Day of action unites working people in St. Paul, nationwide

February 24, 2018 by

Hundreds rally at the Capitol in support of worker freedom and economic fairness, joining a nationwide Working People’s Day of Action.

Working people filled the Capitol rotunda in St. Paul today, celebrating their freedom to join together for a voice on the job and pledging to fight corporate attacks with urgency and solidarity.

“Unions are here for the common good,” former St. Paul teacher Mary Cathryn Ricker, now vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, told hundreds of people gathered for the Working People’s Day of Action. “And we are here for good.”

The rally in St. Paul was one of more than two dozen across the country highlighting the benefits of collective bargaining and the critical role union members play in their communities.

Anne Bipes, who works as a secretary in a west-metro school district, attended the rally with members of her union, Service Employees Local 284. She said strong unions mean more than “just pay and benefits” for workers like her.

“It’s about equity and justice within our society, about equality for working people,” Bipes explained.

 

The day of action comes two days before the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a lawsuit, bankrolled by corporate special interests, challenging the ability of Local 284 and other public sector employee unions to collect fair-share fees from workers they are legally required to represent.

The court’s conservative majority is likely to side with the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, and the decision, expected as early as April, could make right-to-work conditions in the public sector the law of the land.

But public-sector workers aren’t cowering. They traveled in busloads to the Capitol, wore their union colors and carried signs vowing that no court ruling will keep them from joining together to fight for themselves and their communities.

Jim Glazer, a teacher in the South Washington County Schools and member of Education Minnesota, joined the rally to be “part of the energy” fueling actions across the country today.

“Janus is really going to test our unions’ ability to stick together,” he said. “That’s the point of it, to drag us apart. But we have a common cause here: workers’ rights and freedoms.”

Public-sector workers aren’t standing alone either. Private sector union members bolstered their ranks at the Capitol, as did allies from immigrant rights groups, faith organizations and the business community.

“What affects public workers will affect all workers,” said Deb Haugen, a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis and member of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “For many years unions have set the standard for conditions in the workplace. If our voice is weaker, it’s not only going to be felt by union workers, but by all of us.”

Wendy Anderson, a Century Link retiree who remains active in her union, Local 7201 of the Communications Workers of America, said the landscape for unions is changing, but she thinks working people are up to the test.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the same union as me,” Anderson said. “We’re brothers and sisters, and we support each other.”

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

U.S. negotiators following TPP script in NAFTA 2.0 talks, observers warn

October 26, 2017 by

Two months into NAFTA renegotiation talks, the process is looking awfully familiar to labor and fair-trade observers – and not in a good way.

When his trade representatives opened talks with Canada and Mexico in August, President Trump pledged to deliver “a better deal for our workers.” But so far, Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition Director Kaela Berg said, Trump’s team seems intent on pushing a better deal for corporations that want to offshore jobs and decrease wages.

“The question remains as to whether we can expect a new era of international trade, or more of the same neoliberal policies that have brought American manufacturing to the brink of extinction, increased forced migration and decimated portions of the global economy,” Berg said.

Of particular concern to Berg and other fair-trade advocates is the administration’s push to preserve – and potentially expand – so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement systems, pioneered by the original agreement 23 years ago.

Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District joined a rally sponsored by the Communications Workers of America calling on Trump to remove ISDS’s from NAFTA. CWA argues they amount to a “private justice system for multinational corporations” and allow them to “challenge local, state and federal laws before a private panel of corporate lawyers, instead of in a country’s court system.”

“If the renegotiated NAFTA contains even stronger ISDS language, the scales will be forever tipped in favor of giant corporations and working families, family farmers, and small businesses will be unable to compete in a global marketplace,” Berg added.

Public outrage over ISDS systems was part of the reason the U.S. backed out of another NAFTA-style trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, last year.

But ISDS’s aren’t the only holdover from TPP talks, activists warned. Like TPP talks, NAFTA negotiations are taking place behind tightly locked doors, with no public access to negotiating texts.

“We must demand the sort of transparency in these negotiations that we fought so hard for during the TPP negotiations,” Berg said. “The same players, secret processes and dirty tricks are at play.”

One bright spot to emerge from the early renegotiation talks was Canada’s attempt to level the playing field for its workers by raising labor standards in Mexico and the U.S.

Canada negotiators pushed the U.S. to eliminate anti-union Right to Work laws and Mexico to target its corporate-sanctioned unions, notorious for negotiating raw deals for working people. Canada also wants Mexico and the U.S. to offer workers one year of paid family leave, as Canada does.

“If it isn’t fair for all of us, it won’t be fair for any of us,” said Celeste Drake, the AFL-CIO’s trade specialist. “After all, we don’t live or work in an isolated economy. We must bring up standards for working people in all three NAFTA countries.”

To join labor’s fight for a fair NAFTA, text TRADE to 235246.

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

Poised to strike this weekend, AT&T wireless workers seek support on picket line

May 18, 2017 by

Melinda Casey of Minneapolis is among 2,000 AT&T wireless workers in Minnesota poised to strike this weekend. “I have a family to support. I have two children. I need a job that’s secure,” she said.

Some 21,000 AT&T wireless workers in 36 states – including about 2,000 in Minnesota – plan to strike this weekend, a show of frustration over the company’s failure to negotiate a new contract that protects good, family-supporting jobs.

The strike is set to begin at 2 p.m. tomorrow unless AT&T and the Communications Workers of America, which represents wireless workers, reach a tentative agreement before then. AT&T wireless workers have never been on strike before, and it could drastically limit AT&T’s ability to handle traffic at 27 company-owned retail stores in Minnesota and hundreds more across the U.S.

Members of Twin Cities-based CWA Locals 7200 and 7250 are seeking support on picket lines across the state, including the following metro locations:

  • Apple Valley: 7634 – 150th St. W
  • Coon Rapids: 12481 Poppy St. NW
  • Maple Grove: 8105 Wedgewood Ln.
  • Roseville: 2724 Lincoln Dr.
  • Woodbury: 10100 City Walk Dr.
  • Eden Prairie retail store, 590 Prairie Center Dr.
  • Minnetonka: 1800 Plymouth Rd.

Workers say AT&T has offered only meager pay raises in negotiations – not nearly enough to cover the increased share of health insurance premiums the company is demanding workers pay. Commission rates, job security and sick pay are also sticking points in talks, which “are stalled right now,” CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer said.

Local 7200 member Melinda Casey, who works in AT&T Mobility’s Bloomington call center, said she’s fighting to support her two children, one of whom is epileptic. Casey earns the contract’s top wage scale of $18.57 per hour, and out-of-pocket medical costs, including a $2,500-per-patient deductible, already absorb a big portion of her earnings, she said.

Brian Gnerer

“If they raise premiums then that essentially washes out any type of pay raise we would get,” she said. “It makes it easy to walk out on Friday, knowing it’s the only way to bring a better contract.”

Brian Gnerer, who works in the Bloomington call center too, echoed Casey’s sentiment.

“I’m for the strike,” Gnerer said. “Thinking short term, I need to make sure I get my bills paid, but I also want to have a decent life after I’m done working. That means getting paid more, getting better health care so I can maybe put more money away for my future. And I’m willing to do what I need to do to get there.”

“Overall, I feel like there is a lot of unity” in our bargaining unit, Casey added.

Learn more about the contract negotiations at www.unityatmobility.com.

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

Unions gaining public favor, losing ground in workplace

March 7, 2017 by

Union members are becoming increasingly scarce in the U.S. labor force. It’s a trend that continued in 2016, when union density fell from 11.1 to 10.7 percent of the total workforce, according to federal report issued in January.

Unions’ demise has assumed an aura of inevitability. So when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on unions, media outlets mostly yawned. The headline – “Union membership dips to lowest point in recent history” – showed up in the cable-news crawl, as a one-off tweet or buried inside the Business section.

Four days later the nonpartisan Pew Research Center released results of a different survey, showing more Americans – roughly six in 10 adults – view unions favorably than at any time in the last 15 years. Young people, in particular, hold favorable views of unions – three-quarters of those ages 18 to 29, according to the Pew report.

How can union membership be declining while unions’ popularity is surging? Why aren’t more people forming unions?

Labor experts and union organizers say the seemingly contradictory trends illuminate just how challenging the process of organizing unions is, particularly in an economy that looks little like it did when U.S. labor laws were drafted 80 years ago. But experts also say the numbers don’t reflect non-traditional organizing campaigns that have picked up in recent years, many of which are yielding improvements for working people and, more broadly, helping the labor movement stay relevant.

“I feel like we’re at a moment of pretty dramatic change where there needs to be a different model, a different way of doing things,” Monica Bielski Boris, director of the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service, said. “Unions were a pretty important part of changes that led to our current (labor laws) in the 1930s, and I’m hopeful they will also be an important part of that happening again.”

People like unions!

Pew’s survey results, which showed a remarkable, 12-point uptick in unions’ favorable rating in less than two years, don’t surprise Cat Salonek, who has worked 10 years as a union organizer, now locally with the Communications Workers of America and the Newspaper Guild.

Being slighted or disrespected at work, she said, is a near-universal experience among working people, and most of the time they feel powerless to do anything about it. Unions appeal as a way to take power back from their bosses.

“The No. 1 reason people want to form a union is dignity and respect in the workplace,” Salonek said. “You might think it would be pay – and it’s a close second – but the No. 1 reason is they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. Most people really want a union because they’re being treated so badly.”

The petty grievances have a way of adding up, Salonek explained. One group of workers reached out to her after management, responding to their repeated requests for a water cooler, finally gave in, but refused to provide cups. Another group decided to organize after their boss removed the break-room table. “They were so outraged they drew a chalk outline on the carpet of the floor where the table used to be,” she said.

Retail and health care workers approach St. Paul-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 with concerns about unpredictable schedules and paid time off, organizing director Abraham Wangnoo said. “People with young families want to be able to see their kids’ sporting events, to plan their lives.”

That’s not to say rising income inequality and corporate power aren’t behind renewed interest in unions, too. Young workers were particularly “drawn into that analysis of corporate power and wealth” put forth by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, Bielski Boris said. “Unions were seen as part of a solution to deal with those problems.”

“They realize not every person is going to be the CEO of a company,” Wangnoo said of young workers. “They have to stick together.”

Pro-union Jimmy John’s workers picketed outside a Minneapolis store in 2011. (file photo)

Broken system

Perception isn’t the problem unions face, organizers and experts say. A broken system is.

In 2011, after their repeated requests for paid sick days fell on deaf ears, workers at several Jimmy John’s sub shops in the Twin Cities decided to unionize. Their scrappy, upstart effort drew enough support to prompt the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an historic union election in the union-free world of fast food.

The franchisee, MikLin Enterprises, responded with a campaign intended to scare its 170 employees from supporting the union. MikLin fired six workers active in the campaign, a move that sapped momentum from the organizing drive. Workers voted 87-85 against a union.

The six workers filed complaints with the NLRB, arguing MikLin had fired them in retaliation for exercising their legally protected right to engage in union activity. One year later, an administrative law judge sided with the workers, but MikLin filed the first of a series of appeals that ended, finally, five years after the organizing election, when a federal appeals court ordered the six workers reinstated to their former jobs.

But by that time, as documented in a Huffington Post report, all six workers had long since moved on to new careers, from computer programming to teaching. The idea of going back to fast-food work was laughable, but it laid bare the challenge working people face when they organize a union.

“Not only is the process very cumbersome, the penalty for employers who engage in bad behavior during an election, including firing people, has never been very real,” Bielski Boris said.

What happens after an employer gets wind of union organizing in their shop?

“They hold one-on-one intimidation sessions, use coworkers to apply pressure, spread misinformation about strikes, about dues,” Wangnoo said. “It is hard to imagine, to understand the pressure it puts on somebody who has kids and a life they want to live and bills they have to pay. It’s terrifying.”

Dwindling resources

Unions’ high favorability rating is playing out in NLRB elections nationwide, which unions won at a rate of about 70 percent from Oct. 1, 2015, through December 2016. But the very number of organizing elections taking place – just over 100 per month across the country during that span – illustrates how hard it is for workers to rally enough support to call for a vote. (Most organizing elections are held by the NLRB, but not all. Public-sector elections in Minnesota, for example, are conducted by the Bureau of Mediation Services.)

Monica Bielski Boris (L), shown speaking at a press conference last year, holds a PhD in industrial relations. (file photo)

Employers’ sophisticated, anti-union campaigns are one reason organizing drives don’t often reach the threshold for an NLRB election. Another, Bielski Boris said, is the level of resources it takes to conduct an organizing drive – resources unions are finding increasingly scarce.

Outsourcing and automation, Bielski Boris said, have decimated sectors of the economy, namely manufacturing, rich with union density. Shrinking membership, combined with anti-worker “Right to Work” laws, have forced many unions to choose between responding to workers who want to organize and providing service to existing members.

“It’s incredibly expensive for unions to organize,” Bielski Boris said. “The process is so arduous that even unions who want to organize have some trepidation.”

A changing economy, a new organizing model

Ironically, while working people crave the stability and security a union contract provides, the economic forces at play in destabilizing the workplace are, themselves, barriers to organizing unions.

As more workers settle for short-term gigs – think Uber and Lyft – rather than work in traditional shops, many find themselves labeled as independent contractors rather than employees. And labor law says working people must share a common employer in order to join together in a union.

Salonek, who works with language interpreters and ESL teachers, said independent contractor status “voids those workers from NLRA rights.” If they want to unionize, they must first get reclassified as employees, “and then the employer knows you want a union before you even start an organizing campaign.”

In response, CWA and other unions are exploring alternative union structures that reflect the way working people built power before the NLRA, Salonek said, including professional associations and guilds that advocate for workers in a specific industry. The throwback model comes with several challenges, though. Laws that prohibit price fixing prevent workers’ associations from setting wage floors, for example.

Unions also are exploring new benefits to membership that might attract independent contractors, freelancers and, in Right to Work states, dues payers. They include health insurance plans for workers who bounce from gig to gig, malpractice insurance, professional development and more.

Building Trades unions offer a glimpse of how unions might enhance their appeal to “gig-economy” workers. “You belong to a union and it helps you train for employment and connect with employers, and it sets some baseline standards in the industry,” Bielski Boris said. “They offer a model where transitional employment is built into the DNA of how they operate.”

Reports of unions’ demise as a share of the workforce also fail to reflect successful organizing taking place outside of traditional collective bargaining, including the Fight for 15 and expansion of worker centers.

In the Twin Cities, the worker center CTUL has given retail janitors and fast-food workers a collective voice on the job. Last year, CTUL’s organizing effort resulted in a new union of workers in an industry – retail cleaning – rife with wage theft, as temp agencies and subcontractors cut corners to provide big-box chains with the lowest bid.

The historic victory provides a glimmer of hope for Bielski Boris that unions might restore more than their Pew survey numbers.

“This is an opportunity to figure out what’s possible for labor,” she said. “If working people can see the value unions play in challenging the system, there’s some hope. But if we allow grief to take hold, we’re most certainly going to end up with the results we fear most.”

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As local preemption debate heats up, new book charts CA city’s progressive renewal

March 1, 2017 by

978-080709426-6Mayoral elections are on the horizon in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Corporate lobbyists at the Minnesota Capitol are taking aim at local ordinances expanding access to earned sick and safe time.

The timing, it seems, couldn’t be better for author Steve Early’s book reading and discussion at 7 p.m. March 7 at the East Side Freedom Library. The labor rep-turned-journalist’s latest book, “Refinery Town,” traces a progressive revival afoot in Richmond, Calif., an industrial city in the Bay Area long dominated politically by its largest employer, the Chevron Corporation.

The book charts the course activists took, beginning more than a decade ago, to combat the deindustrialization, poverty, crime and public corruption plaguing Richmond in the late 20th century by electing municipal representatives who have since passed a string of progressive reforms, from a higher minimum wage to a nationally heralded approach to community policing.

In the forward to “Refinery Town,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders argues that Richmond’s success “reflects the lessons of grassroots organizing elsewhere,” and Early’s latest book “offers ideas and inspiration for making change where it counts the most – among friends, neighbors, and fellow community members.”

We asked Early what lessons Richmond’s progressive renewal might offer for activists in Minnesota and what to expect at the book event March 7. His answers have been edited for length.

UA: Why did you decide to write about the progressive turnaround in Richmond?

SE: “I retired (from the CWA) in 2007 and started doing a series of labor-related books. Five years ago I moved to Richmond from Boston, and that’s when I first got invested in the Richmond Progressive Alliance, which is the subject of the book. I got invested as a rank-and-file member of the RPA, and as it attracted more attention because of the unusual trajectory from a company town to a widely hailed progressive city, I decided it was going to be a good subject for a book.”

UA: The list of progressive policies coming out of Richmond City Hall is impressive. Is it replicable?

SE: “In some ways the agenda of people thinking about running for local office in Minneapolis and St. Paul seems to be very similar: trying to raise the minimum wage, raising labor standards, making housing more affordable, trying to make the police accountable and trying to provide greater environmental protections to the extent any municipality can impact the problem of global warming.

“They might not be the big-picture issues that motivated you to go to Bernie Sanders’ rallies or to join the resistance to Trump… It isn’t going to begin to change electoral politics as much as we need, but it is one way to do that incrementally, to start locally, to build a bottom-up base for a broader – hopefully nationwide – progressive movement.”

UA: What lessons does Richmond’s progressive success story offer for the rest of us?

SE: “To be successful here in Richmond, progressives really had to set aside some of the differences they had. People here have been willing to coalesce and campaign under a common banner. That’s paid off. And you have to be patient and persistent in pursuing your goals. You can’t expect to accomplish them overnight. Also, don’t just pop up every two years and run candidates. The RPA functions year round, it’s a membership organization that people pay dues to, and it’s constantly engaging in issue-based organizing. That’s not the usual model for political parties in this country.

“And the key part is RPA candidates are corporate free. They refuse corporate donations, just like Bernie.”

UA: In Minnesota, Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill to restrict local governments’ power to act on issues like sick time and minimum wage. Have you seen similar pushback in California or around the country?

SE: “This is very definitely part of a wider pattern to curb public policy initiatives at the city level, where governments have become more progressive. But this is happening not just as a conflict between progressives or Democrats at the city level and Republicans at the state level. In New York, progressives on the New York City Council adopted a modest measure to tax plastic bag use, trying to wean people away from an environmentally destructive practice, and this was blocked by a Democratic governor.”

UA: What can people expect at the event March 7?

“I try to make these events not just about telling tall tales about a city in California, but exchanging ideas and strategizing jointly with people who are similarly engaged in progressive local politics and community organizing.”

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

Minnesota union members marched against Trump in droves. Here’s why

January 27, 2017 by
web-womensmarch-trades1

D Rojas, a member of Carpenters Local 322, attended the Women’s March in Minnesota a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration with several other Minnesota union tradeswomen.

 

Dressed in hard hats and union colors, union members were among the estimated 100,000 people who joined the Women’s March in Minnesota one day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, capping three days of protests – locally and nationally – that put the new administration on notice of popular opposition to his policy objectives and governing approach.

Stretched from the cathedral to the Capitol in St. Paul, the historic crowd represented, for union members who participated, a stirring display of the solidarity it will take to fend off attacks on working people’s rights, women’s rights, immigrant families and others feeling vulnerable as the former reality-TV boss – with a track record of not paying his employees and joking about sexual assault – assumes the highest office in the land.

“We’re in the majority,” Sprinklerfitters Local 417 member Kimberly Brinkman said from the steps of the Capitol, overlooking a sea of anti-Trump demonstrators. “We want common decency to prevail.”

Home Depot janitors staged a strike on Trump’s first day in office.

Home Depot janitors staged a strike on Trump’s first day in office.

Trump’s inauguration inspired a flurry of events locally planned by unions and progressive groups, who offered hopeful counterprogramming to offset the president’s message of “American carnage.” Union teachers in St. Paul rallied around the district’s immigrant students. Janitors from 12 area Home Depot stores went on strike. And U of M students and workers led a massive march into downtown Minneapolis.

Working people who joined the protests spoke of a need to find strength in numbers at the dawn of uncertain times.

“There’s an immediate need to be together with people, to link arms and to have it be about love and inclusiveness,” Mona Meyer, president of the Communications Workers of America’s statewide council, said. “Right now all of that feels like it’s being threatened.”

For Samantha Kaneaukua, a member of Carpenters Local 322, the threat posed by Trump and congressional Republicans feels uniquely personal. “As a union carpenter, as a person of color and as a lesbian, it’s pretty much everything I stand for, everything I am, that he is opposed to,” she said. “There’s no reason not to be here fighting.”

Why don’t working people get over it and give Trump a chance? After all, he did win fair and square (albeit with an assist from some Russian friends).

“I respect the office,” Meyer said. “I don’t respect the policies and ideas of division and hatred. I don’t like personal attacks on union leaders, civil rights leaders – all of this childish, outlandish behavior. It isn’t becoming of a president.”

If there were any doubts about Trump’s anti-labor intentions, other union members said, his cabinet picks removed them.

Trump’s nominee for Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has donated millions to political campaigns aimed at defunding public schools. His nominee for Labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, is a fast-food executive who opposes raising the minimum wage.

“This is going to be an all-out assault on working families,” St. Paul Federation of Teachers Vice President Nick Faber said.

Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, called it a “cruel” bait and switch: “A campaign that promised to lift up working people is transitioning into an administration designed to tear all of us down.”

Marching against Trump’s agenda were (L to R) Debra DeBruzzi, Operating Engineers 49; Casey Hudek and Karlan Bean, Teamsters 120; Megan Bean, Christina Nelson and Kiya Caturia of Gustavus Adolphus College; and Rod Olson of Local 120.

Marching against Trump’s agenda were (L to R) Debra DeBruzzi, Operating Engineers 49; Casey Hudek and Karlan Bean, Teamsters 120; Megan Bean, Christina Nelson and Kiya Caturia of Gustavus Adolphus College; and Rod Olson of Local 120.

It’s true that many working people supported Trump, and he did better among union members than recent Republican presidential nominees. Karlan Bean, who drove Teamsters Local 120’s semi-truck to the Jan. 21 march, said he knows “too many union members” who backed Trump.

“I’m hopeful that it doesn’t turn out as bad as in the back of my head I fear it will, especially for unions,” Bean added.

“We already know he’s been sued so many times for not paying his labor, and we know he supports Right to Work,” Brinkman said. “A lot of union guys were talking about Trump. It’s going to be one eye-opener for them to see what he does to working families.”

Maybe it was the intoxicating hopefulness of a mass march. Or maybe living in hope is an easier choice than wallowing in despair. But many union members insisted that, by standing together and remaining vigilant, they could fight Trump’s agenda and hold onto their rights.

“The union is kind of reflective of how we need to be,” Carpenters Local 322 apprentice Michelle Rousseau said. “If we stand together and stay united, we’ll be OK.”

Faber said his union would increase its efforts to connect “with other groups and other causes in town” that share teachers’ values. Hager and Brinkman said women in the Trades plan to push locally and nationally to increase hiring goals within the industry for women. Meyer said CWA members have been “thinking not just defensively, but how to move forward based on what workers need, what people need, what families, women, immigrants and LGBT people need.”

Union tradeswomen stood together at the Women’s March, saying they will push for increased hiring goals to bring women into the industry both locally and nationally.

Union tradeswomen stood together at the Women’s March, saying they will push for increased hiring goals to bring women into the industry both locally and nationally.

Kaneaukua, meanwhile, plans to fight for her rights one person at a time by engaging people with different perspectives than her own. And opportunities abound on the job site.

“We need to speak up against discrimination in all of its forms,” she said. “We don’t know each other well enough. I feel like being able to have those conversations and talk about things that maybe my co-workers aren’t used to, that makes a big difference.

“That’s going to be my day-to-day approach.”

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

Pioneer Press workers join nationwide contract campaign, win first raise in seven years

August 16, 2016 by

newsmattersAfter banding together with workers at 11 other newspapers owned by the same hedge fund, union members at the St. Paul Pioneer Press won their first wage increase in seven years, part of a new three-year contract they voted to ratify Aug. 9.

Members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild will receive 3-percent raises Jan. 1, 2017, according to terms of the new agreement, which also calls for “wage reopeners” – negotiations that could lead to additional raises – in the contract’s second and third years.

As they did this summer, Pioneer Press workers will participate in any additional bargaining jointly with other members of Guild locals employed by Digital First Media, a newspaper group owned by Alden Global Capital.

In an innovative and historic contract campaign, Pioneer Press workers joined forces with fellow Guild members at publications across the country, including The Denver Post, The Mercury News, The Trentonian and eight others.

Together, they launched the “#NewsMatters” campaign more than seven moths ago, using social media, member mobilization and an online petition drive to put the heat on management. More than 11,000 people nationwide joined in calling on Digital First to support quality journalism by negotiating fairly with the workers who make it possible.

Last month, the campaign delivered results at the bargaining table, as Digital First workers leveraged their collective weight to win across-the-board raises at all 12 newspapers, including some that hadn’t seen increases in 10 years.

But the company refused to budge when it came to one major concession: job security for workers in circulation and page production.

According to the Guild, the Pioneer Press is likely to outsource field circulation to local contractors, which would affect about 36 workers, mostly part-time. And up to eight local page-production workers could see their jobs outsourced before the new contract expires, as Digital First looks to centralize production at a common location for all of its publications.

In a statement on the Minnesota Guild’s website, the Pioneer Press bargaining team said it secured a “letter of agreement regarding enhanced severance packages and limits on the number of positions that may be outsourced” in production, and enhanced severance for any outsourced circulation employees.

The new contract also rolls back the Pioneer Press’ ability to furlough Guild members, capping the number of unpaid days management can impose at three in 2018 and eliminating unpaid days altogether in 2019.

The Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002, currently represents 167 Pioneer Press employees.

A grant from the Communications Workers of America, the Newspaper Guild’s parent union, helped make the joint bargaining framework possible, covering travel and other costs.

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

Union volunteers give $15 petition drive a boost in Minneapolis

May 18, 2016 by
web.15Now-knockers

Alec Johnson (ATU Local 1005) and Katie Quarles (MNA) door-knock for a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis.

Katie Quarles, a nurse at United Hospital in St. Paul, was among 40 union members who answered the call for volunteers to take action Saturday in support of a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis.

“Fighting for higher wages for working people is what the labor movement does,” Quarles said before knocking on doors in Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood with Alec Johnson, a member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005.

Union members like Quarles and Johnson are helping 15 Now Minnesota gather signatures on a petition that could compel the city to hold a vote on a $15 minimum wage, by way of a city-charter amendment.

Organizer Kip Hedges said the threshold for putting $15 on the November ballot is around 7,000 signatures, but the campaign’s goal is to file the petition with closer to 20,000. Already, over 4,000 people in Minneapolis have signed.

A former member of the Machinists union fired by Delta Air Lines for his outspoken support of a $15 minimum wage at MSP Airport, Hedges said unions have played a critical role in helping pass $15 minimum-wage laws in cities like Seattle and Los Angeles.

“Our unions are strong when we’re working in coalition with other groups in the community,” Hedges said.

The event Saturday was such a success, organizers plan another labor door-knock in support of the 15 Now petition drive June 18, starting at 11 a.m. out of the Communications Workers of America Local 7200 Hall, 3521 E. Lake St., Minneapolis.

About 40 union volunteers gather in the CWA Local 7200 Hall before knocking doors in Minneapolis.

About 40 union volunteers gather in the CWA Local 7200 Hall before knocking doors in Minneapolis.

“Fifteen dollars per hour isn’t even enough; it’s just a starting point,” Mona Meyer, president of the CWA Minnesota State Council, said. “And success in Minneapolis spills over into other areas like St. Paul.”

Union members like Quarles and Johnson see the need to raise wages each day on the job. Johnson, a Metro Transit operator, gets low-wage workers to and from their jobs, while Quarles, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, provides care when workers and their families get sick.

“As a nurse, I see it as a public health issue,” she said. “People working for poverty wages can’t afford real food, and many have to work more than one job to make ends meet. If you have to work all the time, you don’t have time to cook for your family.”

“When you lift the minimum,” Johnson added, “it lifts the conditions for everyone.”

To sign the petition, stop by the MPIRG offices in Minneapolis, at 2722 University Ave. SE., or join the door-knock June 18!

Union groups supporting the 15 Now petition drive in Minneapolis include: CWA Local 7250, the CWA Minnesota State Council, Machinists Local 1833, the Machinists Minnesota State Council, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59, MNA, the Minnesota State Association of Letter Carriers and Teamsters Local 320.

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Solidarity actions with Verizon strikers to continue in Twin Cities

May 10, 2016 by
Workers picketed in solidarity with 39,000 striking Verizon workers outside the company's Roseville store last week. (Labor Review photo)

Workers picketed in solidarity with 39,000 striking Verizon workers outside the company’s Roseville store last week. (Labor Review photo)

Union members in the Twin Cities plan to keep the heat on Verizon this week with two more actions in support of the company’s 39,000 striking workers in the Northeast U.S.

Solidarity actions are planned from noon to 2 p.m. May 11 outside Verizon’s store at 474 Hamline Ave. N. in St. Paul, and from noon to 1 p.m. May 12 outside the company’s downtown Minneapolis location, at 800 Nicollet Ave (RSVP on Facebook).

Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison joined more than 50 protesters outside Verizon’s Roseville location, calling on Verizon to get back to the bargaining table and stop trying to outsource union members’ jobs. “It’s got to be us in Minnesota standing with people struggling for decent pay and decent treatment,” Ellison said.

Striking workers are members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The work stoppage began April 13, and it continues despite Verizon’s move to cut off striking workers from their health insurance benefits effective May 1.

Verizon workers’ previous contract, settled after a 2-week strike in 2011, expired last August. In negotiations since then, workers say, the company has refused to drop its demand for language allowing Verizon to contract out their jobs – the same demand that led to the strike four years ago.

Why is a highly profitable company looking to cut costs with cheap labor? The answer is simple: greed.

According to Verizon’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s top four executives raked in $41 million in 2015 alone, and they’ve taken home $114 million in the last three years.

“Verizon wants to boost their bottom line by taking away the stability and reliability their employees once had,” Mona Meyer, president of the CWA Minnesota State Council, said. “This strike is bigger than Verizon. It’s about protecting good, hometown jobs in this country. It’s about securing a brighter future for our families and our communities. It’s about standing up and fighting back!”

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Minnesotans plan show of solidarity with striking Verizon workers

May 4, 2016 by

GRAPHICverizon-3-510x510Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers in the Northeast have been on strike for more than three weeks now. Their supporters in Minnesota will stand in solidarity tomorrow, a national day of action, outside the telecommunications giant’s Roseville location.

The rush-hour action, from 4 to 6 p.m. at 2325 Fairview Ave. N, will call out Verizon for attempting to outsource good union jobs, despite turning a $45 billion profit over the past five years.

Striking workers are members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The work stoppage began April 13.

Verizon workers’ previous contract, settled after a 2-week strike in 2011, expired last August. In negotiations since then, workers say, the company has refused to drop its demand for language allowing Verizon to contract out their jobs – the same demand that led to the strike four years ago.

Why is a highly profitable company looking to cut costs with cheap labor? The answer is simple: greed.

According to Verizon’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s top four executives raked in $41 million in 2015 alone, and they’ve taken home $114 million in the last three years.

“Verizon wants to boost their bottom line by taking away the stability and reliability their employees once had,” Mona Meyer, president of the CWA Minnesota State Council, said. “This strike is bigger than Verizon. It’s about protecting good, hometown jobs in this country. It’s about securing a brighter future for our families and our communities. It’s about standing up and fighting back!”

Click here to RSVP for the event on Facebook.

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