Letters to the Editor: Thanks from sugar workers

June 28, 2013 by

CrystalSugICON_1_0(This letter was received by Bobby Kasper, president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. In addition to donating funds to the locked-out workers’ cause, the RLF organized two holiday drives, collecting more than $50,000 worth of toys, household supplies and cash donations for sugar workers and their families.)

Dear President Bobby Kasper,

We would like to personally thank you for your personal support and for the contributions by unions and individuals to the hardship and action funds that your regional federation organized. We will always be grateful for the hard work you have done, along with our members and their families.

  •  John Riskey, President BCTGM Local 167G
  •  Roger Delage, President BCTGM Local 267G
  •  Gayln Olson, President BCTGM Local 372G

*****

New approach to labor education

The other night I met a few people who found out I was a St. Paul Steamfitter/Pipefitter and proud to be so. A group of people verbally attacked me and told me, “The union I work for does nothing for me and steals money from me in the form of union dues!”

So I sat back and told the group of attackers, in a very polite tone of voice, “I respect your vision and opinion, but I don’t work for a union. I work for a contractor who pays me, and I am represented by the union that I chose to pay minimal dues to.”

I used to get upset and argue with friends and relatives about people’s ignorance on skilled labor and how we earn a wage. I have now learned and like to educate others, that anyone who earns a wage is done so out of an arrangement between two parties. Party No. 1 is the party that pays; party No. 2 is the party that gets paid.

I belong to Party No. 2 and choose, along with my skilled brothers and sisters, to earn wages working for union contractors. These wages are based off a contract that was collectively bargained between our membership and the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association, which represents the contractors we work for.

– Pauly Strusz, Pipefitters Local 455

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Unions see plenty to like in results of 2013 legislative session

May 30, 2013 by
Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Legislative leaders called 2013 the “education session” for the new investments in E-12 students, and a bill to extend union rights to 21,000 child-care providers and home health care workers grabbed headlines as Republicans tried to filibuster it to death.

But the 2013 legislative session yielded many other victories for union members and middle class families. Here’s a look at some of the less-publicized measures passed by labor-endorsed majorities in the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

• Protections for locked-out workers. Included in the jobs bill is a 26-week extension of unemployment-insurance benefits for any worker whose employer locks them out.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers. Minnesota Orchestra musicians remain locked out of their jobs, while St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians and workers at American Crystal Sugar in the Red River Valley recently struck deals to return to work.

Lawmakers viewed the extension of unemployment benefits as a way to mitigate the negative impact lockouts have had on families, communities and businesses.

• Marriage equality. Thousands gathered outside the Minnesota State Capitol on May 14 to watch Dayton sign legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry. Several Minnesota unions supported the legislation as an issue important to their members and as an advance in equal rights for all.

Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, explained the union’s decision to endorse marriage equality: “Same-sex couples pay taxes in Minnesota. They vote here, run businesses here, and serve in our military. They work hard and contribute to our communities, and they have children who deserve to grow up in stable families with married parents.

“Everyone should be able to marry the person they love. No one should be singled out and denied the economic protections and cultural privileges associated with matrimony.”

• Fair trade advisory council. The jobs bill also included reauthorization of the Trade Policy Advisory Council, which saw its authority “sunset” in 2012, but in a new form – one more inclusive of the groups with a stake in international trade policy. The TPAC is required to meet at least once a year and report back to the governor and Legislature about potential U.S. trade agreements and their impact on the state’s economy. The council also may offer draft legislation to implement the recommendations.

Click here to read more about the reauthorized Trade Policy Advisory Council.

• Construction jobs. The Legislature did not pass a large bonding bill, but it did approve much-needed repairs to the Capitol building. Lawmakers also made investments in job creation tools and key construction projects like the Mall of America expansion.

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With lockouts on the rise, state lawmakers weigh social, economic impacts

January 24, 2013 by
Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers, but state lawmakers yesterday began examining the impact these prolonged work stoppages have had on families, communities and businesses.

The House Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee’s hearing on lockouts was likely a first step toward legislative action to protect locked-out workers – and make the tactic less appealing to employers.

Committee members surveyed ongoing lockouts at American Crystal Sugar, the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as the recently settled dispute between the National Hockey League and its players’ union. Testimony, often impassioned, came from labor, management and community stakeholders.

Becki Jacobson, a Moorhead, Minn., resident locked out of her job by Crystal Sugar for nearly 18 months, fought back tears as she talked about struggling to make her mortgage payments after her unemployment-insurance benefits expired six months ago. She added that she was recently diagnosed with severe depression.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills,” said Jacobson, one of 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union locked out by the sugar-beet cooperative. “I don’t know where my next meal is going to come from.”

Heidi Durand, a sociology professor and member of the Moorhead City Council, said her community was not equipped to handle the volume of problems Jacobson and Crystal Sugar’s other locked-out workers are facing, from increased foreclosures and bankruptcies to mental-health issues and substance abuse.

Receipts are down at local businesses, and Moorhead’s homeless shelters have been “beyond capacity” since the fall, Durand said. Longtime friendships have splintered, leaving the community’s “social fabric greatly weakened.”

Orchestras locked out

In the metro area, two pillars of the classical music scene fell silent after the Minnesota Orchestra and the SPCO locked out their musicians last fall.

The musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-72, voted overwhelmingly against contracts that included steep salary, benefit and work-rule concessions. Rather than continue negotiating during the 2012-13 concert season, the orchestras went on the offensive, canceling concerts and cutting musicians off from their jobs.

At the House committee hearing, orchestra fans and business owners joined locked-out musicians in describing the ripple effects – economic, civic and artistic – of the lockouts.

Laurie Greeno, co-chair of the community group Orchestrate Excellence, said downtown Minneapolis merchants already have lost $1.25 million as a result of the lockout. Restaurants have told the group they are losing between $3,000 and $10,000 per concert.

Minnesota Orchestra trombonist Doug Wright said orchestra board members have shown a “disregard for the greater musical community,” pointing to music-education programming in schools across the state that has been canceled as a result of the lockout.

And SPCO musician Carole Mason Smith warned the committee that each day the lockout continues, the likelihood increases that another world-class musician from one of the Twin Cities’ orchestras will take their talents elsewhere. “Some of us have sold our homes,” she said, pointing to growing frustration among musicians with management’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue with the union.

Legislative action coming?

Although the committee hearing was not related to any specific bill, lawmakers heard some suggestions for how they might get involved. Greeno urged a “thorough analysis” of lockouts’ economic impact on the state, while Mark Thoson of the audience-driven group Save Our SPCO suggested holding the orchestras’ accountable for their nonprofit statuses.

“When the state confers nonprofit status to an organization, the state and organization have a duty to ensure the benefit to the public are protected,” Thoson said.

Musicians said lawmakers would not be overstepping their bounds by getting involved in the orchestra lockouts, as the state has financially supported the orchestras’ programming and facilities in the past, most notably a $14 million investment in ongoing Orchestra Hall renovations.

“We didn’t build Target Field for a minor league baseball team,” Wright said.

Unions also will push lawmakers to extend workers’ unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout. Such an extension would prevent employers like Crystal Sugar from starving workers like Jacobson into accepting their contract demands.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the state’s largest labor federation also would support adding a penalty to the unemployment tax paid by employers after a lockout enters its second month. Money collected through the penalty would be split equally between the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and the Workforce Development Fund.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

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Steve Hunter: Labor agenda includes investments, tax fairness, new jobs and workplace dignity

January 24, 2013 by

mug-hunter-webThe 2013 legislative session presents Minnesota’s labor movement with opportunities we haven’t seen since 1990, the last time we had a pro-labor governor and labor-friendly majorities in both the House and Senate. After 22 years of playing defense, we finally have an opportunity to accomplish positive change for working people. The Minnesota AFL-CIO, working with our affiliate unions, has assembled an agenda for this session that focuses on new investments, tax fairness, job creation and workplace dignity and fairness.

Our No. 1 priority is the state budget. We need to make new investments in our roads and bridges, schools and colleges – and provide care and dignity for our senior citizens. To make these important investments, there needs to be new tax revenue. We need to increase revenue by reforming our tax system to ensure fairness and stability. We have witnessed years of cuts to state and local government services, education, higher education, health care, human services, transportation and public safety. At the same time we’ve been asked to pay more in fees, property taxes and tuition. To protect the wealthiest Minnesotans from paying their fair share, previous governors and legislators have resorted to spending down reserves and borrowing from schools and endowments. It’s time to balance the budget without gimmicks while providing the additional funding needed to invest in our future.

We can also increase revenue by putting Minnesota back to work. The state AFL-CIO supports the Mall of America expansion, and we also support a significant bonding bill to put people back to work improving our state’s infrastructure, which will support and facilitate future economic growth.

Feb. 1 will mark the 18th month of the American Crystal Sugar lockout. As I write this, both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra remain locked out, and the NHL has only recently resumed games after a prolonged lockout. Locked out workers in Minnesota qualify for unemployment benefits, but cases like Crystal Sugar show that lockouts can linger well beyond the length of those benefits. That’s why we are proposing legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout, and also add a penalty to the employer’s unemployment tax after the beginning of a lockout’s second month. Half of that penalty would go to the UI Trust Fund; the other 50 percent would support the Workforce Development Fund.

We will also support initiatives to protect workers’ right to organize, raise minimum wage and limit employers’ use of credit checks related to terms of employment. We will soon announce our complete agenda to the public.

The election was only the first half of ensuring pro-labor policies become law; the other half is holding elected officials accountable. We need union members to contact their legislators concerning these issues. For more information on labor-related legislation, contact our offices, visit www.mnaflcio.org or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

– Steve Hunter is Secretary-Treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the statewide labor federation representing over 300,000 workers.

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Operation Christmas Solidarity lifts spirits of locked-out sugar workers

January 14, 2013 by
John O’Neil, president of United Steelworkers Local 264, sorts toys donated to Operation Christmas Solidarity.

John O’Neil, president of United Steelworkers Local 264, sorts toys donated to Operation Christmas Solidarity.

For the second consecutive Christmas, the families of workers locked out of their jobs by American Crystal Sugar received a holiday boost from their extended union family.

Operation Christmas Solidarity, co-sponsored by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and American Income Life, drew $45,000 in donations from local unions and members, who gave toys, food, household goods and cash.

It was enough to fill two semi-trucks that delivered items Dec. 18 and 19 to locked-out workers in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota, as well as facilities in Chaska and Mason City, Iowa.

Crystal Sugar locked out 1,300 workers 18 months ago. Union members have voted four times since then to reject the company’s offer.

Helping load the Laborers Local 563 semi truck with Operation Christmas Solidarity donations are, L to R, (front) Frank Loffler, Bobby Kasper, Ryan Connelly, Dave Saunders, Dan McGowen, Mike Connelly, John O’Neil, (back) Mitch Nohrenberg, Mark Borowicz, Chris Peltier, Laura Wilson and Erica Dalager.

Helping load the Laborers Local 563 semi truck with Operation Christmas Solidarity donations are, L to R, (front) Frank Loffler, Bobby Kasper, Ryan Connelly, Dave Saunders, Dan McGowen, Mike Connelly, John O’Neil, (back) Mitch Nohrenberg, Mark Borowicz, Chris Peltier, Laura Wilson and Erica Dalager.

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

Operation Christmas Solidarity to support Crystal Sugar workers

November 29, 2012 by

Last year’s Operation Christmas Solidarity raised more than $25,000 in toys and household items for locked-out families.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and American Income Life will sponsor a second Operation Christmas Solidarity this year, with proceeds of the gift, toy and household-goods drive benefiting families of workers who have been locked out of their jobs by American Crystal Sugar.

Over 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa have been affected by the lockout, which began more than 16 months ago. As the need in these families has grown, their resources have depleted, but last year’s holiday drive raised more than $25,000 for locked-out families.

Unwrapped items and monetary donations will be accepted through Dec. 17 at the following location, by mail or in person: St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, Attention: Laura Testor, 411 Main Street, Suite 202, St. Paul, MN 55102.

Make checks payable to: St. Paul Labor Studies & Resource Center (LSRC). Please note in memo line: Operation Christmas Solidarity. All donations are tax deductible.

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Holiday baking? Be sure not to use Crystal Sugar!

November 29, 2012 by

This holiday season, your Christmas cookies will taste better knowing union-busting Crystal Sugar isn’t among the ingredients.

The Moorhead-based company has locked 1,300 union workers out of their jobs for 16 months, prompting the AFL-CIO to call a nationwide boycott.

The easiest way to avoid buying Crystal Sugar is to buy cane sugar, like the C&H brand, instead. For more on the boycott, go to www.boycottacs.com.

Locked-out workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union, were scheduled to vote on the company’s contract offer for a fourth time  on Dec. 1.

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

Minnesota Orchestra musicians, fans rally as lockout enters second month

November 1, 2012 by

Nils Halker, a longtime orchestra patron from St. Paul, joins the locked-out musicians’ rally in Peavey Plaza.

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the Minnesota Orchestra rallied with patrons, union leaders and other supporters in Peavey Plaza downtown Minneapolis today, as the lockout of 95 members of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73 entered its second month.

Although buoyed by strike benefits from their international union, the American Federation of Musicians, locked-out orchestra members have been without regular paychecks and health insurance for 31 days.

Many have accepted temporary, fill-in positions with orchestras around the country. Others are beginning to seek permanent work elsewhere, which is bad news for the orchestra’s fans and patrons, clarinetist Tim Zavadil said.

Attrition among orchestra members “is going to severely threaten the world-class status that the Minnesota Orchestra has been known for and what the state of Minnesota has supported for 110 years,” Zavadil said.

Orchestra ticketholders at the rally echoed those concerns. Nils Halker of St. Paul carried a homemade sign identifying himself as a “locked out patron” supporting the union musicians.

A longtime season ticket holder, Halker already has missed two concerts as a result of the lockout. He said he sides with the union in the dispute because he believes gutting musicians’ salaries would erode the artistic quality of a “cultural treasure.”

Bringing corporate tactics to Orchestra Hall?

The onus for preserving and protecting that treasure, Halker added, falls on the orchestra’s Board of Directors, which includes the powerful CEOs of corporations like U.S. Bank, Land o’ Lakes, Xcel Energy and others.

“They are not being good custodians,” Halker said of board members. “I believe it’s an irreplaceable treasure we are going to lose if this is not resolved in a good way.”

Some observers have questioned whether orchestra board members are bringing their corporate values – and hostilities toward unions – with them to Orchestra Hall. Halker pointed to the increased use of lockouts among employers – from the National Hockey League to American Crystal Sugar – looking to exact steep concessions from their workers.

“It seems to me to be a pattern,” he said. “The lockout has become a new management strategy, very widespread, because management feels they have a lot more leverage now than they have in the past.”

Holiday offerings in doubt

Orchestra management and its Board of Directors made the decision to lock out musicians Oct. 1 despite the union’s offer to continue negotiations while playing out the 2012-13 season – with a guarantee that musicians would not interrupt the concert schedule with a strike.

That offer was rejected, and concerts have been canceled through Nov. 25.

Management may decide next week to cancel more events, including popular holiday offerings.

That would deal a stinging blow to restaurants, parking ramps and other businesses around the Minneapolis Convention Center, which will house the orchestra during construction of a $52 million lobby at Orchestra Hall.

Tim Zavadil, a clarinetist and member of the union’s negotiating committee, talks to the media during the rally.

Zavadil called management’s decision to expand Orchestra Hall while demanding 30 to 50 percent pay cuts from musicians a “remarkable juxtaposition.”

Union members at the rally renewed their call for the orchestra to open its books to an “independent, third-party financial analysis” of whether the pay cuts are really necessary – a request the orchestra repeatedly has denied.

“We don’t know what they’re afraid of, why they won’t agree to this,” Zavadil said. Pointing out that the orchestra is demanding the average musician sacrifice $60,000 in concessions, Zavazil added: “I’ve never invested $60,000 anywhere before, but were I going to … I would need the most complete and verified financial information I could possibly find.”

If the orchestra moves forward with canceling holiday concerts, Zavadil said, the union has plans in the works to give concerts to fans and supporters at alternative venues, like musicians’ homes. Muusicians were encouraged by the turnout – more than 2,100 people – at a sold-out concert staged by the union Oct. 18.

Halker was in the second row for that show. It was his only opportunity to hear the orchestra since the last season ended and, he hopes, not his last.

“It was spectacular,” he said. “It was emotional, it was powerful, it was thrilling – and sad at the same time.”

Click here for more information on the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, and what supporters can do to help.

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AFL-CIO calls consumer boycott of Crystal Sugar

October 24, 2012 by

It’s finally official: The AFL-CIO has endorsed a nationwide consumer boycott of American Crystal Sugar products in response to the company’s 15-month lockout of 1,300 workers at facilities in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota.

The boycott, which began Oct. 15,  is part of the broader labor movement’s continued support for locked-out members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union at Crystal Sugar, where management has blocked workers from their jobs, denying them of their incomes and healthcare benefits.

In addition to bags of sugar labeled Crystal Sugar, the boycott extends to several brands that sell Crystal’s product under a different label, including “Market Pantry” sugar sold in Target stores. The easiest way to avoid buying Crystal Sugar is to buy cane sugar instead, like the C&H label.

Click here for more information about the boycott, and to sign a petition pledging your support.

The national labor movement endorses boycotts cautiously and only in instances of grave injustice, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka noted.

“The 12 million union families of the AFL-CIO are proud to stand with the courageous locked-out workers who are responsible for American Crystal Sugar’s profitability and previously strong reputation,” Trumka said. “As we saw with the lock out of the NFL referees, locking out skilled workers who do important, unglamorous work hurts not only the workers, but the bottom line. We hope that this boycott will encourage Crystal Sugar to finally respect its workers, who worked so hard every day to make Crystal Sugar a highly profitable industry leader.”

Trumka added that Crystal Sugar CEO Dave Berg, after rewarding himself with a 50 percent pay increase for his union workers’ productivity, has obviously “decided to try to break the workers’ union.”

Supporters are asked to call Berg at 218-236-4400 and let him know they are not buying Crystal Sugar products until he ends the lockout and bargains a fair contract with workers.

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

October 2012: Remember when farmers and union members worked together?

September 27, 2012 by

With families across the Midwest struggling to keep their farms out of bank foreclosure, union members rallied with farmers Oct. 10, 1987, at the Heartland Jobs with Justice rally on the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

About 40 Minnesotans were among the estimated 1,500 to 1,700 union members at the rally, Union Advocate Editor Barb Kucera reported from Des Moines, Iowa. And with 1988 caucuses just around the corner, presidential candidates Bruce Babbitt, Richard Gephardt and Paul Simon made the rounds.

Helen Waller, president of the National Save the Family Farm Coalition, thanked union members for working “shoulder to shoulder” in Washington to advance farm credit reform to help family farmers avoid foreclosure – a partnership sugar-beet farmers in Minnesota and North Dakota appear to have since forgotten.

“We appreciate so much having labor help us in our way toward just farm credit reform,” Waller said. “This underscores my belief that farmers and laborers are critically dependent on each other… Neither of us can prosper unless we prosper together.”

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

• 50 Years Ago: Support for Hastings strikers. In October 1962 Twin Cities-area members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union rallied around their sisters and brothers – but mostly sisters – of OCAW Local 6-717, on strike at Smead Manufacturing in Hastings since Aug. 27.

Supporters packed hundreds of cases of canned food and shipped them to striking workers and their families – so much food that it overflowed the double garage of Local 6-717 Secretary Helen Herrmann.

Between 450 and 500 workers at the office-products manufacturer went on strike after Smead refused to bargain in good faith on a first contract with their newly elected union representatives, according to the Oct. 11 Union Advocate.

More than a month after the strike began, Smead employees were still “standing fast, adhering to their principles, despite the threats of discharge for continuing a lawful strike, despite the economic pressures, despite the company’s efforts to resume operations with scabs who sulk through the picket lines,” The Advocate reported.

“Most of the strikers are women, but they don’t act like members of any so-called ‘weaker sex’ when it comes to standing up for their rights pertaining to job security and other issues which the company had declined to negotiate.”

The strike dragged on into December 1962, when union members narrowly voted to accept a two-year contract ending the strike. The contract called for a 13-cent wage increase retroactive to March 28.

• 75 Years Ago: St. Paul Airport expansion. The St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly rolled out a special committee in October 1937 to direct a “vigorous campaign of education” against a proposed bond issue to improve and expand the city’s airport. Notably, the opposition included the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council.

A front-page editorial in the Nov. 4 Advocate opposed the airport development as “a private utility at public expense for the benefit of wealthy, gouging air transportation lines.”

Labor opponents pointed out that St. Paul – already “rated as one of the most over-bonded cities” in the nation – had more pressing priorities than airport expansion, a project many considered a real estate boondoggle.

“Labor is suspicious of this whole proposition,” The Advocate reported. “The property adjacent to the present airport is largely delinquent and this bond issue is being used to bolster the owners’ hope of selling lands to the city which otherwise will be taken over by the state.”

The bond issue passed in a special election Nov. 16. The Assembly later censured two labor-endorsed elected officials for championing the airport proposal, and appointed a committee to monitor the airport project and publish its findings in The Advocate.

• 100 Years Ago: ALEC didn’t invent ‘model legislation.’ A committee of state senators, appointed to “carefully examine the subject of compensation for workers injured in the line of their employment,” held its first meeting in October 1912. Interested parties in attendance included representatives of the Minnesota Employers’ Association and liability insurance companies – but not organized labor.

The idea that union leaders would be left out of drafting Minnesota’s first workers’ compensation law didn’t sit well with The Advocate, which ran an indignant, front-page report in its Oct. 25 edition.

“So far as we have been able to learn, no notification was sent to any of the labor unions of the state or any of their representatives but E. G. Hall, president, and W. E. McEwen, secretary, of the State Federation of Labor,” The Advocate reported. “These gentlemen will, in all probability, attend the next meeting of the committee.”

With labor absent, George M. Gillette of the Employers’ Association “occupied the greater part of the time of the meeting,” The Advocate noted. The Employers’ Association presented committee members with a model bill they might use as a template in crafting the state’s workers’ compensation law. (Sound familiar?)

The Advocate picked through Gillette’s model bill, pointed out several concerns and offered this warning to union leaders:

“It is of the greatest importance that the labor unions of the state have persons present at [the next committee] meeting to present their views. Otherwise, they are likely to have to put up with a law not at all agreeable or helpful to them in any large measure. And they ought to get to work at once in the matter, in order that their views may be fully and clearly presented to the committee and pressed on its attention in the most forcible and emphatic way.”

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