dangerous for people because there’s this push to try to keep some of what’s been in there, whether you’re talking about stepped up police presence or closed-circuit TV cameras. I’ve been to so many Super Bowl host cities and Olympic or World Cup host cities, and that’s what they always say, that there becomes this mission creep…

UA: Twin Cities corporations spent $52 million to lure the Super Bowl to town, and the NFL won’t pay for much of anything this week as a result. What’s the local cost of this willingness to bend over backwards for the NFL and other pro sports leagues?

DZ: We have to suss through this. The actual cost, tragically, is not something that we’re going to be able to know until weeks, if not months, after the event itself. There should be an economic forensic exam, and the unions should take the lead on that. We can’t expect Democrats to do it for us… When they say they don’t have enough money for schools, for health care – this isn’t a question of having enough money, it’s about priorities.

UA: Are attitudes toward mega-events changing?

DZ: You are seeing changes. Cities are rejecting the Olympics, from Boston to Krakow. Cities have stood up to hosting these games because of the economic costs and political costs. Cities have started demanding concessions from the NFL and from local officials, like offsets so that every dollar that goes to the Super Bowl also goes to our schools, or goes to health care. Until that happens, we’re going to keep having this privatization of public wealth, which is really what the Super Bowl is once all the smoke and glitter clears.

UA: Going back to the player protests, how vital have players’ collective bargaining agreements been to this movement?

DZ: The collective bargaining agreement in the NFL has meant everything to these protests. While I would certainly argue that they have the First Amendment right to protest during the anthem, I really do think a lot of NFL players would have just been fired outright if it wasn’t for the fact that the CBA in the NFL has very specific language about whether players have to stand at attention. To compare and contrast, the NBA, which has much more political foment in it, has different language in their CBA that actually directs players to stand at attention. I think that’s one of the reasons you haven’t seen those kinds of protests in the National Basketball Association. They’re just not protected.

If the NFL had just started firing players left and right, they would have been at dire risk of invalidating the entire collective bargaining agreement. They would have given the union, which is already setting up in the next year for contract negotiations, an unfathomable amount of leverage …

As someone who’s interviewed a lot of these players, something that makes me really angry is that the players who are political also tend to be the players who are most community minded, bighearted and down to earth. There’s something so repellent to me that they’re the ones who are demonized by Trump and by certain members of the NFL ownership community. They’re the ones who really do represent the best – not just among NFL players, but among trade unionists in general.

UA: Trump’s use of the NFL – from tweeting about players who kneel to picking on the league at rallies – is remarkable. Why do you think it strikes such a chord with his supporters?

DZ: Like so much with Trump, while it strikes a chord with his base, it has not expanded his base. The polls I see show as many as three-fourths of people do not agree with how he has dealt with this issue. More people, after Trump got involved, were actually on the side of the players than before because he is so toxic.

But this is rank racism. There’s no other way to say it. These are players who are trying to start a conversation – not about the anthem or patriotism, but about racism and police violence. You think Donald Trump wants to have that conversation? Of course not. So he demonizes and attacks these players for being ‘ungrateful.’ One player said to me that ‘ungrateful’ is like Trump’s n-word, something he reserves for only black athletes. This is a very old script, and it resonates because you tap into envy. As if these ‘ungrateful’ athletes … haven’t worked their entire lives to make their way in the world.

UA: But you see backlash against this script?

DZ: Let’s talk about the No. 1 way we can tell that it didn’t work. When he called players SOB’s and used profanity before a rapturous crowd, where was he? He was in Huntsville, Alabama. What happened in Alabama? Somehow the Republicans lost a Senate race…

UA: Are you the guy no one wants to sit next to at the Super Bowl party?

DZ: No, people like sitting next to me. I always bring out the good food. I clean my house so I give people a nice place to sit. I usually spend the first 30 minutes of the Super Bowl in my own personal protest, live tweeting an episode of the “Facts of Life.” People on Twitter tend to go crazy. I lose a couple hundred followers, but I find it funny. I call it the Tootie Bowl.

UA: Who wins? Who are you rooting for?

DZ: I hate the New England Patriots because they always win and they’re arrogant and they’re obnoxious. But I’m sure you’ve heard people say that when the Patriots win it feels like Trump wins all over again. Slow your roll. They’re not Team Trump. Don’t take it that seriously please.

But I’m rooting for the Eagles, and I’ll pick the Eagles. I’ll never root for the Patriots. Ever.

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Walker’s anti-union Act 10 dealing major blow to WI public schools, report finds

November 20, 2017 by

Working people from Wisconsin and Minnesota came together in Hudson, Wis., to protest Act 10 in February 2011. (file photo)

A new analysis of Wisconsin’s public schools reveals several alarming trends since the state adopted legislation stripping teachers and other public service workers of most collective bargaining rights in 2011.

“Gov. Scott Walker and Republican elected leaders in Wisconsin said that Act 10 would benefit schools and families alike,” said David Madlan, co-author of the report. “They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Instead of improving public schools, Act 10 has led to a sharp decline in teachers’ wages and benefits and a troubling uptick in teacher turnover, according to the report.

Madlan and his co-author, Alex Rowell, found that by the 2015-16 school year, the average Wisconsin teacher was earning nearly $11,000 less than before Act 10 passed, when adjusted for inflation.

Unsurprisingly, teachers have been leaving the profession – or finding jobs in other states – at a higher rate since Act 10, and data collected by the state’s Department of Public Instruction shows an influx of less experienced teachers into Wisconsin’s public schools.

“We have seen turnover like we’ve never seen before,” Shelly Moore Krajacic, an English and drama teacher in Ellsworth, Wis., told reporters on a conference call unveiling the report’s findings last week. “It’s difficult for the students and for the teachers to develop teamwork and process.”

Academic research into teacher longevity backs up Moore Krajacic’s experience. “The research is pretty clear that experience and stability of teachers is an important factor in the quality of education a school can provide,” Madlan said.

Commissioned by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress Action Fund, the report serves as a warning to lawmakers in neighboring states considering similar measures.

Last year the Minnesota Legislature moved to weaken teachers’ tenure rights and loosen the licensure process, making it easier for “under-qualified instructors to remain in the classroom for several years in a row,” Rep. Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul) said.

With the Supreme Court expected to deal a major blow to public-sector unions in a decision on Janus v. AFSCME next year, advocates for public schools worry that what’s happening in Wisconsin could spread to states like Minnesota – and spread quickly – if teachers’ collective voice is weakened.

“Our general approach in Minnesota has been to work with public-sector unions in order to create services that work well for the public, and we think over time that’s paid off,” Mariani said. “We watch with a lot of concern what’s happening in our neighbor state.”

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AFSCME Council 5’s founding director to step down – but keep fighting

October 27, 2017 by

Eliot Seide

Eliot Seide was even more fired up than usual when he sat down for a Thursday-morning interview at AFSCME Council 5’s South St. Paul offices last month. News had just broken that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear a case with the potential to weaken public-sector workers’ collective bargaining power, and it had Seide and his staff scrambling to craft a public response.

The interview, scheduled weeks in advance, was timed to coincide with Seide’s retirement as executive director of the state’s largest union of public-service workers. (Assistant Director John Westmoreland will assume the top post Nov. 1, with Seide staying on to assist with the transition until sometime in December.)

A 39-year veteran of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Seide is the only executive director Council 5 has ever known. After organizing and political stints for the union in Florida, Minnesota, New York and elsewhere, Seide moved back to guide the merger of three Minnesota councils into one, finalized in October 2004.

As the council’s founding director, Seide has been a fierce advocate for public workers – and a vocal critic of any attempt to cut, privatize or diminish their work. That includes court cases like Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, and Seide didn’t hold back on that or any other topic in this interview, which has been edited for length.

UA: What drew you to a career in the labor movement?

ES: I don’t really think I had much of a choice… My father learned the printing trade from my grandfather, and he became a chief steward, a business agent and eventually president of Local 51, the Commercial Printers Union in New York City. My mother is a retired AFSCME member. Table talk in our house was about the union… I didn’t get to go to the dentist until the Printers negotiated dental benefits.

UA: How did Minnesota become home?

ES: After (Tim) Pawlenty won the governor’s race and the 2002 elections didn’t go so well for us, the AFSCME councils here asked the international president if I could come back. We started a program called Take Back Minnesota, which I ran for about 9 months. Then I became the director of Council 14, and we started discussions about merging the councils together.

UA: How has that merger paid off?

ES: What we wanted to do was not just consolidate and get larger, but to change. We needed a full-time organizing program and a full-time communications program to project a bold, proud image of what our members do and who we are. And we wanted to do political action in a more thorough way. To use an agricultural metaphor, we were harvesting, but we weren’t seeding, planting and fertilizing.

We went through two shutdowns and difficult contract negotiations with the state. We had to fight back furloughs from the Pawlenty administration. There have been attempts to take away our bargaining rights as early as the 2003 legislative session. But because of our unification, workers have a stronger voice in the workplace. And as a result of the capacity that workers built in this union, Mark Dayton got elected governor. That was the difference between us being Wisconsin or us being Minnesota.

UA: For politicians on the right like Scott Walker, public employees and their unions have become popular targets. Is it an intentional decision at Council 5 never to duck that fight?

ES: Absolutely. My grandmother would say you can tell the quality of a civilization by the state of its libraries. It’s no lift to defend and project a bold, proud image of public workers. Without public workers our roads don’t get maintained, our bridges will be unsafe, the roads don’t get plowed. It’s public workers who stock the lakes with walleye, who make sure we have the most pristine, beautiful parks in the country. The vulnerable folks in our society … are all served by public workers at the state and local level. Without public workers, Minnesota has no quality of life.

UA: We’ve known for a while that, as a result of cases like Janus, right-to-work conditions are on the horizon for public employees nationwide. Will Council 5 be able to continue building power for public workers in that environment?

ES: First, you have to ask this: Why do they want to rob the voice of workers in the workplace? They won Citizens United, and now they want total control of the political process in the U.S. This is about a grab for power by the wealthy, and it’s an abomination. It shouldn’t be happening. We have to confront this, and that’s what the union movement is about.

Council 5 has been about bringing workers together and strengthening the voice of workers in the workplace. The council first has to service its members. But we feel very strongly that we can only serve our members by advocating for all workers. That’s why we’ve allied ourselves with coalitions to raise the wage in the Twin Cities and Duluth. That’s why we fought for parental leave, much to the chagrin of the Legislature. It’s why we’re working in Duluth on earned sick and safe time.

UA: What might things look like for Council 5 if the Janus challenge succeeds?

ES: We’ve had attacks going back to the Pawlenty administration. That’s why we merged. But look, you’ve got to do a fearless self-examination. You’ve got to say to yourself, there are things I’m doing well and there are things I’m not. And we realized, as an organization, we have got to do a better job of having day-to-day communication, one on one with workers. And since January of last year we have had those conversations with over 31,000 members – and we’re not satisfied yet until we get to 40,000. We’ve signed up thousands of new members.

We are building networks in the workplace to make sure folks know that in order to continue to have that voice in the workplace, we have to answer this fundamental question: Do we want to have a union? And the resounding answer from AFSCME Council 5 members has been, damn right we do.

UA: As you look back on your time here, are their particular things you’re proud of? Any regrets?

ES: It’s very satisfying when workers come and tell you the work we’ve done made a difference in their lives. I was at Hennepin County Medical Center, and a cafeteria worker I’ve known for a very long time came up and said she wanted to give me a hug. I asked her why, and she said, ‘Because without the work that Council 14 did and you did when you were our rep, they would have privatized the food service by now – and I wouldn’t be getting a pension.’ That’s a very satisfying thing to hear.”

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

Friedrichs is history (maybe), but Minnesota workers aren’t letting their guard down

May 3, 2016 by
Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a panel discussion with public-sector union leaders, including (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a discussion with public-sector union leaders (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

 

Labor History Month kicked off in St. Paul last night with a discussion of history in the making, as panelists offered insight into public-sector workers’ recent push to breath new life into their unions and defend their right to a voice on the job.

The public forum, titled “The Friedrichs Case and the Future of the Labor Movement,” opened Untold Stories, the labor-history series staged annually in May by The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, with support from a number of unions.

[Programming continues tomorrow with an author talk at the Merriam Park Library. Click here to view details and a full lineup of events.]

At last night’s forum, held at the new St. Paul Labor Center, leaders of three Minnesota unions that represent public-sector workers reviewed recent legal and legislative challenges to their organizing rights – and talked about the ways their organizations are responding.

Debbie Prokopf, attorney and business agent for the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, said corporate-backed politicians and anti-worker legal funds seemingly come up with new ways to “chip away” at public-service workers’ rights every day.

“They’re trying all these wacky, right-wing theories to see what sticks,” Prokopf said, pointing to measures that would require unions to hold recertification votes every year and to negotiate in public, or would severely limit the scope of their contract talks.

Such attacks never gained traction in Minnesota, and that allowed many public-sector unions to “become very complacent,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht acknowledged. “With our state’s strong labor laws, we’ve taken a lot for granted.”

Two developments woke Minnesota’s public-sector unions out of that slumber.

First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, after making scapegoats of teachers and other public workers on the campaign trail, signed legislation designed to cripple their collective bargaining power. And working people in this neighboring state took notice.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

“When unions aren’t able to do their work, then we get Wisconsin,” Specht said. “They’re kind of the poster child now – but not in a good way – and that’s helped us in getting our members to realize what’s at stake.”

The U.S. Supreme Court raised those stakes even higher last year when it agreed to hear Friedrichs v. CTA. The case challenged public-sector unions’ ability to collect fair-share fees from workers they represent, and during oral arguments in January, the court’s conservative majority appeared poised to issue a ruling that would make “Right to Work” the law of the land in the public sector.

‘Don’t wast a good crisis’

The writing, it seemed, was on the wall, and public-sector unions last year began scrambling to convert as many “fair-share fee-payers” into full union members as they could before the court issued its ruling.

The Minnesota School Employees Association, which represents 6,000 workers in more than 60 school districts statewide, set a course for signing up 5 percent of its fee-payers.

Executive Director Tee McClenty said the union surveyed fair-share fee-payers and found many had no idea they weren’t paying full dues. MSEA trained stewards, rank-and-file members and staff for one-on-one conversations about fee-payers’ issues and concerns. And within 11 months, the union had reached its goal.

MAPE and Education Minnesota, as well as unions like AFSCME and SEIU, rolled out similar internal-organizing initiatives, with similarly successful results.

“They say don’t waste a good crisis,” Prokopf said. “And I think Friedrichs was a very good crisis for us in that it shook us out of our complacency.”

Bullet or boomerang?

Ironically, the doomsday ruling anticipated in the Friedrichs case never came. After conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, the court issued a 4-4 decision upholding the status quo.

Will public-sector unions in Minnesota let down their guard again? Not likely, panelists said.

“We didn’t dodge a bullet; we dodged a boomerang,” Prokopf said of Friedrichs, noting that plaintiffs in the case already have filed for a second hearing before the court. “It’s coming back.”

McClenty said MSEA’s annual delegate assembly last month included a training session on Friedrichs.

“People were like, ‘What? We’re done with this now,’” McClenty said. “But we can’t get too comfortable. We feel like there’s momentum happening at MSEA, and we want to keep it going.”

Even if a pro-worker justice replaces Scalia, attacks on public-sector workers at the legislative level – including a “poison pill” attachment to the bill approving state workers’ contracts this session – aren’t likely to stop anytime soon.

“We’re not going to let up,” Specht said. “This is the labor movement at stake. We’re all depending on each other to be strong. We’re going all in, and we’re not stopping.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Union members look to make difference on White Bear Lake school board

October 27, 2015 by
Marge Newmaster (L) and Ellen Fahey

Marge Newmaster (L) and Ellen Fahey

Ellen Fahey and Marge Newmaster, two of three labor-endorsed candidates for White Bear Lake school board, understand the challenges working families face, value public education and appreciate the collective bargaining process.

It’s no coincidence Fahey and Newmaster also are union members.

Minnesota unions have put a focus in recent years on training and equipping members, retirees and community allies with the skills they need to run successfully for public office, believing the best advocates for labor’s priorities – like strong schools, good jobs, fair taxes and collective bargaining – are union members themselves.

Fahey and Newmaster are proving that theory true on the campaign trail this fall.

“My commitment has always been to kids, to education, but also to a union,” said Fahey, who retired in June after 39 years of teaching, including the last 22 in the White Bear Lake Area Schools.

Newmaster, a media specialist who’s worked in the district since 1971, said she “would hate to see happen here what happened in Wisconsin,” referring to Gov. Scott Walker’s move to strip teachers and most other public employees of most collective bargaining rights.

The third labor-endorsed candidate in White Bear Lake, Scott Nelson, also is a member of Education Minnesota.

Kris Fredson, political director for the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said it’s always encouraging to see union members step into the political arena.

“Working families are under attack more, and it’s great to see union members choosing to do something about,” Fredson said. “More and more union members are volunteering, and more and more union members are running for office, whether it’s school board or city council or the state Legislature. And that’s how we’re going to move a working families agenda forward.”

Saint Paul Union AdvocateWhat makes union members good advocates for working families?

• Unique perspectives. In White Bear Lake, the experience of working inside a classroom gives all three labor-endorsed candidates a deep appreciation for the need to keep class sizes small. Fahey taught a middle school science class several years ago with 37 students.

“You can still do your job, but it’s crowded, and there’s no room to give anyone any space,” she said. “We need to work with the Legislature to address school funding so all schools are funded on an equal level.”

Newmaster, meanwhile, pointed to her experience working as a media specialist, helping students access the information they need to plan their life after graduation.

“We really need to provide our kids with a wide variety of experiences so that they’re ready to go on to postsecondary education or begin new jobs,” she said. “We need to make sure we’re connecting with employers, colleges, other training centers to see what their expectations are.”

• Collaborative approach. Newmaster pledged to make the district’s decision-making process more inclusive and to take seriously the input of all stakeholders – students, parents, staff and community members.

“We haven’t had a lot of that lately,” Newmaster said. “We also need to respect everybody’s culture. We can’t just talk about closing the (achievement) gap without talking about cultural competence, where we try to understand everybody’s viewpoints and respect them.”

• Respect for collective bargaining. Both Fahey and Newmaster were active union members, and both value the power and voice their union provided them. When Newmaster started her career in the White Bear Lake schools, she was ineligible for family health insurance coverage because she wasn’t considered a head of her household.

“Our union supported us when it looked like we were going to take it to court, and we won family coverage,” she said.

Fahey has a track record of leadership in the White Bear Lake Teachers’ Association, serving on negotiations teams and volunteering as a members-rights representative for 11 years. She’s pushed back against administrators who accused her union of trying to “bulldoze” policies or initiatives during negotiations.

“Who is this union?” she told management. “Look at all these people in your classrooms. A union is a group of people working for a common purpose.”

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