Rally in Rice Park Saturday to support striking actors

September 25, 2023 by

The Minnesota AFL-CIO declared SAG-AFTRA Solidarity Day at the Labor Pavilion on Labor Day.

Minnesotans will rally in solidarity with striking film and TV actors this Saturday in St. Paul’s Rice Park, supporting their union’s fight for fair compensation and worker protections in the film industry.

The 1 p.m. rally is sponsored by the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local, which is keeping a close eye on contract negotiations the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), in anticipation of Minnesota luring more film production work with a newly expanded tax credit.

“We will not let them take us backwards,” SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local President Casey Lewis said of the contract campaign that covers roughly 160,000 performers nationwide.

Actors and performers began their strike against the large production companies July 13, joining members of the Writers Guild (WGA), who began their strike more than two months earlier. (The WGA reached a tentative agreement on new contracts with the AMPTP earlier this week.)

The two unions had not been on strike at the same time in over 60 years, but writers and performers are looking to address similar issues in contract negotiations this year. Their pay has failed to keep up with inflation, and residual payments are down as more viewers get their content through streaming services.

Lewis said film industry moguls are trying to “erase how the industry has run for decades, with actors and performers sharing in the success of movies and programs” that enjoy extended success with viewers.

“We fought hard for residual payments,” he added. “We rely on them and won’t give them up. You can’t take us backwards because the streaming model has moved our viewing habits forward.”

Artificial intelligence also poses a threat to film industry workers. Their unions are seeking protections that would prevent production companies from substituting computer-generated scripts and images for real writers and actors.

“A fair contract means you don’t get to capture our work and capture our likeness and then replicate performances without consent and compensation,” Lewis said. “AI may be moving forward, but you are not taking us back as if our union protections never existed.”

Members of the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local – (L to R) Matt Roy, Tammara Melloy, Matt Saxe and Laurie Flanigan Hegge – carried their union’s banner in the State Fair’s daily parade on Labor Day.

Polls show a strong majority of Americans want to see striking writers and actors make gains at the bargaining table. A Gallup survey in August found Americans sympathize more with the writers than production studios by a split of 72% to 19%. Support for actors and performers came in at 67% to 24%.

Bethany Winkels, executive director of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said Americans recognize that actors and writers are standing up to corporate greed.

“At the end of the day, every single union member knows that when we stand together, we can demand a fair return on our work, we can push back against exploitation and we can have an economy and a society where folks can live and work with dignity and respect,” she said. “And that is happening on the front lines, on every picket line that SAG-AFTRA has.

“They are going to keep fighting, and we are going to have their back.”

The strike has not halted production of any films in Minnesota, but local SAG-AFTRA members anticipate more work opportunities as production companies take advantage of the state’s newly expanded tax credit, supported by lawmakers in each of the past two legislative sessions.

“We fought so hard for these improvements, and these are the jobs Twin Cities Local members have been waiting for, for decades,” Lewis said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Local Teamsters show they’re ready to strike for fair share of record UPS profits

July 21, 2023 by

Hundreds of members of Teamsters Local 120 and Local 638 joined a rally and “practice picket” July 8 at the UPS hub in northeast Minneapolis. Real picketing could begin Aug. 1.

With “practice picketing” outside UPS facilities across the Twin Cities this month, local Teamsters are showing the company that they are prepared to strike – if necessary – when the contract covering 340,000 union members nationwide expires July 31.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go on strike, but we’ll do what we have to do,” Gunnar Johnson, a UPS driver and member of Teamsters Local 638, said while walking a picket line July 8 in Minneapolis. “We’re not asking for the moon. UPS can end this today if they want.”

That would mean settling a contract that meets Teamsters’ key demands: fair wage increases, elimination of a two-tier wage structure and no more mandatory six-day workweeks.

“I don’t think that’s asking too much of any employer, especially one that we’ve sacrificed so much to keep afloat,” Eagan-based loader Rikki Schreiner said. “They are the most successful and most reliable shipping company there is because of Teamster labor. We’ve taken good care of them, and now it’s time for them to take care of us.”

UPS reported record profits of $11.3 billion in 2022, with revenues exceeding $100 billion. CEO Carol Tomé earned $19 million in total compensation. Those numbers make Robert Cristino, a feeder driver in Maple Grove, confident UPS can do better by full- and part-time workers when it comes to wages and work-life balance.

Gunnar Johnson (L) and Robert Cristino, who work at the Maple Grove UPS hub, walked the practice picket line.

“The big lie is that everyone at UPS makes $94,000 or whatever a year. That’s what UPS likes to tell the media,” Cristino said “Sure, maybe you can make that, but you’ve got to work six days a week to get it. It’s too much all the time, and you never get a break.”

Johnson said an arrangement that allows UPS to deny pay increases to part-timers needs to go. “There are part-time drivers doing the same job as me, getting paid less,” he said. “You can go to Costco right now and make more. We just want everyone treated fairly.”

Talks between the union and UPS broke down at 4 a.m. July 5. After two weeks of Teamster picketing, the company finally called the union back into bargaining July 19, as this issue went to press.

In balloting across the country earlier this summer, 97% of Teamsters voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike, which would have a widespread impact on the U.S. economy and beyond. UPS delivers 24.3 million parcels daily, on average; that’s on par with the U.S. Postal Service and more than twice as many as FedEx delivers.

Rikki Schreiner is a union steward at the UPS facility in Eagan.

“We want – and we’re going to get – what we’ve got coming to us,” said Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson, who serves as a vice president of the international union. “During the pandemic UPS had no problem taking advantage of our workers, and that stops on Aug. 1, one way or another.

“We’re either going to have a contract, or we’re going to be out on the street fighting for what we’ve got coming to us.”

Schreiner, who has worked at the Eagan facility since 1999, said she’s hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

“I’m ready,” she said. “We have to stand up for what we deserve. If we don’t, they’ll step all over us.”

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

Union pledges fight as AT&T plans more Twin Cities store closings

February 26, 2021 by

Local job cuts at AT&T will continue this spring, when the company plans to close three more wireless retail locations in the Twin Cities suburbs, according to Communications Workers Local 7250.

The union, which represents AT&T wireless sales reps, technicians and call-center employees in Minnesota, received official notification of the store closings yesterday.

AT&T closed nine retail stores across the state last summer, and has been shamelessly outsourcing and offshoring American jobs at a steady clip in recent years. The cuts have come despite AT&T’s promise that then-President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, which put billions into the company’s coffers, would create new jobs.

That will never happen, AT&T retail sales consultant Larry Thompson said, unless executives feel pressured to live up to their promises. Thompson, a Local 7250 officer who works in the company’s St. Paul store, said the union is at work on plans to exert that pressure.

“We all see the writing on the wall,” he said.

A year ago, Local 7250 represented workers in 36 AT&T Wireless locations statewide. By June that total will have dropped to 24.

Each store employs five sales reps, on average. They typically earn around $17 per hour in base pay, plus commission and benefits, Thompson said.

The company closed 250 stores nationwide last summer and, in October, warned of more cuts to come. CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson said the three Minnesota stores set to close this spring – in Apple Valley, Shakopee and West St. Paul – are among 95 closing nationwide in April and May.

CWA’s nationwide contract with AT&T guarantees workers the opportunity to transfer to other wireless stores within a 30-mile radius or, if they meet the qualifications, to work from home as a customer-service consultant.

That softens the blow some. But Thompson said customer-service reps earn considerably less than sales reps without commission, and AT&T “has closed so many stores, we’re running out of places to put people.”

Stores slated to close typically reopen as nonunion “authorized retailers,” selling AT&T products and services but not owned by the company. The products are the same, but the experience inside the store is different for both workers and customers.

“They typically reduce sales staff to he bone, and they don’t offer the same kinds of benefits, wages and job security that our contract guarantees on top of the commissions,” Knutson said.

“They don’t operate with the same integrity,” Thompson added. “Everybody who works at a corporate-owned store has had a negative experience with authorized retailers because of that.

“We get paid well, we do a great job and we keep our jobs. It’s that simple.”

Find a list of corporate-owned stores, staffed by Local 7250 members, on the union’s website.

Meanwhile, supporters should stay tuned to the union’s social media feed for upcoming actions pushing back against job cuts at AT&T, Knutson said.

“This is a clear union-busting move by the company,” he said. “Behind all of these cuts are some real people and their families. We’re not going to take this lying down.”

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

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

April 17, 2018 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s how labor activists plan to celebrate Super Bowl week

January 26, 2018 by

Today marks the kickoff of Super Bowl events in the Twin Cities, and organizers plan a 10-day run of concerts, parties, conventions and other events leading up to the big game Feb. 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium.

What you won’t find listed on the Super Bowl Host Committee’s online calendar are several opportunities to support working people organizing for dignity, respect on the job and quality public services.

“Minnesota’s Super Bowl shouldn’t just be about entertaining the rich and the powerful,” said bakery worker Travis Reinhart, whose union-busting employer will host a star-studded celebrity fundraiser in St. Paul next Saturday.

Already, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers is promoting a social media campaign targeting two of the Super Bowl committee’s biggest corporate sponsors: Ecolab and U.S. Bank. Teachers are in a difficult round of contract negotiations with the St. Paul school district, which is facing a multi-million dollar budget shortfall.

“Money has been stolen from our schools over the last 20 years … and that money has been going into tax breaks for corporations,” SPFT President Nick Faber said.

Kirinda Anderson, a parent active in union-led efforts to address the district’s racial disparities, called on Ecolab and U.S. bank to “step up and be better partners with the schools and the students … and to support public education in the same way they’ve supported this game.”

Here’s a rundown of events you won’t find on the Super Bowl committee’s website:

• The Pre-Game: Our lives over their game. Monday, Jan. 29, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Hamm Plaza, St. Paul.

Unions and worker groups are teaming up with racial-justice, climate-defense and immigrant-rights organizations to plan a march and rally outside the NFL’s Super Bowl Opening Night party in St. Paul.

Activists like Antonia Sanchez, a member of the Twin Cities low-wage worker center CTUL, are calling on the corporations sponsoring Super Bowl week to do more in their community than hold a round-the-clock party for ultra-rich.

“The millionaires are just going to get richer, and we’re not going to get anything out of it,” Sanchez said at a press conference announcing the groups’ Super Bowl plans. “These corporations are grinding us all down.

“We want to demand that these corporations … support raising the minimum wage in St. Paul to $15 an hour. We want them to support ending wage theft in Minneapolis and St. Paul.”

• Super Bowl Protest: Tackle Corporate Greed! Friday, Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m. Home Depot, 1520 New Brighton Blvd, Minneapolis.

Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank owns the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, making Super Bowl week the perfect time for janitors who clean Home Depot stores in the Twin Cities to renew their demand that the retailer adopt a responsible contractor policy.

CTUL, which is organizing janitors who clean Home Depot, has negotiated policies with Best Buy, Target and other retailers, paving the way for 500 retail cleaning workers to form a union last year.

Most people working in retail cleaning are immigrants, and CTUL is teaming up with immigrant-rights group Navigate MN to demand Home Depot use its lobbying clout to support so-called Dreamers’ protected status, pass a clean immigration reform bill and end immigration raids dividing families across the country.

• Super Bowl Breakfast: Support $15 and Workers’ Rights! Saturday, Feb. 3, 7 a.m. Hilton Minneapolis, 1001 Marquette Ave.

As the Super Bowl Committee and its corporate sponsors hold a breakfast inside the hotel to honor the NFL’s “positive legacy” of community service, worker groups will gather outside for a “people’s breakfast to honor the worker leaders and community members in Minneapolis and St. Paul who fight for living wages rights on the job for themselves, their families and their communities.”

The event will call attention to the need to fund enforcement of Minneapolis’ new minimum-wage ordinance, and lift up the campaign for a $15 minimum wage – without a tip penalty – in St. Paul.

• A Taste of Justice. Saturday, Feb. 3, 5 p.m. St. Paul Labor Center, 353 W. 7th St.

Workers at Franklin Street Bakery have been trying to organize a union for over two years, looking to improve wages and working conditions in the Minneapolis facility. Their campaign has drawn a stifling – and sometimes illegal – response from management, which recently sent a labor lawyer to intimidate one worker in his own home, according to a report from Bakery Workers Local 22.

Bakery owner Wayne Kostroski holds a hunger-relief event – “Taste of the NFL” – with celebrity chefs, NFL players and wealthy executives each year during Super Bowl week. Last year, bakery workers countered with a fundraiser of their own, and this year they plan to do it again, only blocks away.

“While helping food shelves is a good thing, Wayne pays many workers as little as $11 an hour, forcing us to use food shelves,” Reinhart said. “I know I’ve been there. The Taste of the NFL’s slogan is ‘kick hunger.’ We have a simple answer for Wayne: Kicking hunger starts at home.”

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

Unions weigh in on Trump’s plans to ‘modernize’ disastrous NAFTA trade deal

July 3, 2017 by

Since being established in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement – better known as NAFTA – has triggered job losses, depressed wages and shifted more power to corporations.

Now, the Trump administration has notified Congress it plans to “modernize” the horrible trade deal, giving working families an historic opportunity to shape a better trade policy with our closest neighbors.

What might a better NAFTA look like?

The nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, issued several recommendations last month, urging federal lawmakers to “begin constructing a Global New Deal for working families” in revisiting NAFTA this summer. The first step, labor leaders say, is to amend NAFTA in public, with broad input from workers and their organizations.

“This is more than just (about) trade,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters during a media call last month. “We’ll fight hard to rewrite these rules so that workers will get a fair shot of getting more of what they produce.”

Other AFL-CIO’s recommendations include enforceable worker-rights guarantees in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, as well as strong “Buy America” provisions, long a top priority for the United Steelworkers and other industrial unions.

“Our position is simple: Unless steel is melted and poured in the U.S., it shouldn’t be covered” by NAFTA, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said. “Does the country want 25 more years like the last 25 years, with a declining standard of living for workers in all three countries?”

Other union proposals include eliminating extrajudicial courts that give corporations an end around local governments, strengthening environmental protections and adding language that will protect consumers, crack down on corporate tax dodgers and prevent currency manipulation.

While Trump’s interest in renegotiating NAFTA has sparked some optimism for better trade policy, some fair trade activists warned against getting too excited. Already, Trump has “walked back” several of his trade-related promises from the campaign, including a pledge to name China a currency manipulator, Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition director Kaela Berg said.

The Fair Trade Coalition, which brings together labor, environmental, family-farm and other progressive groups, is mobilizing volunteers locally to hold Trump accountable during the NAFTA “modernization” process.

“He promised American workers … a new kind of trade deal that would put them first, ensure safety on the job site, raise wages and punish countries that manipulated their currency to gain unfair advantages in the marketplace,” Berg said. “President Trump has not kept his promises to working families.”

Corporate lobbyists, according to Berg, are already approaching NAFTA talks as an opportunity to revive the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“We know that 500 of the corporate advisors responsible for the TPP have been consulted about the NAFTA negotiations, while labor, Congress and the public have once again been kept in the dark,” she said.

Meanwhile, Trump’s proposal to gut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency sums up the likelihood of a new NAFTA that includes enforceable environmental protections.

Still, the debate over NAFTA’s future is too important to sit out, Berg acknowledged.

“We must hold President Trump accountable for his promise to stop the damage that NAFTA continues to do,” she said. “We must demand that he put people and the planet before profits in the new NAFTA.”

– This article includes reporting by Mark Gruenberg of Press Associates International, a union news service.

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

Five reasons workers are fighting Trump’s pick for labor secretary

January 30, 2017 by
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members (L to R) Pam Ganser, Amy Pauly and Jodi Klembrook delivered a petition opposing Andy Puzder as labor secretary to Sen. Al Franken's office in Minneapolis.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members (L to R) Pam Ganser, Amy Pauly and Jodi Klembrook delivered a petition opposing Andy Puzder as labor secretary to Sen. Al Franken’s office in St. Paul.

Working people aren’t waiting for fast-food CEO and robotics enthusiast Andy Puzder’s confirmation hearings – twice delayed because he’s having difficulty completing the required ethics paperwork – to oppose President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor secretary.

Last week fast-food workers led a demonstration outside Hardee’s, a chain operated by Puzder-led CKE Restaurants, in St. Paul. And this morning, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota delivered a petition to Sen. Al Franken’s office in St. Paul with nearly 5,000 signatures opposing Puzder’s nomination.

Similar actions have popped up across the U.S., with more coming as Puzder’s confirmation hearing, set for Feb. 7 (if he can wrap up that pesky paperwork), draws nearer.

Why can’t working people stomach Puzder at the helm of the Department of Labor, an agency charged with enforcing and administering federal labor laws, from health and safety protections to overtime and discrimination rules?

1. As an employer, Puzder’s company has a disturbing track record of violating laws designed to protect working people.

An analysis of Department of Labor data by The Century Foundation found that since Puzder took over as CEO in 2000, at least 1,563 CKE workers have been exposed to wage theft, unsafe working conditions or other violations uncovered by the agency’s inspectors.

Combined, OSHA and Wage-and-Hour inspectors have closed 166 investigations of CKE facilities since 2000, leading to more than $156,000 in civil penalties and an additional $145,310 in back pay to 877 employees. In one case, Hardee’s restaurants in the St. Louis area were “having workers punch-in to work later than when they arrived to work, not paying them overtime for double shifts, and even striking hours off of time cards,” the Century report’s authors, Michael McCormack and Simon Glenn-Gregg, wrote.

Additionally, workers at 13 CKE restaurants in 10 states last week filed 33 new complaints alleging sexual harassment, unfair labor practices (union busting) and wage theft.

2. Last year, Puzder earned more in one day than his company’s minimum-wage workers earned in the entire year. Yet he not only opposes raising the wage, he spends his fortune financially backing efforts to stop it.

According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, Puzder donated $10,000 to a campaign trying to stop Nevada voters from passing a ballot initiative raising the state’s minimum wage by a mere $1, from $5.15 to $6.15. (Voters eventually approved the increase.)

Opponents of Andy Puzder's nomination to lead the Labor department rallies last Thursday outside Hardee's in St. Paul.

Opponents of Andy Puzder’s nomination to lead the labor department rallied last Thursday outside Hardee’s in St. Paul.

3. Puzder’s low-road approach to employment forces taxpayers to pick up the tab – to the tune of an estimated $247 million per year.

The National Employment Law Project ran the numbers in a report released last week, coming up with the jaw-dropping price tag for government services accessed by CKE employees. The report draws on an analysis by University of California Berkeley economists who found that low wages and lack of benefits force 52 percent of fast-food workers to rely on public assistance to make ends meet.

4. Puzder’s company outsourced jobs to the Philippines.

In 2010, according to a report by the Associated Press, CKE laid off 20 Americans employed in its restaurant information technology department, which later reopened in the Philippines. The decision also resulted in layoffs at a staffing firm in California.

5. His public statements reveal contempt for working people, particularly those people most vulnerable to the kinds of mistreatment the Department of Labor is supposed to police.

In a 2011 address to students of Westmont College, Puzder described his hiring practices by saying, “In fast food, you sort of compete for the best of the worst.” And in an interview with Business Insider, Puzder openly fantasized about replacing fast-food workers with robots because they “never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”

And who could forget Puzder offering a stirring defense of his company’s advertising campaign that showed scantily clad models wolfing down Thickburgers? “I like our ads,” Puzder told Entrepreneur magazine. “I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”

American, indeed. Just like low wages, outsourcing and corporate welfare. It’s no surprise working people are raising hell.

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

Nurses take over street outside Allina board member’s St. Paul office (photos)

October 5, 2016 by

web-allina-securian-2Striking nurses poured into the streets of downtown St. Paul today and joined a boisterous, traffic-snarling rally outside Securian Center, the high-rise building that houses Allina Health board member David Kuplic’s offices.

Kuplic, a senior vice president at Securian, refused to meet with a delegation of nurses who entered the high-rise office building at 4th Street and Robert, prompting chants of “Where’s Dave Kuplic?” from hundreds of nurses in the street outside.

An employee in Securian’s public relations department told nurses he would pass their message along to Kuplic, United Hospital nurse Jennifer Michelson said. “But he wanted to know why we felt there was impact on Securian.”

Here’s whyallina-board-numbers_Layout 1. Securian is one of a handful of investment firms and corporations, including General Mills and Buffalo Wild Wings, whose executives dominate Allina Health’s not-for-profit board. Striking nurses are hoping public pressure will prompt those board members to reconsider management’s hard-line approach to contract negotiations.

It’s an approach that is costing the not-for-profit health provider tens of millions of dollars each week the nurses are on strike – costs that already have eclipsed the concessions Allina wants from its nurses in contract negotiations. Mercy Hospital mental health nurse Julie Anderson said leaders who would invest in union busting over community care have no place on a charitable board.

“Why do we have all these financial (executives) on a non-profit board of directors?” Anderson asked. “What do they know about health care?”

 

The nurses originally intended to stage the demonstration outside RiverCentre, where Allina CEO Dr. Penny Wheeler was to join a panel discussion on health care costs. But Wheeler backed out at the last minute, prompting nurses to seek out Kuplic instead.

About 4,700 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association employed at five Allina facilities in the Twin Cities have been on strike since Labor Day, their second strike of 2016. They voted Monday to reject the provider’s most recent contract proposal, saying it did not do enough to contain health insurance costs or address safety-related staffing concerns.

The vote result means the strike will continue indefinitely. Click here for a list of ways to support nurses in their fight for a fair contract.

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

As strike drags on, nurses question Allina board members’ leadership

September 14, 2016 by
Striking nurses assemble outside Piper Jaffray's offices in downtown Minneapolis, seeking a meeting with Allina Health board member Debbra Schoneman.

Striking nurses assemble outside Piper Jaffray’s offices in downtown Minneapolis, seeking a meeting with Allina Health board member Debbra Schoneman.

 

The 16 members of Allina Health’s board of directors have remained mostly above the fray since a contentious round of negotiations with nearly 5,000 union nurses began in February.

But that changed last week, when Allina nurses at five Twin Cities facilities began an open-ended strike and, at the same time, rolled out a campaign to hold their not-for-profit employer’s governing body accountable.

The Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents striking nurses, is publicly questioning whether Allina’s negotiating team, led by CEO Dr. Penny Wheeler, has provided board members with accurate information, particularly when it comes to the cost of prolonging the work stoppage after the two sides came so close to an agreement in their most recent talks.

“Allina Health will spend $20 million every week the nurses are on strike,” MNA Executive Director Rose Roach said. “How can the stewards of a not-for-profit health care company allow that to happen when we were just $2 million away from a deal at the bargaining table?”

allina-board-numbers_Layout 1

More Wall Street than wellness

It’s a question nurses have tried asking several board members over the last week, seeking them out in commercial high-rises and corporate headquarters – even on one college campus – across the Twin Cities.

It’s a strange and troubling road map for tracking down the people who oversee a non-profit health care provider, and it reveals a governing body whose makeup skews more toward Wall Street than wellness.

John Church chairs Allina’s board; he works a vice president at General Mills. Executives from Buffalo Wild Wings and the for-profit Capella University also hold seats. The financial sector is well represented too, with executives from four investment firms holding seats. There’s a lawyer, a retired partner in global auditing and tax giant KPMG, the founder of a Minneapolis consulting company and the president of Macalester College in St. Paul.

Just four members of the Allina board make their livings in health care. Two are doctors, one works in human resources for a local medical-technology firm and the other is an entrepreneur whose latest start-up helps employers shop for insurance providers.

Elizabeth English, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, joined a delegation of about 20 striking nurses who dropped in on board members with offices downtown Minneapolis last Thursday. None of the board members made themselves available, but if they had, English would have asked one simple question: “Why are you on the board of a hospital?”

“The problem is they’re on the board, and they’re just trying to make money,” English said. “They know nothing about caring for patients. It’s very disappointing.”

Support from Mac students, alumni

Nurses and Macalester students assemble outside the offices of college president Brian Rosenberg, who collected $10,000 from the not-for-profit health system to serve on its board of directors in 2014.

Nurses and Macalester students assemble outside the offices of college president Brian Rosenberg, who collected $10,000 from the not-for-profit health system to serve on its board of directors in 2014.

Equally disappointed are some members of the Macalester community with President Brian Rosenberg’s involvement in the nurses’ strike.

Nurses who took part in a delegation to his office last Wednesday were pleasantly surprised to find several students, including sophomores Jackson Dean and Nicolas Koch-Gallup, awaiting their arrival. Dean said he wanted to “show that students support the nurses’ union.”

That Rosenberg’s fingerprints are on the Allina standoff will come as no shock to anyone familiar with his approach to labor relations on campus. Two years ago, with Rosenberg at the helm, the school refused to stay neutral as contingent faculty members attempted to organize a union.

“Last year we organized a protest against Café Mac workers being paid minimum wage,” Koch-Gallup said. “We tried to get Macalester to give them a livable wage, and (Rosenberg) shut that down.”

Rosenberg, meanwhile, was paid $10,000 for his service on Allina’s board in 2014, according to the non-profit’s most recent IRS filings.

[Paying board members is a rare practice in the not-for-profit health care world, according to an article published by Modern Healthcare in June. But Allina paid out $190,959 to 15 board members in 2014 for a job that, on average, requires two hours of work per week.]

Nurses and students plan to continue working together to hold Rosenberg accountable as the strike, now in its second week, continues. Alumni, too, “will want to make their voices heard on this issue,” according to Leewana Thomas, a member of the school’s 2014 graduating class.

“If Brian Rosenberg continues to turn the other cheek on a major crisis happening right under his nose while preaching the merits of global citizenship, I know that the Macalester alumni will make their voices heard,” Thomas said.

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»