Peter Rachleff: ‘You Betcha’ art exhibit explores solidarity between MN workers, farmers

February 5, 2025 by

Sculptures by Gita Ghei will be on display at the East Side Freedom Library this spring.

From its founding in the 1920s through its political dominance in the 1930s and its merger with the Democratic Party in 1944, the Farmer-Labor movement united Minnesota workers, farmers and the unemployed, building solidarity across regional, political and racial or ethnic divides. Combining electoral politics, year-round organizing and political education toward a vision of a “cooperative commonwealth,” this movement created a model for progressive change still relevant today.

Lost to history by political repression and the Cold War ideology of the 1950s, the Farmer-Labor tradition was rediscovered by a group of labor activists and educators in the 1970s. They formed the Farmer-Labor Education Committee (FLEC),  a non-profit organization with a mission to educate members of the public about the history and continued relevance of the progressive Farmer-Labor tradition. Like the movement they study, FLEC’s members are diverse and multi-generational, with rural and urban roots.

In 2022, FLEC produced “The Farmer-Labor Movement: A Minnesota Story,” a documentary about the history of the movement that has screened widely and prompted passionate conversations. There has been particular interest in the film’s contention that the Farmer Labor Party is best understood as part of a broader social movement that included co-operatives, educational institutions, newspapers and libraries, and cultural groups.

Now, FLEC has launched a new project, centered on art and artists.  FLEC’s activists write: “Today, as much as ever, our desire to rekindle the solidarity of the Farmer-Labor movement is profound. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Farmer-Labor Party and the remarkable movement of solidarity that supported it, FLEC, with financial support from  Monument Lab’s Re-Generation initiative, commissioned public artist and teacher Gita Ghei to create a permanent traveling art exhibit commemorating the movement. FLEC and her team of artists have been working on the concept over much of last year and participating in a community engagement process that connects with the history and with Minnesotans throughout the state.”

Their work has been informed by their participation in community discussions following screenings of “The Farmer-Labor Movement.” Their goal is to promote further conversations not only between rural and urban residents, and members of different generations, but also between the past and present.

FLEC envisions the new exhibit, “You Betcha,” as a project of hope in challenging times. “Over the past decade, we have witnessed the resurgence of fascism and ultra-conservative organizing extending across the state,” they write. “At the same time, a divisive and reductive characterization of state political divisions has emerged, framing the Twin Cities as a progressive haven pitted against a white, conservative, and ‘backwards’ rural  monolith. ‘You Betcha’ uses history as a way to trouble those narratives and engage … in dialogue that might both build and unearth solidarity across differences.”

“You Betcha” will make its first public appearance Feb. 20, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, St. Paul. Artists and FLEC members will be present to engage audience members in conversation. The exhibit will be on display at ESFL until May 4.  All are welcome to join in this conversation between past and present.

– Peter Rachleff is co-executive director emeritus of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.

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

Peter Rachleff: Looking for History Day help? Check out the East Side Freedom Library

December 9, 2022 by

Students and mentors worked on History Day projects at the ESFL last year.

The East Side Freedom Library invites the middle and high school students in your families to benefit from our rich resources and our experienced mentors.

National History Day is a great program in which students are challenged to develop a project as an illustration of a theme. Students, individually or in small teams, might take months developing their approach, conducting research and shaping their presentation. They take ownership of presenting their project – on a storyboard, in a paper, in a performance, in a video or via an interactive website. They not only present historical materials, but they must also make an argument about how their topic affected individuals, communities, nations or the world, changing the course of human society.

History Day students not only learn new things about history and learn the value of historical thinking, but they also develop their social skills and self-confidence.

The 2023 theme asks young people to think about how engagement with frontiers – in space, among people and in the emergence of new ideas – has shaped our history, in the U.S. and around the world.

This is a great theme within which they might explore labor activism, racial justice, women’s rights, the impact of GLBTQ+ movements, environmental activism and more. A frontier may be geographical – an area thought to be on the edge of a settlement – or a border between countries or peoples. Ideas can also be presented as frontiers.

Students might explore the work of individuals or organizations who have thought of new ways of organizing human life politically, economically, religiously or socially, and assess the impact of these new ideas. Frontiers are crossed by those who challenge conventional thinking. Students may find inspiration in the stories of those who have challenged traditional boundaries of race, class and gender.

Here’s one great example. In 1920, economist Carter L. Goodrich published “The Frontier of Control: A Study of British Workshop Politics.” At the heart of this book was his argument that every workplace has an invisible line dividing where management’s authority ends and workers’ authority begins.

Goodrich argued that these “frontiers of control” moved from the day shift to the night shift, from days with higher absenteeism (e.g., Mondays and Fridays) to fully staffed days. They moved in response to technological change and innovation, and, above all, in response to workers’ organization, in the workplace itself and, especially, in unions.

Today’s young scholars might use the “frontier of control” as a framework within which they can explore the impacts of computers and robots, the strengths or weaknesses of unions, even such contemporary concerns as “the great resignation” or “Striketober.” The concept is just one great door-opener into the dynamics of the world of labor. National History Day is a wonderful opportunity to introduce students to the rich world of labor history.

The East Side Freedom Library has rich resources available to students for their research projects. Our collections include labor newspapers from the 1930s, documentary videos, recordings of labor songsters, photographs of labor-themed visual art, union buttons and posters, and more.

Perhaps even more importantly, students will also find experienced mentors eager to help them shape their project. Our team of mentors include retired public-school teachers, college professors and college students. For eight years now, we have worked with students in the Twin Cities, some of whom have won recognition in local, statewide and even national competition.

Our mentoring team is on hand, now, every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to noon. We ask that students make an appointment by emailing info [at] eastsidefreedomlibrary [dot] org, that upon their arrival they show proof of vaccination or a negative test within the previous two days, that they wear a mask and that they observe safety precautions while here.

After their initial mentoring consultation, students will be welcome to come at other times to use our resources, and our mentors will be available for one-on-one conversations, in person or remotely.

If you or your students would like to speak with us, call us at 651-207-4926. We look forward to working with them!

– Peter Rachleff is co-executive director emeritus at the East Side Freedom Library, an independent, nonprofit organization located at 1105 Greenbrier St.

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

Peter Rachleff: Labor Day roots trace to St. Paul’s East Side

August 31, 2022 by

Most of us, from St. Paul workers and labor activists to labor historians like me, have been unaware of the role that St. Paul workers played in the establishment of the Labor Day holiday.

In April 1894, railroad workers from Montana to Chicago struck the Great Northern Railroad. Owner James J. Hill had cut their wages three times since a depression had begun in the fall of 1893, and, across all the running trades, workers had joined the new American Railway Union under the charismatic leadership of Eugene V. Debs. Debs made the case to workers that, facing the country’s biggest corporations, they were ill-served by belonging to 14 different craft unions rather than coming together in one big union of railroad workers. By spring of 1894, this argument made sense to tens of thousands of engineers, firemen, brakemen, switchmen, trainmen, conductors, maintenance of way workers and more.

The very center of the strike was the East Side of St. Paul. Strikers met in the second-floor meeting room of a mutual benefit society located at 896 Payne Ave. Following their spirited meetings, they would march, singing, to the newly built overpass above the tracks three blocks south on Payne, just north of Minnehaha Avenue. There they dumped garbage on the tracks, seeking to interfere with the scab-operated trains that Hill had funded. Great Northern trains on these tracks ran from the flour mills on the Minneapolis riverfront, through St. Paul’s Swede Hollow, on their way to Duluth. There, barrels of flour would be loaded onto ocean-going ships and sent across Lake Superior, out the Saint Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic Ocean. Due to the productivity of midwestern wheat farming, flour milling and transportation, barrels of Minnesota flour undersold European flour in cities across the continent and made the Pillsburys, Washburns and Crosbys oligarchs to rival Hill.

And they were unhappy when “his” workers went on strike and disrupted the shipment of “their” flour. Pillsbury called on Hill and urged him to settle with his workers. Hill agreed to participate in the first ever third-party arbitration of a major strike and to allow Pillsbury to serve as arbitrator. Debs agreed, too.  Lo and behold, Pillsbury ruled in favor of the American Railway Union and ordered Hill to restore the wage cuts!

Word spread among railroad workers that the American Railway Union had defeated Big Jim Hill, and in the next months Debs was deluged with requests for membership.  One of those requests came from the machinists, molders and foundry workers who made Pullman sleeping cars in a company town just outside Chicago. Pullman had not only cut his workers’ wages several times, but he had refused to reduce their rents or the prices charged by his company stores. Workers explained to Debs that, while they did not work on moving trains, they were railroad workers, and he agreed. And when they added that they were already on strikes, Debs called for a nationwide “boycott” of all trains that included Pullman cars. This was tantamount to calling a nationwide railroad strike, since virtually all trains included Pullman cars, and the East Side railroad workers, back on the job only two months, returned to the picket lines.

Pullman hired the former U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney to help him break the strike. Olney argued before a federal judge in Chicago that, because every train included a mail car, the strike was interfering with the shipment of the nation’s mail. The judge agreed and issued the first ever federal injunction against a strike. Debs was hauled into court and told to issue an order ending the strike. When he refused, the judge found him in contempt and ordered him to jail. Debs would spend the next 18 months in prison, refusing to call off the strike.

President Grover Cleveland decided to send the National Guard to break the picket lines in Chicago. There was considerable violence, and the strike began to crumble. But this “success” sullied Cleveland’s political reputation, and the Democrat’s advisors told him he had to do something to win back working class support, which had put him in office. And so, in August 1894, he decreed there would be an annual national holiday called “Labor Day.”

On Saturday, Sept. 10, from 3 to 6 p.m., the East Side Freedom Library will host a Labor Solidarity Picnic on our beautiful front lawn. Come learn other labor history stories that you and your families might not know. And come hear about current labor struggles, from union organizing at Starbucks, Amazon and Half Price Books to the struggles of railroad workers nurses, nurses and other health care workers, and of Building Trades workers today.

Yes, there is history to learn, and there is history to be made. Join us!

– Peter Rachleff is co-executive director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.

Filed Under: Labor Voices Tagged With: , , ,

From the Eight-Hour Day to the $15 Minimum Wage: A conversation between past and present

March 24, 2021 by

By Peter Rachleff and Kristi Wright, East Side Freedom Library

The study of labor history, while rooted in the past, has everything to do with how we envision the future – and how we chart a path to get there. At the East Side Freedom Library, we think that placing the movement for the eight-hour day in conversation with the movement for a $15 minimum wage can help us learn how to shape our future.

Take a trip into labor history with us. At the time of the American Revolution, one journeyman shoemaker out of every two could expect to become a self-employed master shoemaker. Decades of a division of labor and the invention of machines brought a very different world of work into being. By the Civil War, only one journeyman out of twelve became a self-employed master shoemaker. His 11 peers looked forward to a lifetime of wage labor. Facing that future, hours of work and days off altogether became serious issues for individual workers and the unions they organized.

As artisan work structures evolved into structures of permanent wage labor, unions not only bargained over the length of the working day, but also participated in social and political movements seeking to pass laws regulating hours and schedules. The more that individual employers insisted that granting “their” workers shorter hours would leave them at a competitive disadvantage, the more that unions sought city, state and even federal legislation.

The call for “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will” became the rallying cry for the American labor movement after the Civil War, even as most workers put in 10-, 11- and 12-hour days. Skilled building trades workers, railroad workers, miners and factory workers came together with one vision and one voice. In 1886, the country’s two major labor organizations, the Knights of Labor and the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions joined together to call for a nationwide general strike. Their members pledged to walk out on May 1 and not to return to work until every worker was offered a standard eight-hour day.

At the center of the movement was the McCormick Harvester Works in Chicago, the largest factory in the U.S., with a workforce that included unskilled as well as skilled workers, and immigrants and workers of color alongside native-born whites. When police broke up a rally at the factory gates on May 4, there was violence and bloodshed. Strike leaders were arrested; some would be tried for murder and executed. The movement came to a halt for a generation, but workers and their unions revived the movement for an eight-hour day, and, after yet more years of organizing and protesting, finally received it with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938.

It had taken three generations to make the eight-hour day a reality. Many of you might well be thinking how elusive that reality has remained, from Amazon warehouse workers assigned mandatory overtime, to fast food workers assigned “clopen” shifts, closing at night and opening the next morning. But the struggle, especially in the extended periods when it had traction as a movement, enabled the labor movement to reach beyond the boundaries of formal unions and the procedures of collective bargaining, connect workplaces with communities, unite experienced union members with women and men new to labor organization, and bring workers of color and immigrants into conversations, relationships and solidarity with white men. It was also a fertile ground for workers to make art and music, and dream of a better way of life.

Fast food strikers and supporters rallied during a one-day strike in Minneapolis in 2015. (UA file photo)

It is frustrating that a parliamentary maneuver allowed Congress to avoid dealing head-on with the issue of a $15 minimum wage. But that it had to consider raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 suggests the power that this movement – and its core ideas – now manifest. The Fight for $15 began in 2012 when two hundred fast-food workers walked off the job to demand $15 an hour and union rights in New York City. Today, it is a global movement of fast-food workers, home health aides, childcare teachers, airport workers, adjunct professors, retail employees and other underpaid workers in over 300 cities on six continents. Unions are among this movement’s most important supporters and resources, but it also includes workers without union affiliations, members of worker centers, teenagers, seniors and immigrants with and without documentation, encompassing a diverse group of whites and people of color with men, women and individuals across the spectrums of sexual orientation and gender identity.

In its inclusive membership, its vision of broad and sweeping change, and its insistence that all workers should share in the wealth that they produce, we can recognize this movement’s kinship with the movement for the eight-hour day. Organizers of the Fight for $15 proclaim on their website:

“When we first took the streets, the skeptics called us dreamers. They said a $15 wage was ‘unwinnable.’ We didn’t listen. We organized and we fought for what we knew was right. We didn’t win these increases because we elected supportive politicians to office. We won because we made them support us…

“We’ve already won raises for 22 million people across the country – including 10 million who are on their way to $15 – all because workers came together and acted like a union.”

The workers rallying outside the McCormick Harvester Works on May 1, 1886, would have understood them perfectly. As we try to rebuild the U.S. labor movement in the third decade of the 21st century, in the wake of the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd, it is important that we hear this message, too.

– Peter Rachleff is the co-executive director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul. Kristi Wright works with ESFL on developing the library’s relationships with the labor movement. Learn more at eastsidefreedomlibrary.org. 

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

March events: Expo to connect women with pathways into trades

March 1, 2021 by

Photo by Bre Ana Henry, an apprentice with Ironworkers Local 512.

Women in Construction Week runs from March 7 to 13, and local tradeswomen, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI), will celebrate with a virtual event showcasing career opportunities available in the unionized trades.

The Women Building Success Info Expo is open to women statewide who are interested in learning more about construction careers. The free event will run from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. March 11, and participants can join by phone, mobile device or a computer with internet access.

The expo will begin with a panel discussion featuring representatives from the DLI, Apprenticeship Minnesota, Building Strong Communities and Women Building Success. Local tradeswomen will share their firsthand experiences with the earn-as-you-learn apprenticeship model and working in the construction industry.

After the panel, guests will connect individually with registered apprenticeship programs and event sponsors using interactive chat or video technology. They can even apply for an apprenticeship on the spot.

Registration is required. Find a link at metroregioninteractive.easyvirtualfair.com.

Labor Education Service rolls out spring courses

Enrollment is open for spring courses offered by the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service.

Offerings include “Basic Steward Training” and “Bargaining from Margin to Center,” as well as an abolitionist study group.

Registration is required. Click here to learn more.

History comes alive at the Freedom Library

The nonprofit, independent East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul is a hub of labor-history programming. To receive event notifications in your inbox, sign up for the newsletter.

Of note this month is a March 6 virtual discussion of Donna Haverty-Stacke’s book “The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist.” It’s part of the ESFL’s History Revealed series, a partnership with the Ramsey County Historical Society.

Additionally, the ESFL is connecting students working on National History Day projects with mentors. To line up a Zoom session, email info [at] eastsidefreedomlibrary [dot] org.

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

A ‘prime opportunity’ for workers, communities to take on Amazon

October 1, 2020 by

Workers at Amazon’s Shakopee facility went on strike in July 2019.

By Kristi Wright and Peter Rachleff, East Side Freedom Library

Half a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 190,000 Americans have lost their lives, tens of millions are unemployed or underemployed and many small businesses have closed permanently. While working people have struggled, major corporations like Amazon have consolidated power, posting record profits as they expand operations. The company has intensified the exploitation of its growing workforce, breaking promises to provide hazard pay and bonuses to workers risking their health and safety.

A century ago, farmer, labor and community activists used an octopus to depict the ways that they saw capitalist greed grasping for control over social, economic and political life. Today, it is hard to imagine a more appropriate metaphor for Amazon.

Yet the breadth of Amazon’s reach makes possible intersectional and international alliances. In honor of Labor Day, the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul hosted “Labor Day Ain’t No Picnic,” a conversation among a group of activists using research, social media, art and on-the-ground organizing to rein in the modern-day octopus. They detailed Amazon’s tightening grip on workers, e-commerce, cloud computing, public policy and more, as well as what we can do about it. (Watch the full discussion here.)

Speakers included Tyler Hamilton, a worker at the Amazon warehouse in Shakopee who has ties to the Awood Center, an East African worker center; Dania Rajendra, director of Athena, a coalition of over 50 nonprofits taking on Amazon; Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit dedicated to building economic and political power for local communities; and Sue Zumberge, owner of Subtext Books, an independent bookstore in St. Paul. Funds raised from the event were split between ESFL and the Education Minnesota Foundation School and Child Care Worker Relief Fund.

A trillion-dollar company, Amazon is massive. Rajendra explained that it directly employs 850,000 workers, and relies on an additional 75,000 subcontracted workers to fulfill its signature one- and two-day shipping. It dominates the e-commerce space, with more than two-thirds of online shoppers starting their search at Amazon, and more than half of American families subscribing to Amazon Prime. The company acquired grocery chain Whole Foods in 2017. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s main revenue driver, provides cloud computing and storage for nearly half of the web, including such household names as Zoom, Netflix and Slack. Lesser known are Amazon’s partnerships with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the CIA and local law-enforcement agencies. CEO Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $192.1 billion, is the world’s richest person.

At Amazon warehouses, where home delivery orders are tracked and packed, workers face grueling conditions. Held to superhuman productivity standards, they are pressured to “make rate” of up to 400 packages per hour, or risk being written up or fired. The system treats workers as machines, Hamilton said, and is not designed to include them in a decision-making process dominated by executives and shareholders. If a worker speaks up as an individual, the company’s resources are mobilized to silence them, which is why collective action is necessary to win change. Hamilton recounted how in March 2019, at the 2,500-worker warehouse in Shakopee, managers announced higher rates, cuts to support roles and an increase in low-paid temp positions. Objections raised by workers through official channels were ignored. Fed up, a group of mostly East African workers partnered with the Awood Center in Minneapolis to organize a three-hour walkout. Proclaiming “we are humans, not robots,” they rallied for safe jobs, respect from managers and a voice in the workplace. Since then, the Awood Center has continued to organize strikes and protests at the warehouse.

Small businesses have also been hurt by Amazon’s near-monopoly. Zumberge, owner of Subtext Books, explained how bookstores were the first target of the octopus. In 2007, she testified at the Minnesota Legislature about Amazon’s evasion of state sales taxes. As the company has grown, more customers use her bookstore as a showroom for Amazon, scanning barcodes to look for a lower price on the app.

To be sure, the web, e-commerce and home delivery have been a great convenience during the pandemic. Rather than conflate opposition to Amazon with opposition to these services, Mitchell urged communities to imagine ways to provide them by democratic means. Putting the company in historical context, she described how the weakening of labor and antitrust laws over the last several decades has led to an immense concentration of corporate power, allowing large businesses like Amazon to hold down wages, defeat unions, crush small businesses, enforce racial hierarchy and capture the political process. With its e-commerce, shipping, and cloud computing services, it controls important economic infrastructure. How could we build a system that better serves our community?

It is nearly impossible to avoid Amazon completely, speakers acknowledged. They urged supporters not to feel guilty for using Amazon, but rather to engage in collective action. Donate to labor and community organizations that are taking on Amazon, and show up to support picketing workers. Vote for policymakers that will pass pro-labor and pro-worker legislation, break up monopolies and strengthen safety protections. Avoid ordering heavy, bulky items that are hard on warehouse workers’ bodies. Shop at local businesses offering curbside pickup and delivery. And donate to organizations like ESFL that provide a forum for learning about these issues and their history.

In the present crisis, issues of corporate power have become all the more pressing. As we grow increasingly dependent on economic infrastructure controlled by capitalist greed, it may seem difficult to envision anything different. A century ago, farmer, labor and community activists taught us that even when the octopus seems unbeatable, victory is possible if the working class fights together. Whether it be through research, social media, art or on-the-ground organizing, we too have the power to transform our world. A better world is possible, and we shouldn’t settle for anything less.

– Kristi Wright is labor liaison for the East Side Freedom Library. Peter Rachleff is the ESFL’s co-executive director.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , ,

No picnics, no parades, but Freedom Library will mark Labor Day with virtual event on organizing Amazon

September 2, 2020 by

Workers at Amazon’s Shakopee facility went on strike in July 2019.

The East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul will celebrate Labor Day early and online this year, with a virtual discussion about worker organizing at the world’s largest retailer, Amazon.

The event, “Labor Day Ain’t No Picnic,” will broadcast on the ESFL’s Facebook and YouTube pages Sept. 3, bringing together activists who are using research, social media, art and on-the-ground organizing to build worker power at Amazon.

“A century ago, farmer, labor and community activists used an octopus to depict the ways they saw capitalist greed grasping control over work, business, community, and political life,” East Side Freedom Library Co-Director Peter Rachleff said. “Today, it is hard to imagine a more appropriate metaphor than such a creature for Amazon. Yet, the very breadth of its reach makes possible the weaving of intersectional and international alliances.”

All are welcome to join the discussion and learn how to get involved in ways that, as the independent, nonprofit library’s mission statement says, “inspire solidarity, work for justice and advocate for equity for all.”

The online event will begin at 7 p.m. Click here to register.

Lead presenters are Dania Rajendra, director of the Athena Coalition, which brings together more than 50 organizations wrestling with different aspects of Amazon’s power and influence, and Stacy Mitchell, co-director of one of those organizations, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Graduates of Macalester College, both have deep connections in the Twin Cities and to the East Side Freedom Library.

Rajendra is a poet, essayist and journalist who worked for both the St. Paul Union Advocate and the Minneapolis Labor Review in the early 2000s, then moved to New York to be associate editor of The Clarion, the newspaper of the faculty union at the City University of New York. Rajendra also has taught at the Institute for Labor Relations at Cornell University.

Mitchell is the author of “Home-Town Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why it Matters” and “Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses.” Last year, Mitchell was a significant voice in CNN’s documentary film “The Age of Amazon.”

While COVID-19 has greatly expanded Amazon’s reach and CEO Jeff Bezos’ wealth, making him the richest man in the world, the pandemic has further revealed the corporation’s ugly sides, Rachleff said, pointing to its “disregard for workers’ safety and security, their resistance to workers’ efforts to organize, their economic impact on independent small businesses, and their political influence with city, state, and national governments.”

“Dania and Stacy will discuss their work to weave together the wide range of people whose lives are being undermined by the modern-day octopus, and they will be joined by some of the grassroots activists with whom they have been working,” Rachleff added.

“Grassroots responses to both COVID-19 and the murders of George Floyd and others have revealed the potential power that still exists across this country, across this world. Learn how organizations like Athena and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance are amplifying this power, and learn how we can become involved in productive and constructive ways to promote economic and political democracy.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , ,

More than a building, a building block on city’s East Side

May 8, 2020 by

By John Crea, Special to The Union Advocate 

In Greg Gaut’s “Reinventing the People’s Library,” we find a nicely woven story about a place, a people and a public space.  

The place is the east side of St. Paul, where an ancient river punched through the limestone bluffs, allowing easy access to the Mississippi River.  

The people are the Dakota tribes, who had for thousands of years taken advantage of the gentle terrain to set up camp, followed by wave after wave of immigrants, the first from Europe, then Africa and Latin America and Asia. These settlers were and still are a hearty blend of working-class families and the merchants who serve them.  

The public space is the East Side Freedom Library, a magnificent edifice on the corner of Greenbrier and Jessamine, near the busy intersection of Payne and Maryland. The building is a gem, one of over 1,600 public libraries Andrew Carnegie helped build in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed by the prolific St. Paul architect Charles Hausler, an impressive building in the beaux arts style, with classic lines and functional space. 

We learn from the author that public libraries, like public education, are relatively recent developments, and though not uniquely American, certainly instrumental to the rapid growth of this country.  

The St. Paul Public Library was firmly established downtown on Rice Park, and to encourage access to its materials set up branch libraries throughout the city, often sharing space with larger retail stores in the neighborhoods. These temporary branch outlets proved so popular that the library worked with the Carnegie foundation to get three permanent branches built. 

 One of those, the Arlington Hills Public Library, opened its doors in 1917. The book tells us how the Arlington library served as a valuable resource for almost 100 years, serving successive communities of skilled workers and laborers. 

In 2014, the St. Paul Public Library teamed up with the City of St. Paul to construct a new building on the corner of Payne and Maryland to house a community center and the Arlington Hills branch library. This left the classic Carnegie building open and available to be repurposed.  

Stepping up to take advantage of this opportunity were Peter Rachleff and Beth Cleary, two professors at Macalester College. These east-side residents have a goal of building bridges between the long-established communities in this area with the newest immigrants from southeast Asia, Latin America and east and west Africa.  

To this end, they signed a long-term lease with the City of St. Paul for the classic building on Greenbrier to house their own and their friends’ extensive personal libraries and cultural artwork from throughout the community. Rachleff and Cleary formally established East Side Freedom Library to provide the space and facilities for shared programs that support the mission of their new organization: “to contribute to the movement of social justice and equity by encouraging solidarity among working people.”  

The author, Greg Gaut, does not miss the rich irony of the very progressive East Side Freedom Library finding a home in a staid structure built on the backs of the laborers in the steel mills and coal mines of Carnegie’s empire. It would be wonderful to be able look ahead at the next 100 years of this library’s life to see how the ESFL is promoting solidarity among the vibrant tapestry of cultures that will then call St. Paul’s east side home. 

– John Crea is author of “Recalibrating the Labor Market: How to Have Your Cake and Time to Eat It Too.”  

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

Lessons from labor history can inform our labor movement during COVID-19 crisis

May 4, 2020 by

The East Side Freedom Library, in more relaxed times. (submitted photo)

(Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, wrote this essay for The Union Advocate’s May 2020 issue.)

COVID-19 is the biggest crisis of our lives, and workers are on the front lines. Large, profitable employers expect workers deemed “essential” — those in healthcare, grocery stores, food production, and shipping, among others — to risk their health and safety and that of their families, many for meager pay and benefits. Portions of the economy have shut down, leaving millions jobless with a threadbare social safety net. Where do we look for ideas about how to respond?

At the East Side Freedom Library, we believe that studying our past offers valuable lessons for the present. We collect resources and host programs which help us understand how workers developed organizations and strategies to confront the key challenges of their lives. The current situation has led us to reconsider the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934. Their dramatic story shows that the labor movement is strongest when unions boldly organize workers on the job and in the community around a shared vision of fairness and justice.

These strikes changed the course of history, transforming Minneapolis from a notorious anti-labor bastion into a “union town.” In the depths of the Depression and the depths of winter, a group of dedicated activists in the city’s coal yards bypassed the traditional strategy of organizing workers into separate unions depending on the work they did. They organized coal heavers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, and helpers into a single union. With the support of working people and families throughout the city, they won a brief strike in February 1934.

Their success inspired other Minneapolis workers to believe that if they organized together, if they practiced solidarity, and if they involved their families, they, too, could change their lives. Over the spring, activists and organizers built one industrial union of all workers involved in trucking. Five thousand joined. The union built a “Committee of 100,” a network of stewards and rank-and-filers to link workplaces. They organized an Unemployed Committee to advocate for those without work. They started a daily newspaper, The Organizer, to tell their story to the wider community. And they organized a Women’s Auxiliary, which ran a commissary and a soup kitchen.

These steps became critical in May, when, challenged by employers and the fiercely anti-union Citizens’ Alliance, the union struck. They needed all of these innovations to strengthen internal solidarity and gain the solidarity of the community. Their roving pickets challenged scab-driven trucks, and they engaged in physical battles with the local police. In two weeks, they had won many of their demands. When employers tried to undercut their agreements, the union called its members — now 10,000 — back on strike. They held firm for several weeks, and finally won secure contracts, significant raises, and work rules and working conditions that became the model for the industry nationwide.

The Teamsters’ story is instructive for our situation. Their strategy prioritized internal and external organization, linking workers and their families to the union, other unions, and the community. They practiced anti-racism and sought workers of color for membership and leadership roles. The local union’s new constitution even required that every meeting include a presentation on labor history.

No wonder we celebrate this event at the East Side Freedom Library. But the point is not just to celebrate history but to learn from it.

Labor’s crisis did not begin with COVID-19. For decades, employers have evaded labor protections through outsourcing and subcontracting. They have eroded wages and benefits, and through the legislatures and courts attacked the right to picket or have a union at all. This pandemic has laid bare just how far we have slid in terms of work rules, wages, health care, sick pay, and workplace protections. It has also revealed how “essential” workers are to the safety, security, and quality of life enjoyed by our community. Like when those coal yard workers went on strike, the contradictions are clear.

We founded the East Side Freedom Library in 2014 to share stories of the labor movement and to inspire solidarity among unions and with our diverse communities. We are proud to preserve and present our shared history. We have been inspired by recent actions taken by local educators and Amazon workers, and workers elsewhere as well as by the dedication and determination of nurses and healthcare workers to speak up for their rights and for the people who depend upon them. Informed by the lessons of the past, when we fight together, the future is ours to win.

– Peter Rachleff wishes to acknowledge the work of Kristi Wright in conceptualizing and writing this article. Wright was a union organizer among graduate employees at the U of M and is currently working with the library to expand and deepen relationships with labor.

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

Strikes surge nationwide

March 2, 2020 by

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.

Some 4,000 Twin Cities janitors walked off the job Feb. 27 for higher wages, paid sick days and other demands.

HealthPartners brought 1,800 nurses, technicians and other caregivers at its metro-area clinics to the brink of a strike before reaching a last-minute deal.

And next Tuesday, 3,600 union educators, frustrated by the district’s refusal to consider their student-centered contract proposals, could go on strike in St. Paul.

Strikes have been in the news a lot here lately, but it’s not just a local phenomenon.

According to labor market statistics released by the federal government last month, the number of U.S. workers who participated in major strikes surged in 2018 and 2019.

On average over those two years, 455,500 workers joined major strikes or work stoppages involving 1,000 or more people. That’s the highest two-year average in 35 years, and more than the total number of striking workers in the previous six years combined.

The numbers suggest that, despite low unemployment and steady economic growth, the U.S. economy isn’t as great as some would claim, particularly not for working people.

St. Paul teachers Remi Eichten (L) and Mary Rddad prepare signs for a potential strike beginning March 10. The #RedForEd movement to restore public school funding sparked strikes across the country, with some 237,400 educators joining strikes in North Carolina, West Virginia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kentucky and Oregon last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, said the strike surge reflects a “sea change” taking place nationwide.

“Working people, completely fed up with an economic and political system that does not work for us, are turning to each other and using every tool at our disposal to win a better deal,” Trumka said. “Because of the courage of every worker who said enough is enough, we all stand on a stronger foundation today. Solidarity works. And we’re just getting started.”

Despite healthy corporate profits, wage growth has been slow since the economy emerged from the Great Recession. The 2017 tax cut, which President Trump promised would raise average household wages by $4,000, has overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy instead.

Youth climate strikers and other environmental activists picketed in solidarity with striking janitors, whose contract demands include getting contractors to commit to green cleaning practices.

Executive pay, meanwhile, continues to outpace the wages of average working people. In 2018, CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies earned, on average, 287 times more than the median employee.

Historically, worker frustration has boiled over onto the picket line when working people feel they have leverage, said historian Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.

The low unemployment rate likely has emboldened people to stand up for themselves and risk employer retaliation, knowing they can easily find another job. Frustration, meanwhile, has been building for decades, as gains in productivity have failed to trickle down into workers’ paychecks.

“Much of this productivity growth has also emanated from a growing intensification of work, which has made life on the job harder and more stressful,” Rachleff said. “So workers are not only generating more wealth, which is being captured by their employers, but they are also just plain working harder.”

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»