Ken Peterson: On Workers Memorial Day we remember the dead, fight for the living

April 28, 2017 by

Minnesota Labor Commissioner Ken Peterson

Four workers from St. Louis will not be alive to observe Workers Memorial Day on April 28 this year. Their unnecessary deaths earlier in the month are a stark reminder that despite calls for cutting back government regulations, we cannot allow workplace safety standards or enforcement to be reduced.

At about 7:30 a.m., Monday, April 3, a large boiler blew up in the Loy-Lang Box factory, two miles south of downtown St. Louis resulting in the four deaths.

The force of the explosion instantly killed boiler engineer Ken Trentham and sent a cargo-van size piece of debris rocketing through the factory’s roof and into another building 500 feet away, killing Clifford Lee and newly-weds Chris Watkins and Tonya Suarez-Gonzalez. All three were filling out paperwork to start their new jobs at a medical linen company. Another injured victim remains in critical condition.

It will be weeks, possibly months, before the specific cause of the boiler’s explosion is determined. One thing is known, however, and that is unlike Minnesota and most other places in the U.S., the city of St. Louis does not require boilers to be regularly examined by either government or insurance company inspectors.

Whether a boiler inspection would have prevented the terrible deaths of the St. Louis workers won’t be known until the investigation is done. However, we do know Minnesota has a well-regarded boiler inspection program requiring inspections and licensed operators, and that it’s been at least a half century since an industrial boiler explosion killed anybody in Minnesota.

When enacted in 1971, the goal of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act was to reduce the number killed or injured on the job. Since that time, national fatality rates have been reduced by more than 66 percent and injuries by 67 percent even though the U.S. workforce has more than doubled in size. In Minnesota, both occupational fatalities and injuries are near all-time lows. In 2014, our state had 3.7 injuries for each 100 workers and 2.3 deaths for each 100,000 workers.

Economic and technological changes undoubtedly are partially responsible for the decline in fatalities and injuries. Also, fewer people work in historically dangerous occupations and there is greater employer awareness of the costs of injuries.

Nevertheless, it’s clear today for working people there is a lot less pain and hurt – physically, financially and emotionally – because of enforcement of safety standards.

However, better education of both employees and employers is still needed. For example, in the past two years, three Minnesota workers have been killed by trench cave-ins. To help prevent these tragedies, Minnesota OSHA is encouraging every employer and union involved in excavations to conduct safety stand-downs this spring to remind and inform workers and management to make a plan to protect workers and prevent cave-in accidents.

Safety regulations and education don’t prevent all workplace fatalities. Each year, smaller businesses, which are harder to reach out to, account for a disproportionate number of deaths. So far in 2017, three of the five workplace deaths that Minnesota OSHA has investigated have been at firms with fewer than four employees. Unionized workplaces and those with fifty or more employees tend to have a lower percentage of accidents of all kinds.

Those injured or killed at work should be remembered. Though the injured have their bodies hurt and their lives disrupted, obviously, it’s a greater, more terrible tragedy to have a life cut short, ended too early, by a workplace accident. That’s demonstrated by the five Minnesotans killed this year, as well as the four St. Louis workers killed earlier this month.

On Workers Memorial Day, we should consider the lives of every worker who was killed on the job. Each workplace injury, illness or death is unnecessary. We all need to do what we can to make sure there are fewer in the future.

– Ken Peterson is commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

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

Native pride meets union pride in Cement Masons’ training program

August 2, 2016 by
For their final project, participants in Local 633's pre-apprenticeship program finish their own flat concrete slabs with attached curbs.

For their final project, participants in Local 633’s pre-apprenticeship program finish their own flat concrete slabs with attached curbs.

 

NEW BRIGHTON – As the first trickle of mud oozed out of the concrete truck’s chute, 13 trainees dressed in hardhats, safety vests and tall rubber boots sprung into action, using shovels and trowels to distribute the concrete evenly across 13 rectangular slabs.

The July heat was pushing 90 degrees, and the trainees, participants in a unique pre-apprenticeship program co-sponsored by the Cement Masons and area tribal authorities, worked in silence, heads down, as their instructors barked orders and critiqued their work.

“Let’s go, you’ve got to pick up the pace,” Local 633 apprenticeship instructor Moke Eaglefeathers warned three trainees as they leveled and smoothed one of the slabs. “Those guys over there are waiting on you. You’re falling behind.”

Concrete, any cement mason will tell you, is a perishable product. The brighter the sun, the shorter the lifespan. And the trainees, working on their final project of the program, wouldn’t get more than one shot to do the job right.

“Guys, this is the real world here. This is how fast it moves,” Local 633 instructor Dave Schutta said. “We’re not trying to bury you, but this is just it. This is the real deal.”

Two days later, all 13 trainees – 11 men and two women – were back at the Local 633 training center in New Brighton. They had traded the boots and vests for more formal attire, and their friends and family members, tribal leaders and dignitaries from MnDOT and the state Department of Labor had gathered to watch them take one big step closer to working, as Schutta put it, in the real world.

They’d made it to graduation.

“They went through 12 weeks of hell,” Eaglefeathers said. “I’m pretty hard on them, and I do it on purpose. If they can handle me, they can handle any supervisor or foreman out there.”

A member of the Cheyenne Tribe from Montana, Eaglefeathers calls Local 633’s pre-apprenticeship program “his baby.” He began reaching out to tribal authorities in Minnesota and Wisconsin six years ago after growing “tired of hearing about how there were no skilled workers on the reservations,” he said.

Since then Local 633 has graduated four classes of pre-apprentices, thanks to funding support from the Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) and public agencies, currently MnDOT. The most recent graduates included members of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Red Lake Nation and the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs Ojibwe bands.

At the graduation ceremony, state and tribal representatives offered the program high praise. For MnDOT, it’s the “longest and most physically intense program we have going right now,” Office of Civil Rights supervisor Maria Conley said, and it’s helping build a reserve of “ready-to-work individuals” for highway and construction projects on reservations across the state.

Local 633 instructor Moke Eaglefeathers tears up a little after graduates present him with an eagle feather at the end of the graduation ceremony.
Pre-apprenticeship graduate Billy Joe Garbow of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe opens the graduation ceremony at Cement Masons Local 633’s hall in New Brighton with a peace song, singing and playing on a hand-crafted drum.
Graduates of the latest Local 633 pre-apprenticeship training, with their instructors, are, L to R, (back) Payne Martinson, Lindsay Mason, Jarvis Goodsky, Alexa Goodsky, Russell Barrett, Billy Jo Garbow, David St. John, (middle) George White, Charles Robinson, Tony Beaulieu, Cameron Fisher, Jasmine Funmaker, Dave Schutta, Moke Eaglefeathers and (front) Mark Boshey.
Tony Beaulieu (L) accepts his plaque upon graduation from the pre-apprenticeship training.
Minnesota Department of Labor Commissioner Ken Peterson addresses graduates of the Cement Mason’s pre-apprenticeship program.

State Labor Commissioner Ken Peterson said programs like the Cement Masons’ are critical to making the construction trades workforce more reflective of the state’s broader demographics. Jobs in the trades used to be “reserved” for white males, but “things have changed a lot,” Peterson said. Now, apprenticeship programs statewide are creeping up on 20 percent women and minority participation. “And there’s still room to grow.”

On reservations where families struggle with unemployment, poverty, gang membership and other challenges, the training program offers a social benefit as well.

“You guys are going to be working in our communities, and you’re going to stabilize your families, stabilize your communities,” Bois Forte representative Ray Toutloff told graduates. “You’re all role models.”

Indeed, not everyone who started Local 633’s training program in late April made it to graduation 12 weeks later. Schutta and Eaglefeathers say they run the program like a jobsite, with strict rules about attendance and no tolerance for tardiness.

“When we do tool-recognition training, the first tool we bring out on the table is an alarm clock,” Schutta said. “The second is a backup battery.”

In addition to the “soft skills” necessary for employment, Local 633’s curriculum includes flat work, paving, curb-and-gutter technique, patching and decorative work – “skills that we’ll use for a lifetime,” according to Jasmine Funmaker, a graduate from the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Tony Beaulieu
Lindsay Mason
Dave Schutta (R) pours concrete for David St. John (L) and Jarvis Goodsky.
Jasmine Funmaker (L) and Jarvis Goodsky
Jasmine Funmaker
Moke Eaglefeathers works with trainee Alexa Goodsky.
David St. John

Picking up the craft took determination and patience, said Bois Forte member Alexa Goodsky, who left her job as a housekeeper at Fortune Bay hotel and casino to enroll in the training.

“It started getting progressively easier, and what I’m supposed to do got clearer as time went on,” Goodsky said. “Every time we pour, I’ve learned something new and gotten better.”

Goodsky’s sister graduated from the Cement Mason’s program last year and has been working in the field with JE Dunn Construction ever since. Hers is just one of several success stories that indicate graduates of the program are in high demand.

“These people can go out next Monday and fit right in on a jobsite, as opposed to somebody coming in off the street and filling out an application with no experience,” Schutta said.

Several even decide to continue their training as union apprentices.

“We show them the basics here,” Eaglefeathers said. “We show them the necessary work ethic. If they don’t want to be a concrete finisher, we’re fine with that. We’ll open the door for them to go into another trade so they can have a good life and provide for their families.

“Union life has that pension, that security, that pride. Like any Native American out there, I have pride, and I also have union pride. We show them that. We show them that going union is the best way to work.”

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White House summit lifts up Minnesota workers’ success stories

February 9, 2016 by
Renee Brand, who works at the New Flier bus plant in St. Cloud, introduces Labor Secretary Tom Perez at the Worker Voice Summit in Minneapolis. "I'm living proof manufacturing is alive in the U.S.," the CWA member said.

Renee Brand, who works at the New Flier bus plant in St. Cloud, introduces Labor Secretary Tom Perez in Minneapolis. “I’m living proof manufacturing is alive in the U.S.,” the CWA member said.

 

When President Obama called a Worker Voice Summit at the White House last October, he pledged his administration would hold regional summits across the country in 2016 to continue the conversation about common issues working people face on the job.

The first of those summits took place in Minneapolis today – and with good reason, U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez told area workers, business owners, union leaders and elected officials gathered at a community center in south Minneapolis.

Minnesota is “ground zero,” Perez said, for successful and innovative strategies that serve as a model for workers looking to gain a meaningful voice on the job.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez stops for a photo with an AFSCME member at the Worker Voice Summit.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez stops for a photo with an AFSCME member at the Worker Voice Summit.

Perez pointed to faculty at the University of Minnesota who will vote soon on forming a union, retail janitors who won a historic agreement with Target to improve standards in their industry and SuperAmerica workers organizing outside the margins of a traditional union drive.

“Workers need a seat at the table,” Perez said. “We need to build bigger tables rather than taller fences in this country.”

Since Obama took office at the height the Great Recession, his administration has shepherded a recovery that’s succeeded on many fronts. The unemployment rate recently dipped below 5 percent, and the auto industry has come “roaring back,” Perez noted.

But wage growth has been sluggish, and while the economic recovery succeeded in creating new jobs, many lack traditional, full-time schedules and benefits like paid sick time and family leave.

The Worker Voice Summit, Perez said, is an effort to tackle the “unfinished business of ensuring this wind that is at our back results in prosperity for everyone, not just for a few people at the top.”

Local workers participated in a panel discussion led by Department of Labor Office of Policy head Sharon Block (L). They include SuperAmerica co-manager Tara Lee Johnson (R) and Maricel Flores (second from left), who cleans a Target in Shakopee.

Local workers participate in a panel discussion led by the Department of Labor’s Sharon Block (L). They include SuperAmerica co-manager Tara Lee Johnson (R) and Maricela Flores (second from left), who cleans a Target in Shakopee.

To do that, summit organizers are lifting up best practices for organizing workers in the new economy, and a panel discussion held after Perez’s keynote speech today highlighted several local success stories.

Tara Lee Johnson, a SuperAmerica co-manager from St. Cloud, talked about her leadership in putting pressure on the convenience-store chain to improve its hiring practices and working conditions. High turnover rates make it difficult to organize a traditional union, she said, but with support from two union-backed community outreach initiatives, Working America and the Greater Minnesota Worker Center, workers won a meeting with the company’s president to discuss their concerns.

“They’ve given us a voice,” Johnson said of Working America and the worker center. “They’ve educated us about our rights.”

Target janitor Maricela Flores, a member of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, appeared on the panel with a corporate vice president. They recounted the series of meetings that led to agreement on a Responsible Contractor Policy that stipulates scheduling and safety requirements Target’s cleaning contractors must meet – and provides workers with a pathway to collective bargaining.

Flores said she hopes other retailers follow Target’s example and take a collaborative – rather than adversarial – approach to dealing with workers’ concerns. She noted that CTUL members who clean Macy’s stores in the metro plan to strike Feb. 18 unless the company agrees to a meaningful dialogue about working conditions.

“Each and every one of us are human beings, and we deserve respect,” she said. “We deserve to have a voice on the job.”

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, whose district includes Minneapolis, drew a connection between elevating workers’ collective voice and addressing the region’s alarming economic disparities between white workers and people of color.

“We’re proud of our state and proud of our town,” Ellison said. “But we’ve got to do something, and conversations like this are part of the solution.”

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

Ken Peterson: Apprenticeship training meets workforce needs of today and tomorrow

November 5, 2015 by
Minnesota DLI Commissioner Ken Peterson

Minnesota DLI Commissioner Ken Peterson

Minnesota’s workforce is experiencing tremendous transition. Thousands of our experienced baby boomers are retiring, while many employers are seeking a workforce capable of meeting increased levels of skill to operate new technologies with precision.

An emerging, yet familiar, pathway for some employers to successfully bridge that gap is registered apprenticeship programs.

Registered apprenticeship programs have been referred to as “the other four-year degree” in Minnesota since they began in 1939. Through apprenticeship, Minnesotans have built careers — without debt — by combining paid on-the-job training with focused classroom education. Both at the workplace and in class, training is customized to meet employers’ needs.

As apprentices learn more they earn more and at the end of their apprenticeship they receive a state-issued, industry-recognized credential. Plus, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, a fully proficient worker who completes an apprenticeship earns about $50,000 each year.

Today, there are more than 11,000 registered apprentices in Minnesota. Three-fourths of them are in the construction trades, such as carpenters, laborers and electricians. These programs, financed by employers and unions, have a long history of providing high-caliber job preparation. They are also increasingly diverse, with women and racial minorities now accounting for more than 25 percent of construction apprentices.

Using the same “earn while you learn” model, the state of Minnesota hopes to expand registered apprenticeship opportunities in other industries during the next five years.

A new Minnesota Apprenticeship Initiative will be one way to expand those opportunities. More than 800 individuals, working for 100 employers around the state, will participate in newly registered apprenticeship programs in 29 high-growth occupations in advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care, information technology and transportation. Everyone who completes a program will receive a credential that demonstrates they possess the skills needed for success in their field. The initiative is federally funded, but will be administered by state agencies.

Another program, the Minnesota PIPELINE Project, provides grants to employers for dual-training in an occupation for which their industry has designed competency standards. The work must be done in collaboration with a training provider and be in one of four industries: advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care or information technology.

Large and small manufacturers, health care facilities, auto dealers and others have found that registered apprenticeships offer employer-driven solutions to help them recruit, train and retain highly skilled employees. They are good for employers, workers and Minnesota’s future.

For more information about registered apprenticeship programs, call the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry at 1-800-342-5354 or visit www.dli.mn.gov.

Ken Peterson, commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry, wrote this column for Apprenticeship Week, observed Nov. 2-8 as proclaimed by Gov. Mark Dayton and the U.S. Department of Labor.

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In Minnesota, apprenticeship model expanding to other industries

June 26, 2015 by

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 in other industries are looking to emulate it.

Minnesota is one of three states where the AFL-CIO’s Working for America Institute, armed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, is promoting a registered apprenticeship program for industrial manufacturing workers. It’s an 18-month, 3,000-hour training course that employers can access at no cost to boost their workers’ skills.

Several Minnesota manufacturers are warming up to the idea of partnering with a union on an apprenticeship course, program coordinator Jerome Balsimo said.

“Employers have said to us, ‘This is a recruiting tool,’” Balsimo said. “‘There are four or five other manufacturers right next to us, but I’m the manufacturer that has the apprenticeship program, wage increase and industry-recognized certifications when you finish. Come work for us.’”

Among those employers is Baldinger Bakery in St. Paul. After being approached by its workers’ union, BCTGM Local 22, Baldinger agreed to install the Industrial Manufacturing Technician apprenticeship program, which will launch later this year.

The company, which manufactures buns for McDonald’s and other restaurants, recently relocated to a “rebuilt, high-tech facility” on Phalen Boulevard, Local 22 President Ron Mohrland said. Management viewed the apprenticeship program as an opportunity to ensure workers’ skills keep pace.

Much of the training curriculum is standardized, with MnSCU faculty facilitating. But Baldinger is able to customize many aspects to meet the plant’s needs.

“There’s a basic education that these guys are getting, but the plant is helping write the program to what needs to be taught specifically at our facility,” Mohrland said.

About one-third of the 60-plus union members working in the facility are expected to participate, from new hires to more experienced factory workers. Apprentices will get paid for the time they spend in classroom or on-the-job training, and when they complete the program, they will add seven industry-recognized credentials and certifications to their resumes – not to mention the $1.50 per hour raise.

“They’re going to go from walking in the door as a helper to the very top scale, something called a bakery processor,” Mohrland said. “That’s somebody who can pretty much walk in there can do anything – from minor maintenance to running the machines all around the facility.”

Industrial unions like the BCTGM aren’t the only ones eying apprenticeship opportunities as an added value to union membership. Todd Dahlstrom, the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s organizing and growth director, said another federal grant is in the works to boost health care workers’ skills and wages via apprenticeship.

“The union does grievances, the union does arbitration, the union negotiates contracts – all fundamental things that are very, very important. But they’re not always tangible to a new employee,” Dahlstrom said.

“If workers understand that they get their training and certificate for that training through a program their union has helped develop and offer, you get workers on the front end and give them a stronger union identity.”

– Interested in the Industrial Manufacturing Technician apprenticeship? Contact program coordinator Jerome Balsimo at 651-335-2896 or Jbalsimo@mnaflcio.org.

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

June 24, 2015 by
Analise Adams is among the first 18 women to complete Women Building MN, a pre-apprenticeship program supported by grant funds included in the Women’s Economic Security Act.

Analise Adams is among the first 18 women to complete Women Building MN, a pre-apprenticeship program supported by grant funds included in the Women’s Economic Security Act.

 

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 enrolled in the two-week course.

The risk paid off. Within two weeks of completing the training May 22, Adams had a job as a pre-apprentice electrician with Egan Construction. Working on the contractor’s road crew, Adams helps take down streetlights and pull wire from beneath street level.

“They said my shovel would become my new best friend, and it has,” Adams said during a break from working on a road-construction project around Snelling and University Avenues in St. Paul. “We’re doing a lot of digging.”

Not that she would trade digging for diapers.

“Childcare wasn’t paying the bills. It wasn’t a career. It wasn’t where I wanted to go in life,” Adams said. “This is something I can work for years and years, for life.”

That’s the idea behind Women Building MN, the new pre-apprenticeship program getting women like Adams on track to a middle-class career by way of the Building Trades’ registered apprenticeship programs.

Breaking the mold

Men traditionally have dominated the ranks of apprenticeship programs in Minnesota, and it remains so today. Just 654 of the state’s 9,661 registered apprentices are females, or about 7 percent. But the number of women in apprenticeship programs has doubled over the last 10 years. It’s a trend policymakers, construction firms and Building Trades unions want to continue – at a faster pace.

“There’s a need to diversify the industry,” Building MN Coordinator Vicki Sandberg said. “A lot of women still don’t even think of construction as a career choice.”

The challenge of attracting more women to Building Trades apprenticeships is about more than achieving diversity, though. Industry experts anticipate a shortage of skilled workers in the coming years, according to Jessica Looman, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

Apprenticeship programs took in fewer applicants after the economic downturn as work slowed and opportunities for paid, on-the-job training – the basis of apprenticeship – grew scarce. “Now that work is back, we’re realizing we didn’t bring in enough people to be ready to do the work on the journey level, and we need to make up for lost time,” Looman said.

A looming “retirement boom” makes the need to recruit new workers even more urgent. Most workers in the construction trades are between 48 and 58. “That means they’re going to be retiring anywhere between the next year and the next 20 years,” Looman said.

Making registered apprenticeship opportunities attractive to women, veterans and people of color is an essential step toward meeting contractors’ demand for skilled labor in the coming years. “The Trades are taking a huge leadership initiative, and they really should be applauded and congratulated for the hard work they’re doing in bringing apprenticeship to more people,” Looman said.

Adams says other members of her crew "do an amazing job of teaching as they go."

Adams says other members of her crew “do an amazing job of teaching as they go.”

Designed for women

Women Building MN is based on curriculum developed by Build MN, a two-week crash course and placement program developed by Twin Cities Building Trades unions and their contractors in 2004 to attract non-traditional applicants to their apprenticeship programs.

The Women’s Economic Security Act, passed by state lawmakers last year, provided grant funding for an offshoot focused on women. The training includes an introduction to several crafts, from pipefitting to electrical work. Participants visit training centers operated by local unions, where staff set up demonstrations and hands-on activities.

“With 18 women in the class, we would go into these training centers and overpower the whole thing,” Adams said. “It was just all women. They’re not used to that.”

The course also included seminars on working in male-dominated environments, the culture of the construction industry, the apprenticeship career model and so-called “soft skills” – what to wear, what tools to bring, how to stay safe and more.

Women Building MN will graduate three classes this summer, each with up to 24 women enrolled. And for the first time, Build MN will track graduates’ progress with a mentoring program coordinated by the Minnesota AFL-CIO and the U of M’s Labor Education Service, connecting apprentices with journey-level workers.

Jerome Balsimo, a program coordinator with the AFL-CIO, said having a mentor “helps you deal with some of the issues that come up on the job, things you can’t teach in those two weeks. You need someone who has been through those battles.”

The mentoring program is also supported with funds from the WESA grant, which put a premium on apprentice retention. “We know if we can get people to stay after their first year of registered apprenticeship, their success rate in completing is significantly higher,” Looman said. “People who stay for a second and third year are the people who are going to make a career of it, and we want to help them get through that second and third year.”

‘Who cares if it’s hard?’

Already, the program is paying dividends for Adams, who is soaking up as much knowledge as she can before, she hopes, becoming an IBEW apprentice in the fall.

“I can’t do everything that they’re doing, but the guys on my crew do an amazing job of teaching as they go,” she said. “You have to be willing to go and get it and do the work. Put your foot in it. Who cares if it’s hard work? The whole point of a job is to work hard.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to get down in the mud, and I’m going to have to shovel. I’m going to have to do all of the work the guys are doing. It’s not any different. It’s just I’m a chick, and I’m doing it.”

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

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

May 12, 2015 by

web.CWAstrike-picket2

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 Marquette Avenue, according to union reports.

Striking workers plan to return to their posts tomorrow, Local 7250 President Shari Wojtowicz said. But the walkout put AT&T on notice that union members are standing behind their co-workers whose requests for sick leave have been denied.

CWA Local 7250 members picket outside AT&T's offices downtown Minneapolis.

CWA Local 7250 members picket outside AT&T’s offices downtown Minneapolis.

“I think it was unexpected for the company,” Wojtowicz said of the strike. “It’s unfortunate for our customers because we pride ourselves on our quality of customer service, but if we’re not able to take care of ourselves or our families, it’s difficult for us to provide that service anyway.”

[Related: For 25th anniversary, AT&T guts MN workers’ sick leave]

The grievances prompting the strike involve workers with 25-plus years of experience at AT&T, who are no longer eligible for sick pay when they miss work to care for an ailing family member, according to company policy.

Workers allege that policy is illegal under the Minnesota Parenting Leave Act, which lawmakers passed in 2013 to expand workers’ access to sick time during family health emergencies, whether it’s a child, parent or spouse who is ailing. State regulators agree, and a lawsuit between AT&T and the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry is advancing in federal court.

“AT&T is actually spending more money on lawyers to avoid following the law than it would cost them to comply with it,” Wojtowicz said.

But Local 7250 members aren’t waiting for a judge to make AT&T do right by its longest-serving employees.

web.CWAstrike-picket1“They’re basically discriminating against their most senior, most dedicated people, the people who have made this company what it is,” Local 7250 member Susan Anderson said. “It’s shameful, especially with the profits they have, the perks that their CEO gets. Yet they are basically trying to nickel and dime us to death.”

The strike is unique to grievances between Local 7250 and AT&T, but the slow pace of negotiations between CWA and AT&T on contracts covering about 17,500 workers nationwide factored into workers’ decision to go on strike, Wojtowicz said.

CWA’s previous contract with Legacy-T, the branch of AT&T that covers Minneapolis, expired April 11, leaving workers without arbitration rights included in the agreement.

“Our members have taken matters into their own hands, walked off the job in the hopes the company will work with us to resolve this issue on behalf of all employees,” she said.

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

Laborers press Minnetonka school board to investigate child-labor charges

July 24, 2014 by

5631_Laborers_1Laborers 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 working on the Scenic Heights job site without safety equipment. The district responded, claiming the minor in question was a 17-year-old who was assisting his father, owner of a subcontracted firm doing work on the project, in full compliance with state labor laws.

After reviewing public records, however, the Laborers released a statement today calling the district’s conclusions wrong, misleading and deeply disturbing.

According to the union, records not only indicate that the boy in question is 14 and not 17, but they also indicate that he is not the son of the listed owner of the subcontractor, a potential violation of state child labor laws.

The union shared its findings with state and federal investigators looking into potential violations, as well as Minnetonka Schools Superintendent Dennis Peterson. According to the union, Peterson acknowledged the boy was not 17 but maintained that the boy’s employment was lawful.

The union’s statement claims the superintendent “indicated that he believed the boy’s father was a part-owner of Scott’s Concrete & Masonry Construction, but even if that were true, it would not appear to make the boy’s employment legal under Minnesota Administrative Rules 5200.0930 which requires that the employer be ‘totally owned by one or both parents.’”

Tim Mackey, business manager of Laborers Local 563, noted that the district is ultimately responsible for managing the project at Scenic Heights, and he questioned “whether the administration is more interested in maintaining cozy relationships with non-responsible contractors than protecting children.”

“We intend to pursue this issue until we are confident that no more children will be put at risk and that the responsible parties have been held accountable,” Mackey added.

An independent investigation, the union said, would send a message that the Minnetonka School District does not tolerate use of unsafe child labor, and help restore public confidence in the district’s management of its construction projects.

“It boils down to this district turning a blind eye to reports of blatant violations of child labor laws in order to cut corners,” Mackey said. “To acknowledge a problem and not do anything about it should be concerning to everyone including parents and taxpayers. How many other problems are happening on district projects that haven’t been discovered yet?”

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

Ken Peterson: Job safety and Workers Memorial Day

April 29, 2014 by

peterson_jan2011Work 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. unions marked April 28 as Workers Memorial Day in 1989. By historical coincidence, it is the same date federal OSHA opened its doors in 1971. Today, more than 20 countries recognize the day to remember those who have died or been injured at work and to commit to the health and safety of today’s workplaces.

In 1989, as the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry commissioner under Governor Rudy Perpich, I attended the first St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly Workers Memorial Day event in St. Paul. That year, to save budget dollars, some legislators were trying to do away with Minnesota OSHA (MNOSHA). The event’s main speaker Steve Dress, then head of the assembly, brought us to our feet by condemning those who would endanger workers’ lives by cutting dollars meant to protect their safety and health.

Like 26 other states, Minnesota runs its own OSHA program, funded with both federal and state dollars. The program enforces safety and health standards and offers advice about how to maintain safe, healthy workplaces. Thanks to leaders like Steve, MNOSHA’s program wasn’t eliminated then and still remains dedicated to protecting the safety and health of Minnesota’s workers.

On average, Minnesota workplaces are safer today than in 1989. Although today’s state workforce is almost one-third larger, both fatalities and workers’ compensation claims dropped by about a third between 1989 and 2012. In 1989, a worker’s chance of getting hurt or sick on the job was 8.2 percent. In 2012, it dropped to 3.9 percent – less than half the odds in 1989.

Still, improvement in overall job safety doesn’t mean much if you or a loved one is hurt because of sloppy safety practices or becomes ill due to exposure to hazardous materials.

Much of MNOSHA’s work is aimed at reducing threats from such safety and health hazards. The most common citation for employers is not providing training under the “Right-to-Know” (handling hazardous materials) law. The third most common citation is failure to involve employees in the employer’s required “A Workplace Accident and Injury Reduction” (AWAIR) program. When implemented, both Right-to-Know and AWAIR have been shown to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses.

Falls in construction are another big problem and focal point for MNOSHA. Nationally, 289 of 775 construction fatalities were due to falls in 2012. In Minnesota, in 2012, six of 10 non-transportation construction fatalities were due to falls. Our agency is particularly concerned about smaller companies, those with fewer than 10 employees, which often experience a higher number of injuries and fatalities.

MNOSHA is joining with federal OSHA, the Minnesota Safety Council, and other employee and employer groups to promote the “2014 National Fall Prevention Safety Stand-down” during June 2 through 6, 2014, to raise awareness about preventing fall hazards in construction.

During this week, MNOSHA encourages employers to stop work to talk about safety topics such as fall protection, ladder safety or proper scaffolding. View MNOSHA’s Web page at http://www.dli.mn.gov/osha/falls.asp for information about how to participate.

The great 19th century labor organizer, Mary “Mother” Harris Jones, would tell audiences to “Mourn the dead and fight for the living.” This Workers Memorial Day, all of us should remember those who have been killed or hurt on the job and focus on ways to reduce workplace deaths and injuries.

– Ken Peterson is Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. For more information on the department’s workplace safety initiatives, go to www.doli.state.mn.us.

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