In Minnesota, apprenticeship model expanding to other industries

Apprenticeship has long been the backbone of the Building Trades unions. Their on-the-job training programs put workers on a path to family-sustaining careers while ensuring union contractors have access to the highly skilled labor pool they need to remain competitive. It’s a win-win model. Now, with a push from the federal government, unions and employers […]

With boost from WESA, training program puts women on path to apprenticeship

  Analise Adams, a 22-year-old from Minneapolis, was working in a Linden Hills childcare center two months ago. When her aunt, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told her about a free training opportunity for women considering careers in construction, Adams decided to take a chance. She quit her childcare job and […]

AT&T workers in Minneapolis strike over sick pay for longest-serving employees

Workers in AT&T’s credit collections department walked off the job in Minneapolis this afternoon, joining a “grievance strike” to demand AT&T stop denying sick pay to its longest-serving employees. About 200 of the department’s 243 workers, members of Local 7250 of the Communications Workers of America, joined picketing outside AT&T’s offices at 9th Street and […]

Laborers press Minnetonka school board to investigate child-labor charges

Laborers Local 563 today called on the Minnetonka School Board to commission an independent investigation into possible violations of state and federal child-labor laws stemming from construction work at district’s Scenic Heights Elementary School. Earlier this month, the Laborers notified state and federal regulators, as well as the school district, that a minor was apparently […]

Ken Peterson: Job safety and Workers Memorial Day

Work should be less dangerous. Fewer people should die or be injured at work. That’s why Canadian labor unions started the first Workers Memorial Day in 1985. They picked April 28 because it was the date Canada’s first workers’ compensation law was passed in 1914. Recognizing the significance of what the Canadians had begun, U.S. […]