Workers encouraged to make sure they see full benefit of Minnesota’s new sick time law

January 30, 2024 by

A member of the Twin Cities worker center CTUL spoke about the importance of having access to earned sick and safe time – and why CTUL was among the leading advocates of expanding the benefit statewide.

Minnesota’s new earned sick and safe time mandate took effect Jan. 1, and state lawmakers and regulators are encouraging workers to check with their employers to make sure they are earning the full benefit provided by the new law.

That means banking a minimum of one hour of earned sick and safe time for every 30 hours worked. Accrual must begin immediately upon employment, and workers may earn up to a 48 hours in a year, at minimum.

The new law applies broadly, covering full-time, part-time and temporary employees, although federal workers, independent contractors and some construction workers covered by collective bargaining agreements are exempt from the law.

“We know that everyone deserves paid time away to heal, to grow and to live,” Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said during a press event at a bakery in Minneapolis, where she and other officials sought to raise awareness of the new mandate. “And when you come back your job should still be there.”

Employers must allow workers to access their earned sick and safe time to recover from illness or injury, access preventative care or care for family members. Workers also may access earned benefits to seek assistance for domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

State Sen. Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul), lead author of the new law, recalled fighting to include earned sick and safe time in the Women’s Economic Security Act of 2014.

Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul was lead author of the ESST bill.

“I couldn’t get it over the goal line at that time, but I was really pleased with my city of St. Paul … that we were the guinea pigs to show that it could work and be successful,” Pappas said. “Now, earned sick and safe time will raise the bar for all Minnesota workers.”

St. Paul was one of four Minnesota cities that put sick-time ordinances on their books before state lawmakers expanded the benefit during the 2023 legislative session. Fourteen other states have passed similar laws too, Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said.

“This law is providing an important workplace benefit that allows workers – regardless of their income, regardless of their background – the right to take time off to prioritize their health and the health of their families,” she said. “We know that it works.”

Some employers in cities like St. Paul and Minneapolis have cited the benefits of expanding earned sick and safe time benefits. Daniel Swenson-Klatt adopted the policy at Butter Bakery Café seven years ago, as city council members in Minneapolis were debating an ordinance. He called it “an investment that paid off.”

“In the end it provided my staff with safety and security. It reduced turnover,” he said. “There was an associated cost of hiring and turnover that just wasn’t there anymore. Over the years, it has added a little to my payroll costs, but it has brought back rewards far greater.”

Officials also emphasized that earned sick and safe time is not the same as paid family and medical leave, another workplace benefit state lawmakers voted into law last legislative session. The medical leave bill, which provides partial wage replacement for extended absences like the birth of a child, will go into effect in 2026.

Find more information about workers’ rights under the new ordinance on the Labor Department’s website.

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Minnesota unions praise historic legislative session

May 24, 2023 by

Gov. Tim Walz spoke to supporters before signing 12 budget bills into law.

In a historically productive legislative session that ended on time Monday, labor-endorsed lawmakers delivered on nearly all their campaign promises, from investments in public infrastructure and schools to expansion of family-supporting benefits, union rights and workplace protections.

Union activists and leaders were among hundreds who celebrated the session’s accomplishments today on the Capitol grounds, as Gov. Tim Walz held a signing ceremony for 12 budget bills that will fund state government for the next two years.

Walz likened the newly approved budget to the “Minnesota Miracle” of 1971, when the state drew nationwide acclaim for investing in public education.

“If this is ‘Minnesota Miracle 2.0,’ the difference between then and now is … we’re leaving no one behind,” Walz said.

Labor leaders praised Walz and DFL legislators for rising to the occasion created by a projected budget surplus that swelled to $17.5 billion – thanks, in part, to one-time federal stimulus dollars that Republicans blocked the state from allocating one year ago.

After winning all three levers of power – with support from union volunteers – during the 2022 election, DFLers invested the surplus in infrastructure projects and jobs, schools, nursing homes and targeted tax relief for working families, including an expanded child tax credit that will return up to $1,750 per child to lower-income families.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, former director of the Minnesota Children’s Defense Fund, said the budget is “deeply rooted in equity and decades in the making.” She credited organizers and activists who have devoted years to fighting for policies that will soon become law, like earned sick and safe time and paid family leave.

“We have played the long game,” Flanagan said. “And we won.”

Children and families will also benefit from $2.26 billion in new funding for Minnesota’s public schools over the next biennium. The 10.5% increase will help school districts cover rising costs – and recruit and retain educators and other employees. And the budget allocates $600 million to hire and retain child care teachers.

Walz and DFL lawmakers focused on issues that matter to workers and families, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said, noting that their work stands in contrast to Republican-controlled chambers in other states that have sought to ban abortion, weaken child-labor laws and meddle in school curriculum.

“While other states are putting 14- and 15-year-olds to work on assembly lines, Minnesota is making sure parents have the time and resources to care for and sustain their families; while other states ban books in our schools and libraries, Minnesota is making sure no student goes hungry at school; and while other states make it harder to vote, Minnesota is expanding our Democracy to make sure every eligible voter has the freedom to make their voice heard,” Burnham said.

Public works, transportation and other infrastructure will see historic investments as a result of the session, putting members of unions like the Laborers to work for years to come.
Education Minnesota members praised a 10.5% increase in school funding.
SEIU Local 284 celebrated extension of unemployment benefits to hourly school employees.

Walz is also expected to sign a $2.3 billion infrastructure deal that contains a mix of borrowing – a so-called “bonding” bill – and cash investments. It would be the first bonding bill the state has passed since 2020.

Sen. Sandy Pappas, the lead author, said the measure “will create thousands of well-paying union jobs and ensure businesses have the infrastructure they need to build in Minnesota for years to come.”

On the Capitol grounds today, Walz gave a shout to people in hard hats throughout the crowd. “All of these good union jobs have built the middle class and built Minnesota,” he said. “It is going to continue that way.”

In addition to historic investments approved this session, Minnesota lawmakers took up several policy changes long sought by union members, including an extension of unemployment benefits to hourly school employees, a ban on private prisons and a new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board with the authority to set standards like pay and benefits.

Lawmakers expanded and strengthened union rights, enshrining public-sector workers’ ability to bargain on non-economic issues like safe staffing and class sizes, giving workers in the newly legalized recreational cannabis industry a path to collective bargaining and banning “captive audience meetings,” in which workers are forced to listen to their bosses’ religious, political or anti-union views.

Funds allocated this session will also bolster the state’s film industry tax credit, raise pay for home care and nursing home workers and strengthen public pensions.

A measure to address hospital staffing shortfalls, however, fell short of the Minnesota Nurses Association’s expectations. The bill established new safety protections and recruitment bonuses for health care workers, but it left out language that would have would have required hospitals to create labor-management committees to determine appropriate staffing in their wards.

Support for a safe staffing law dwindled after Mayo Clinic threatened to withhold investments in its Rochester campus if it passed.

“I hope Minnesotans know how hard nurses fought for your care and safety,” MNA President Mary Turner said. “And I hope corporate executives and our public officials know that our fight is not over to put patients before profits in our health care system.”

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Time has come for statewide earned sick and safe time, MN lawmakers say

January 17, 2023 by

Maria Vazquez, a member of CTUL, recalled going to work with a fever and trembling legs before St. Paul’s earned sick and safe time ordinance went on the books in July 2017.

Minnesota lawmakers today held up St. Paul’s earned sick and safe time ordinance as a shining example of policy they hope to replicate statewide.

Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul and Rep. Liz Olson of Duluth, lead authors of legislation that would extend paid sick and safe time to an estimated 900,000 Minnesotans working without the benefit, said the time has come to ensure no one is forced to choose between their paycheck and their health.

“Over several sessions here at the Capitol, we have spent a great deal of time vetting this critical solution for economic security,” Olson said during a press conference with workers and advocates in advance of the measure’s first committee hearings.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic’s darkest days, we saw just how important it was for people to stay home when they were sick,” she added. “But this was a problem well before COVID, and it’s a problem we are going to solve now.”

The solution looks much like the policy members of the St. Paul City Council sent to then-Mayor Chris Coleman’s desk in September 2016.

The DFLers’ proposed legislation would require employers to provide one hour of sick time for every 30 hours an employee works, with accrued time capped at 48 hours per year – a rate on par with the St. Paul ordinance.

Employees would be able to carry over unused time from year to year, but their accrued time could not exceed 80 hours, barring an independent arrangement between the employer and employee.

The legislation spells out a range of ways workers could use their accrued time, including to recover or to seek care for injuries and illnesses to themselves or family members.

Maria Vazquez, a member of the worker center CTUL, was working as a housekeeper in St. Paul when the city council took up earned sick and safe time. At the Capitol press conference, she recalled showing up to work with a fever and trembling legs before finally gaining access to the benefit.

“Other people would rightly ask, ‘Why are you going to work when you are sick?’” Vazquez said via an interpreter. “But when you are employed without those benefits you still have responsibilities… If I didn’t go to work, it was (choosing) between my health or the roof over my head, the food on the table.”

Preventative-care appointments and weather-related school closures also would qualify under the proposed legislation, as would so-called “safe time” – absences that result from suffering domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking.

Laura Carpenter, a former food service worker in the Minneapolis Public Schools, recalled accessing her earned sick and safe time to seek legal protection from an abusive partner in 2018.

“I was able to take the day off work and go downtown to (Hennepin County Domestic Abuse Service Center), where I was supported by an advocate who helped me navigate the legal system,” Carpenter remembered. “This resource was invaluable for my family … but I wouldn’t have been able to access it during the daytime hours if I was worried about my job security or losing my income.”

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have earned sick and safe time laws on the books, as do the cities of Minneapolis, Duluth and Bloomington.

In St. Paul, the ordinance has worked so well that council members are poised to strengthen it, extending coverage to employees of companies outside St. Paul when they perform work in the city. The goal, Ward 2’s Rebecca Noecker said, is an even playing field – something a statewide measure could ultimately ensure.

“There’s a narrative that these sorts of policies are bad for businesses, but that can’t be farther from the truth,” Noecker said. “We have seen business owners in my ward and throughout the city respond really positively to the way that these policies provide a benefit that they would like to be able to provide for their employees.”

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

Resources for workers impacted by COVID-19 response

March 30, 2020 by

Efforts to halt the spread of COVID-19 are creating immediate economic hardship for many working families.  

Minnesota employers slashed payrolls after Gov. Tim Walz issued emergency orders temporarily shutting down restaurants, schools, movie theaters and other spaces where contagion was likely to occur.

As of last Friday, over 204,000 Minnesotans had applied for unemployment insurance benefits, flooding the state’s website with such a high volume of traffic that the agency today rolled out a new process limiting who can apply on certain days of the week based on Social Security number.

Unions, meanwhile, have been busy advocating for broad health and economic protections for workers during the pandemic response, while also scrambling to connect impacted members with support they need.

Twin Cities worker center CTUL, which advocates for people working in low-wage industries, has compiled a “Know Your Rights” list with information on access to safety equipment, earned sick time and other protections during the COVID-19 emergency.

The Saint Paul Labor Studies and Resource Center, the nonprofit arm of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, has compiled a evolving list of resources that may be available to help people make ends meet during the public-health crisis. 

Unemployment Insurance can provide immediate, emergency relief for many workers impacted by COVID-19, including people who have been laid off or who have seen their hours reduced. Gov. Tim Walz moved quickly to streamline UI benefits during the crisis.

People seeking health insurance during the COVID-19 outbreak can shop for coverage on the state’s health exchange, MNsure.org. 

Greater Twin Cities United Way is a longstanding partner in the AFL-CIO Community Services program, and the nonprofit is stepping up to help working families during the COVID-19 response in several ways. 

Evictions have been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, but resources remain are available to working people concerned about keeping their homes. 

Financial assistance may be available through your county. Call to arrange an intake interview. 

Xcel Energy has announced it will not disconnect any household’s utilities during the pandemic. Learn more about the company’s response here. 

Some schools are giving students free meals while schools are closed due to the COVID-19 virus. 

The deadline for filing state and federal income taxes has been pushed back to July 15, 2020. 

Student loan borrowers may be able to suspend payments during the pandemic response. Click here for more information. 

The American Red Cross has a “critical need” for blood donors right now. To schedule an appointment call  651-291-6789, or click here to find a drive. 

Be on the lookout for scams! Here’s a list of tips from the Federal Trade Commission on how to avoid scams related to the coronavirus. 

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Outbreak adds urgency to janitors’ push for sick pay

March 4, 2020 by

Ahmed Kahsay, a janitor at MSP Airport, speaks at a press conference called by his union, SEIU Local 26, to discuss the coronavirus, as Local 26 President Iris Altamirano (R) listens.

The coronavirus outbreak has Edith Patiño worried not just about her family’s health, but her ability to pay the bills, too.

After eight years working as a janitor for Minneapolis-based Harvard Maintenance, Patiño gets just four days of earned sick and safe time per year. When she runs out, Patiño said, she often goes to work sick rather than lose hours toward her paycheck.

What would it mean to miss work for two weeks while recovering from COVID-19?

“I am the head of my household,” Patiño said. “It would be detrimental. I would have to ask for government assistance, which I don’t want to do and have never had to do. But if I can’t work, I have no other option.”

Public response to the epidemic has put a grim spotlight on limited access to paid sick time in the U.S., particularly for low-wage workers like Patiño.

According to federal labor-market statistics, 73% of all private-sector workers had access to paid sick leave last year, but less than half of workers in the lowest 25% of earners. Access to paid sick time also was lower among workers in service occupations, who are most likely to interact with the public, making containment of the outbreak more challenging.

As news broke today that two passengers arriving at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had been asked to self-quarantine, the union representing 4,000 Twin Cities janitors, including about 200 who clean the airport, carried a new sense of urgency into contract negotiations with local cleaning contractors.

Among janitors’ top demands is an increase in their earned sick and safe days, to a minimum of six per year.

Iris Altamirano, president of Service Employees International Union Local 26, said union members “will be on the front lines” of preventing the virus from spreading in Minnesota. “Our workers are being given new tasks to do right now, like wiping down chairs, doorknobs and other surfaces,” Altamirano said.

About 4,000 janitors across the Twin Cities, members of SEIU Local 26, went on a 24-hour strike over unfair labor practices last week.

Should they fall ill from the virus, janitors want their union contract to provide basic protections for themselves and their communities, like paid sick time and affordable health insurance. Altamirano said the union hopes to use its leverage at the bargaining table “to tackle something bigger than just us.”

“We know right now we’re under threat, and we are part of the solution to containing that virus,” Patiño added.

If negotiators fail to make meaningful progress on those demands and others in contract talks scheduled through Friday, the union’s 4,000 members, who staged a 24-hour strike last week, plan to begin an open-ended strike over unfair labor practices Monday.

“We are coming into these negotiations very hopeful we can land a settlement but preparing to do whatever we have to do to get a fair contract,” Altamirano said.

Local 26 members in negotiations are employed by over a dozen different subcontractors to clean corporate office buildings across the Twin Cities. They voted unanimously Feb. 8 to authorize a ULP strike over the companies’ practices of stalling and refusing to give information, and to settle a fair contract.

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Voters back labor candidates, campaigns in local elections

November 12, 2019 by

Candidates carrying the unified labor endorsement performed well in local elections across the East Metro last week, and union members helped pass several school-funding measures as well.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, endorsed 25 candidates on the ballot in 2019, and 23 won their races. All six school levy and bond referendums endorsed by the federation won voter approval, including a record-breaking, $326 million facilities investment in the White Bear Lake school district.

“It was great to see our communities support investments in our schools – in both learning and infrastructure,” said Kera Peterson, the St. Paul RLF’s political director. “Our communities also voted to elect school board candidates who support public education and the schools our students deserve.”

In St. Paul, all six labor-endorsed candidates for City Council won in their respective wards.

Incumbent council members Amy Brendmoen, Mitra Jalali Nelson, Rebecca Noecker, Jane Prince and Chris Tolbert took a majority of first-choice votes, tallied by officials on election night.

Three days later, after the city’s ranked-choice-voting process played out, Nelsie Yang emerged the winner in Ward 6. A member of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild-CWA, Yang ran with the RLF’s endorsement.

Additionally, Council Member Dai Thao won reelection in Ward 1 with the support of several local unions. (The St. Paul RLF did not endorse a candidate in the race.)

All three unified labor-endorsed school board candidates in St. Paul won, as did Nicole Frethem, the labor-endorsed candidate in a special election for the District 1 seat on the Ramsey County Board.

Peterson said the election results confirm that most voters in east-metro communities share labor’s values, from fighting wage theft to lifting working families out of poverty.

“It’s exciting to know that union members helped re-elect the members of the St. Paul City Council who passed the city’s $15 municipal minimum wage and earned sick and safe time ordinances,” she said. “And it’s exciting to think about how we will work together to continue improving standards for workers in our community.”

Yang, meanwhile, was among several union members and retirees who won their campaigns for local office this year.

Tolbert, who won reelection in St. Paul’s third ward, is a member of Local 2938 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Allen, newly elected to the St. Paul school board, is a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators. And Angela Thompson, a member of Office and Professional Employees Local 12, won reelection to the White Bear Lake school board.

Three union retirees, all former members of Education Minnesota, also won seats on local school boards: Louise Hinz in South Washington County, Jackie Magnuson in Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan and Margaret Newmaster in White Bear Lake.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation unites more than 100 local unions in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago counties. Together, they represent over 50,000 working people.

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Hamline puts posturing before progress in contract talks, adjuncts say

January 29, 2019 by

Imagine paying $40,000 per year to attend a university, asking a faculty member for a letter of recommendation, and finding out the letter will come not from a “.edu” address associated with the school, but from an AOL account the professor maintains to write restaurant reviews and buy vintage concert posters online.

It’s just one example, adjunct faculty members say, of the retrograde positions Hamline University and its high-priced lawyers have staked out in negotiations that, despite 14 meetings since last June, have made no progress toward a new union contract.

“All we are trying to do is make reasonable improvements to the contract that help us be better teachers,” said Richard Wiebe, an adjunct instructor of creative writing and digital arts. “We haven’t even gotten to the point of (discussing) economics yet, and every ask we’ve made has been denied by administration on the other end of the table.

“These are things that don’t cost the university anything, so we’re kind of at a loss.”

The frustration boiled over in a press release issued last week by Minnesota Academics United, the SEIU-backed union that represents faculty members at Hamline, Augsburg and other local campuses.

The release blasted Hamline’s approach to bargaining a new contract, accusing school administrators of trying to weaken adjunct faculty members’ union and marginalize their status on campus.

They also blasted university leaders for bringing attorneys from the law firm Dorsey and Whitney into negotiations. The legal fees “almost certainly” have cost Hamline more “than the total cost of the first year of the union’s proposals,” the release said.

David Weiss, a co-steward of the faculty members’ bargaining unit, said union members had hoped talks would be collaborative and positive.

“We were sorely mistaken,” Weiss said. “Far from working with us in a collaborative spirit, Hamline is choosing to become a ‘gated’ academic community, trying to weaken our contract and union – as well as our relationships with students and fulltime faculty colleagues.”

Hamline relies on adjunct faculty to fill roughly half its teaching positions. Adjunct instructors’ workloads fluctuate at the school’s discretion, with few guarantees beyond the end of a given semester.

The intermittent nature of adjunct employment would become even more pronounced under contract language proposed by the university, union members said. One proposal would eliminate standing arrangements that protect adjunct instructors from having to reapply for teaching jobs each semester. Another would block their access to university email accounts, library services and online records in between teaching assignments.

The changes, faculty members warn, would impede their own scholarship and cut them off from students, who often look to instructors for academic assistance or networking support after a semester ends.

The school also rejected the union’s proposal that adjunct faculty members be allowed to carry over earned sick and safe time from one academic year to the next, Wiebe said. Some instructors have been teaching at Hamline for 17 years without accruing a single day of sick leave.

“It’s something we thought it would be reasonable to ask for,” Wiebe said. “We’re trying to work with an unconventional model, being on the academic calendar, but nevertheless ensure some continuity and security for ourselves and our families.”

Hamline’s previous contract with adjunct faculty members, finalized in Feburary 2016 after a first-of-its-kind organizing drive in Minnesota, expired in September. Anthropology instructor Marcia Regan, who has been teaching at Hamline since 2004, said progress on a new agreement won’t come until administrators put posturing aside.

“We know, as dedicated professionals who teach because we believe in the Hamline students, that our long-term connection to Hamline makes us better teachers and deepens our ties to the Hamline community,” Regan said. “The administration refuses to recognize that value, and this has really undercut our best efforts to reach an agreement.”

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Fight for $15’s next target: MSP Airport

November 26, 2018 by

MSP Airport workers and supporters march for $15 on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Emboldened by minimum wage victories in St. Paul and Minneapolis, workers seeking a raise at MSP Airport used the busiest travel day of the year to inject new energy into their fight for $15 and union rights.

The rally outside Terminal 1 last Wednesday brought together the people who make MSP work: unionized janitors, servers, cooks, cart drivers, bag runners and other frontline staff. They marched outside the ticketing area, carrying signs and joining chants calling on the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) to raise the minimum wage to $15 for all airport workers.

Glen Brown, a wheelchair assistant and member of Service Employees International Union Local 26, earns just $10.65 per hour working for airline contractor G2. At the rally, the St. Paul resident recalled watching his city council and mayor pass a minimum wage ordinance earlier this month – and resolving to fight for the same at MSP.

“We deserve the same pay and respect as workers in cities that border the airport,” Brown said, noting that U.S. airlines raked in $15.5 billion in profits last year – profits that “our work helped make possible.”

“There are thousands of us making around what I make, while Delta CEO Ed Bastian makes $6,300 per hour,” Brown added. “A $15 wage floor at MSP would mean stability and security for so many families.”

 

Although workers like Brown are pushing the MAC to follow Minneapolis and St. Paul on the path to $15, it was initially Minneapolis and St. Paul that followed the MAC’s lead in setting higher labor standards than the state requires.

In June 2015, airport commissioners approved a measure raising the minimum wage to $10 for most workers at MSP, which does not fall under the legal jurisdiction of either Minneapolis or St. Paul. That raise came on the heels of a measure passed in December 2014 requiring airport employers to offer earned sick and safe time benefits.

But historic $15 minimum wage ordinances on the books in neighboring St. Paul and Minneapolis are poised to erode airport workers’ minimum-wage advantage. That could lead to under-staffing, workers at the rally warned.

Advocates say nearly 3,000 workers would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15 at the airport, a boost of close to $13 million into the Twin Cities economy for the people and families who need it most.

Feben Ghilagaber, a UNITE HERE Local 17 member who has worked in food service at MSP for 13 years, said she supports a $15 minimum wage because one job at the airport should be enough for workers to support themselves.

“When I see my co-workers working 16-hour days, I always wonder who’s watching their families?” Ghilagaber said. “Who’s raising their kids?”

Other unions that supported the rally included Teamsters Local 120 and the Machinists, which is supporting Delta Air Lines ramp workers organizing for a voice on the job at MSP and airports around the U.S.

“Delta Workers helped to start the movement for $15 here at the airport four years ago,” ramp worker Marty Knaeble said. “We will be there at the finish.”

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As momentum for $15 builds in St. Paul, so does concern over corporate interference

March 23, 2018 by

Earlier this month Kiara Ivy stepped outside the hardware store in St. Paul where she works as a cashier, and found an organizer waiting for her with a clipboard and a question.

Would she support raising St. Paul’s minimum wage to $15?

Ivy, who earns $9.65 an hour, didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I had heard a lot of talk about raising the minimum wage, but didn’t know it was happening here,” she said. “I tend not to get my hopes up a lot, but it sounds so nice.”

Ivy was one of 539 low-wage workers who signed up to support a $15 minimum wage during a five-day organizing blitz earlier this month. It’s given the 15 Now campaign a jolt of momentum – and an even deeper well of public support – as the issue moves up the city’s agenda.

Working America’s Alisa Tennessen, who coordinated the blitz, said it also provided a glimpse of who is working for poverty wages in the capital city, as many supporters filled out surveys on what $15 would mean for themselves and their families.

“The answers are heartbreaking,” Tennessen said, noting “an astonishingly high number of people who talked about food – healthier food, more food, more food for their families.”

Ivy, in fact, met with a reporter on her way home from the food shelf. The 18-year-old shares a one-bedroom apartment in St. Paul with her mom and a roommate, chipping in $100 a month for rent and $50 each week for food, despite working only 25 hours per week.

Raising the wage to $15 in St. Paul, she said, would “mean I could finally move out on my own and still be able to help my mom out.”

Local elected officials in St. Paul, including Mayor Melvin Carter, have signaled support for giving workers like Ivy a raise. City Council President Amy Brendmoen said in February the plan is to “have an ordinance in front of us by fall.”

By that time, however, St. Paul may no longer have the authority to pass its own minimum-wage law.

As they did last year, corporate special interests and Republicans in the Legislature are trying to pull the rug out from under Ivy and other workers fighting for $15, pushing a bill that would bar local governments from raising employment standards in their communities – and strip newly won earned sick and safe time benefits from 150,000 working people in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the local preemption measure last year, but Republican majorities in the House and Senate have quietly brought it back to life this legislative session.

Brad Lehto, chief of staff for the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said one of Republicans’ first moves after the 2018 session began was to send the preemption bill (House File 600) back into conference committee.

“Whenever they see fit, they will convene the committee and pass it back to the House and Senate, where it already passed once,” he said. “Will they do that? I would think so. When? I think late in the session.”

Lehto and other Capitol observers anticipate the GOP will try to use preemption as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the governor.

Earlier this month, as 15 Now activists fanned out across the city during the organizing blitz, union groups like the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation began holding phone banks, connecting union members statewide with Gov. Dayton to urge him to stand firm on protecting local control again this year. [Click here to find a phone bank near you.]

Unions aren’t alone in the fight, either. Lehto said nearly 80 Minnesota cities have passed resolutions supporting local control.

“We’ve told (lawmakers) over and over, if you would pass a higher minimum wage, if you would pass paid family leave, if you would pass earned sick and safe time, then we wouldn’t have to do this on the local level,” he added.

As debate over the minimum wage and local control plays out this spring, Ivy will begin work at a second job as a personal-care attendant, earning about $12 per hour. (Roughly a quarter of St. Paul workers surveyed by 15 Now work two jobs to make ends meet.)

For Ivy, it means more money to help pay the bills, but less time to pursue her long-term goals – a car of her own, a college degree and a life in New York.

“I want to be in New York, and I want to be a psychiatrist,” she said. “I dream about it, but I haven’t started anything yet.” Earning $15, she added, “would help me to save more to get there.”

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

Mayor’s race divides St. Paul unions

October 24, 2017 by

R to L: Melvin Carter, Pat Harris and Dai Thao.

It was no coincidence that Republican majorities in the Minnesota Legislature last session made stripping power from local governments one of their top priorities.

Frustrated by political gridlock at the state and federal levels, working people in Minnesota and beyond are building powerful coalitions to make their voices heard in local government, and their elected officials have been paying attention.

Municipalities across the country are taking action on issues where state and federal progress has stalled, like raising the minimum wage, expanding access to earned sick time and combating wage theft.

The momentum behind these local organizing efforts has prompted at least one Minnesota union to recalibrate its focus.

“We can’t count on federal lawmakers to help us with any of our issues, and the state is real iffy,” Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said. “So our interest has been turned onto city races.”

The MNA took a big step this year when it endorsed a candidate for mayor of St. Paul. It marks the first time in the union’s history that it has endorsed a candidate for office in the city.

Several other labor groups, including AFSCME Council 5, the Building and Construction Trades Council, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and Teamsters Local 120, have endorsed candidates in the Nov. 7 election to succeed outgoing Mayor Chris Coleman.

After taking office in 2006, Coleman enjoyed broad labor support in two re-election campaigns, including the endorsement of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, with over 100 affiliate unions. The federation has not endorsed a candidate for mayor this year, but it’s not for lack of good options, President Bobby Kasper said.

“Our federation hosted one of the city’s first mayoral debates last spring, and I was encouraged to see unanimous support among the candidates for a $15 minimum wage and other measures that will lift up working people,” Kasper said. “Labor may not be united behind one candidate this year, but whoever wins can be sure we will be united with our faith and community partners at City Hall next year.”

Candidates for mayor who have won union endorsements include:

Melvin Carter

A former member of the City Council representing Ward 1, Carter resigned to take a job advising Gov. Mark Dayton on education policy. That work was a big reason Carter won endorsement from the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, president Nick Faber said.

“The heart of what we’re pushing for is full funding for racial equity in our schools, and we can’t do that without a mayor who understands the issue,” Faber said. “Even if the mayor’s relationship to education is distant, having an ally in that office is going to mean a lot.”

For members of AFSCME Council 5, which represents people who work City of St. Paul’s parks, libraries, permitting offices and beyond, the mayor’s race has a much more direct impact. Denna Thurmond, a member of AFSCME Local 2829 who lives in St. Paul’s North End, said she supports Carter, in part, because he has been a “champion for workers and public employees.”

“His dad was a public worker,” she added. “I’ve been canvassing with his campaign, and Melvin is a very down-to-earth individual who relates to working people, who understands and sympathizes with people because he’s been there. His experiences make it easy for him to identify with people like us.”

Pat Harris

Another former council member, Pat Harris represented Ward 3 from 2000 to 2012. He currently serves on the Metropolitan Airports Commission and works as a vice president for BMO Harris Bank specializing in government banking.

Harris’ expertise in public finance – a critical part of urban development that puts union tradespeople to work – attracted support from the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council and its affiliate craft unions.

“What put Pat over the top for us was his ability and understanding of businesses and financing and getting projects done,” Brian Winkelaar, political director for Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said.

Winkelaar pointed to Harris’ push for project labor agreements that ensure labor peace on construction projects at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. “There’s a lot of building going on at the airport, and those agreements are extremely helpful for our members,” Winkelaar said.

In his role on the MAC, Harris also helped pass an airport-wide minimum wage $1 higher than the state’s, and he pushed for a labor-peace agreement with the airport’s concessionaires. That impressed Paul Slattery of Teamsters Local 120, which pushed in vain for a similar agreement governing organized trash collection in St. Paul.

“Organizing workers under a labor-peace agreement is a lot easier,” Slattery said. “And all the candidates say they’re behind $15 in St. Paul, but Pat actually did something at the airport.”

Dai Thao

Ward 1 Council Member Dai Thao picked up the nurses’ endorsement, MNA President Turner said, because of his leadership in passing the nation’s strongest earned sick and safe time ordinance last year.

Nurses also asked mayoral candidates to offer ways they could support efforts to improve staffing at hospitals and protect nurses from violence in the workplace – two of the union’s top legislative priorities.

“Dai Thao was the one who said even though the city can’t write new laws, as mayor he can bring together people and organizations that could be instrumental in helping educate the community on these issues,” Turner said. “He was the only one who came up with a plan rather than just checking the box saying, ‘Yes, I agree with you.’

“That made a difference.”

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