At organizing boot camp, workers look to build power from the inside out

July 16, 2018 by

Todd Dahlstrom (blue shirt), the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s organizing director, leads a session during the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute last week in St. Paul. The Minnesota Nurses Association hosted the three-day training.

It takes a strong union to bargain a strong contract. Or, as CWA Local 7304 member Jim Wiebe put it: “A hammer doesn’t swing by itself.”

A union steward and welder at the New Flyer bus facility in St. Cloud, Wiebe was one of 55 activists from across the Midwest who traveled to St. Paul last week for the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, a three-day boot camp in building stronger unions.

It convened less than two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with corporate interests in Janus v. AFSCME, a decision making it harder for public-sector workers to join together and bargain strong contracts.

Janus may be a setback for labor, but activists at the training sounded ready to push back, building power from the inside out.

“Too many of our members, they think that the stewards or the reps are the union,” said Andrea Branson, a HealthPartners billing representative and steward for Office and Professional Employees Local 12. “No, they are the union, but a lot of people don’t recognize that.”

Janus makes “right-to-work” (RTW) the law of the land in public-sector workplaces, allowing workers to reap the benefits of a union contract without sharing in the costs. Under RTW, unions must convince as many workers as possible to resist the temptation of “free-riding” and, instead, sign up for membership.

At the Organizing Institute, activists picked up tips for engaging fellow workers in conversations about supporting their union. Chris Tucker, president of Machinists Local 1010 in right-to-work Iowa, called it one of the most important conversations some people will ever have.

“When you talk to someone who doesn’t have a union, it can be a life changing experience for them,” Tucker said. “They can figure out there’s a better life by bonding together with their fellow workers.”

Even in states like Minnesota without a RTW law on the books (yet), private-sector unions have seen one-on-one conversations build the foundation of successful contract campaigns.

Wiebe’s St. Cloud-based local includes some 600 members of the Communications Workers of America. (“It’s a big unit to mobilize,” he deadpanned.) But as talks with New Flyer reached a tipping point last year, the local staged a rally that drew a third of its members. It was the largest event in Local 7304’s history, Wiebe said – and the result of scores of conversations on the shop floor, in the break room and outside the plant gate.

“New Flyer came to the table after that action, and it looked like they’d lost their best friend,” Wiebe said. What’s more, the company improved its offer on the table to include double-time pay for workers logging overtime on weekends.

Chris Tucker (L), president of Machinists Local 1010 in right-to-work Iowa, said unions can remain strong in RTW states.

Bonnie Jolly, a union steward at the Pearson’s Candy plant in St. Paul, hopes for a similar outcome this fall when Bakers Local 22 enters contract negotiations with the company. She’s already making sure as many members as possible on her shift are tuned into the process.

“We’re going for wages and better benefits,” Jolly said. “Whenever I go on break, I try to talk one-on-one with somebody I work with. I tell them if you don’t get involved now, you have no right to complain after the contract is done.”

In RTW states, though, the work of engaging co-workers doesn’t start when negotiations show up on the calendar. It’s part of a constant campaign to keep the union afloat.

Duluth resident Keith Musolf, a member and organizer for Ironworkers Local 512, represents people in Wisconsin and North Dakota, both RTW states where Ironworkers can opt out of paying dues while working on union job sites.

“You don’t have to drive very far to see a large change,” he said. “We’re so secure in our island of Minnesota, and they’re on their own race to the bottom. Traveling there is just an attitude check for me.”

Indeed, many labor experts now believe RTW will be the law of the land in the near future, whether by legislative action or court decision. (Janus-style cases targeting private-sector workplaces are already in the works.)

But the outcome isn’t necessarily gloomy, Branson said. She befriended several workers from RTW states at the Organizing Institute.

“I’m listening and hearing that a lot of unions in these states got stronger,” Branson said. “They say members have a better sense of what’s at stake. They are the union, they know what it’s about and they haven’t let (RTW) discourage them. I think that is so cool.”

In the end, Wiebe said, every conversation in an organizing drive comes down to the same question, and it’s one public-sector workers in Minnesota and across the country are presently answering for themselves.

“Would you rather try going in and bargaining by yourself, or go in and bargain as a bunch?” Wiebe said. “We’ve got to get people to understand that there’s power in numbers.”

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

MN’s public-sector workers aren’t mourning Janus, they’re organizing

June 27, 2018 by

Early on a Wednesday morning last month, about two dozen St. Paul water department employees trudged into a small conference room for a meeting with their union representatives. After listening to a quick pitch, the workers signed new membership cards, shook hands with their reps and punched in for the day.

Even by union standards, it was an entirely unglamorous scene. There were no bullhorns, no banners, no picket signs – not even coffee or donuts.

But the meeting – and hundreds like it that have played out at schools, courthouses and other public-sector worksites across the state in recent months – was one small part of a historic organizing campaign to make sure people keep a strong voice on the job in the wake of today’s Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME.

As expected, the court’s conservative majority sided with corporations and wealthy donors, overturning 40-plus years of precedent to bar public-sector unions from collecting fees from non-members they are legally required to represent.

Already, the decision has prompted a lot of hand-wringing over the continued “downfall” of America’s labor movement.

Don’t buy it.

No judge or politician can take away working people’s freedom to join together and fight for themselves and their communities, and Minnesota’s public-sector unions have set out to prove it. In anticipation of the Janus decision, unions have taken on the work of strengthening and re-energizing their organizations from the inside out.

Workers in St. Paul’s water department sign cards recommitting to their union, Laborers Local 363, during an early-morning meeting last month.

The response has been overwhelming. Laborers Local 363, which represents St. Paul water department workers and roughly 1,100 municipal and county workers statewide, has collected more than 600 signed cards already this year. Roughly a quarter of those, organizers say, are from workers who previously were not paying full dues.

“If you were on the fence about your union dues before, now’s the time to decide,” said Local 363 member Caitlin Brunette, a maintenance and grounds worker at Phalen Park.

Brunette, 26, has been an active volunteer in Local 363’s internal organizing drive, traveling to worksites to talk face to face with fellow members about the threat Janus v. AFSCME poses to their collective bargaining power. Her pitch?

“I’m pretty sure you like being able to go on vacation, get overtime and all these other things we take for granted,” she said. “We have a lot to lose, and I don’t want to see what would happen if we weren’t represented by Local 363.”

Brunette has been “pleasantly surprised” by the response of her fellow members.

“People listen, and it seems like no matter what their feelings on unions are – and we do have people with mixed feelings – the majority are on board,” she said. “I think whether or not they really are pro-union or not, they realize how good they have it and they get on board. They join.”

But Janus won’t be the last corporate attack public-sector union members face.

Laborers locals in parts of the country that have gone right to work in recent years – Wisconsin, most notably – have seen anti-union groups file legal challenges forcing unions to prove they have signed up a majority of workers in a bargaining unit. Or they will send out door-to-door canvassers to meet with union members and urge them to drop out.

That’s why so many are putting an emphasis on collecting newly signed membership cards from all workers they represent, Local 363 reps Tom Fox and Gary Reed said.

“If you don’t think I’m serious, go ask the public-sector Laborers local in Milwaukee how it’s doing,” Reed told water department workers. “You can’t. It’s not there anymore.”

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

Eliot Seide: How to survive and thrive in a right-to-work nation

March 6, 2017 by
AFSCME Council 5's Eliot Seide pledges support for postal workers.

AFSCME Council 5’s Eliot Seide pledges support for postal workers.

I believe our unions can survive and thrive in a right-to-work nation. America isn’t powered by quitters and neither is our labor movement. We’re committed to our members, to each other, and to our communities.

With President Trump and Justice Gorsuch, we know right-to-work will happen. The only question is how soon.

Survival won’t be easy. It requires all of us to wage a fierce resistance and to change how we do our work. Resisting wealthy extremists who want to give workers the right to live poor, get sick and die without union protections – that’s the easy part. It’s who we are and it’s what we have always done. Changing how we do business will be even harder.

Unions must change to survive and thrive. Creating a path back to increased activism, membership and power requires one-on-one conversations and building relationships in the workplace.

Truth be told, our movement was stronger when unions had to collect dues directly from their members. My grandfather was a union printer. He proudly carried a proof-of-payment book, stamped like a Passport. Back then, workers bonded at labor temples. We lost touch when laws required the employer to deduct dues from paychecks.

The Friedrichs case was delayed by the death of Supreme Court Justice Scalia, but what cannot die is the sense of crisis within our unions. For AFSCME, the Friedrichs case was a wakeup call that business as usual is a prescription for assisted suicide. With several more lethal cases in the high court’s pipeline, we can’t dismiss the threat.

AFSCME Strong is our campaign to build an even stronger union with members who are more engaged. In one year, we’ve trained 800 leaders to have conversations with 25,500 of their co-workers. Instead of talking at workers, we listen. We connect their hopes and concerns to our union vision. We discuss how problems can be solved through collective action. Building worker power and prosperity is like building a house. Here’s how we’re building ours.

house• Grow Membership. Our foundation is membership growth. We lift our movement off the ground by organizing both new and current members. Public workers organized their unions before it was legal. We don’t need permission from any politician or court. A union exists wherever workers come together with common purpose.

• Mobilize Members. Then we mobilize our members to take action on issues that matter to their daily lives. Workers who came before us marched, went to strike and even gave their lives in the struggles that won the weekend, safe working conditions, secure retirement benefits, and a voice on the job. To protect those hard-earned gains, we create strong local unions. Together we can build power to get the pay, benefits and respect we deserve.

• Take Political Action. Our democracy will be at stake in the 2018 election. Labor must unite to elect a pro-worker governor and restore DFL control of the Minnesota House. Otherwise, we will be Wisconsin. Better politics means better budgets and better contracts. It’s how we protect our jobs, our retirement and the public services that Minnesota needs. When workers have a voice in the halls of power, kids are smarter, families are healthier, and our communities are safer.

• Build Public Support. Projecting a bold, proud image of union members is essential. A strong identity builds member pride and loyalty and it attracts new members. We reach elected officials, reporters and allies with a powerful message of who we are and what we’re fighting to protect. Workers must tell their side of the story on the news.

• Work in Coalition. Trump will try to pit union against union. We’ve seen divide-and-conquer tactics in Wisconsin. Our future depends on solidarity inside and outside the house of labor. In the 1960s, we marched alongside Dr. King for civil rights. Today, we must recognize the intersections of race, gender and class that impact and impassion our evolving membership in this hostile political environment. Working together with community allies is critical to survival.

Wealthy extremists will continue their attacks on workers. If we resist and change, they won’t write our obituary.

– Eliot Seide is executive director of AFSCME Minnesota Council 5.

 

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

Friedrichs is history (maybe), but Minnesota workers aren’t letting their guard down

May 3, 2016 by
Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a panel discussion with public-sector union leaders, including (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a discussion with public-sector union leaders (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

 

Labor History Month kicked off in St. Paul last night with a discussion of history in the making, as panelists offered insight into public-sector workers’ recent push to breath new life into their unions and defend their right to a voice on the job.

The public forum, titled “The Friedrichs Case and the Future of the Labor Movement,” opened Untold Stories, the labor-history series staged annually in May by The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, with support from a number of unions.

[Programming continues tomorrow with an author talk at the Merriam Park Library. Click here to view details and a full lineup of events.]

At last night’s forum, held at the new St. Paul Labor Center, leaders of three Minnesota unions that represent public-sector workers reviewed recent legal and legislative challenges to their organizing rights – and talked about the ways their organizations are responding.

Debbie Prokopf, attorney and business agent for the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, said corporate-backed politicians and anti-worker legal funds seemingly come up with new ways to “chip away” at public-service workers’ rights every day.

“They’re trying all these wacky, right-wing theories to see what sticks,” Prokopf said, pointing to measures that would require unions to hold recertification votes every year and to negotiate in public, or would severely limit the scope of their contract talks.

Such attacks never gained traction in Minnesota, and that allowed many public-sector unions to “become very complacent,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht acknowledged. “With our state’s strong labor laws, we’ve taken a lot for granted.”

Two developments woke Minnesota’s public-sector unions out of that slumber.

First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, after making scapegoats of teachers and other public workers on the campaign trail, signed legislation designed to cripple their collective bargaining power. And working people in this neighboring state took notice.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

“When unions aren’t able to do their work, then we get Wisconsin,” Specht said. “They’re kind of the poster child now – but not in a good way – and that’s helped us in getting our members to realize what’s at stake.”

The U.S. Supreme Court raised those stakes even higher last year when it agreed to hear Friedrichs v. CTA. The case challenged public-sector unions’ ability to collect fair-share fees from workers they represent, and during oral arguments in January, the court’s conservative majority appeared poised to issue a ruling that would make “Right to Work” the law of the land in the public sector.

‘Don’t wast a good crisis’

The writing, it seemed, was on the wall, and public-sector unions last year began scrambling to convert as many “fair-share fee-payers” into full union members as they could before the court issued its ruling.

The Minnesota School Employees Association, which represents 6,000 workers in more than 60 school districts statewide, set a course for signing up 5 percent of its fee-payers.

Executive Director Tee McClenty said the union surveyed fair-share fee-payers and found many had no idea they weren’t paying full dues. MSEA trained stewards, rank-and-file members and staff for one-on-one conversations about fee-payers’ issues and concerns. And within 11 months, the union had reached its goal.

MAPE and Education Minnesota, as well as unions like AFSCME and SEIU, rolled out similar internal-organizing initiatives, with similarly successful results.

“They say don’t waste a good crisis,” Prokopf said. “And I think Friedrichs was a very good crisis for us in that it shook us out of our complacency.”

Bullet or boomerang?

Ironically, the doomsday ruling anticipated in the Friedrichs case never came. After conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, the court issued a 4-4 decision upholding the status quo.

Will public-sector unions in Minnesota let down their guard again? Not likely, panelists said.

“We didn’t dodge a bullet; we dodged a boomerang,” Prokopf said of Friedrichs, noting that plaintiffs in the case already have filed for a second hearing before the court. “It’s coming back.”

McClenty said MSEA’s annual delegate assembly last month included a training session on Friedrichs.

“People were like, ‘What? We’re done with this now,’” McClenty said. “But we can’t get too comfortable. We feel like there’s momentum happening at MSEA, and we want to keep it going.”

Even if a pro-worker justice replaces Scalia, attacks on public-sector workers at the legislative level – including a “poison pill” attachment to the bill approving state workers’ contracts this session – aren’t likely to stop anytime soon.

“We’re not going to let up,” Specht said. “This is the labor movement at stake. We’re all depending on each other to be strong. We’re going all in, and we’re not stopping.”

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

In Minnesota, public-sector workers building power from the inside out

February 19, 2016 by
web.Friedrichs-panel

MAPE Local 801 member Victoria Hopwood speaks at a forum at the East Side Freedom Library about threats to public-sector unions.

They may no longer be on the brink of a Supreme Court-imposed Right-to-Work rule, but Minnesota’s public-sector union members aren’t celebrating. They’re organizing.

“What we got was a reprieve, not clemency – and surely not a pardon,” Education Minnesota attorney Meg Luger-Nikolai warned a standing-room-only audience of activists last night at the East Side Freedom Library, site of a forum on Friedrichs v. CTA .

In oral arguments last month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared in agreement on the case. Most observers predicted a 5-4 decision to overturn the 40-year precedent allowing public-sector unions to collect fair-share fees from workers who benefit from a contract but choose not to join the union.

While Justice Antonin Scalia’s death Feb. 13 may have changed Friedrichs’ short-term fate, the legal attacks on working people – bankrolled by big-moneyed, right-wing special interests – will only keep coming.

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

“Some people are breathing a sigh of relief, thinking we’re all set,” Maryland-based labor educator Bill Barry said. “We’re not all set.”

That message already seemed to have registered with the public-sector union members who spilled out from the library’s stacks last night.

The forum, planned before Scalia’s death, was billed as an opportunity to share strategies for maintaining strong unions if fair-share fees become illegal – a likelihood public-sector unions here have been anticipating since Scott Walker’s assault on collective bargaining in Wisconsin six years ago.

As members discussed how their unions might adapt to survive, there was no talk of letting up just because the Supreme Court’s makeup is in flux. Some even appeared to welcome the challenge.

“I think we can survive and thrive with a new membership-driven union,” said Carol Nieters, whose union, SEIU Local 284, represents 9,000 school support workers. “I think we can turn on its head what others think they can pull apart.”

Barry, who taught at the Community College of Baltimore County, preaches a similarly proactive approach in his latest book, “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.” It offers up case studies from around the country in how workers have overcome Right-to-Work laws to build powerful unions.

“We’ve got to revive ourselves,” he said. “It’s no good talking about a problem without talking about solutions. We’ve got to go forward, and if we do it now, it’s going to make a stronger, better, more aggressive union.”

Barry advocated training and empowering stewards to do work often handled by union staff, engaging new members on Day 1 of employment and moving more of the union’s processes – like grievance filings and contract negotiations – into the open.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

After Barry’s presentation, a panel of activists offered glimpses into their own unions’ internal organizing efforts.

John Westmoreland, a former prison guard who’s now assistant director of AFSCME Council 5, acknowledged that fair-share fees “made us lazy” in the past, but he said Friedrichs has sparked a new campaign to sign up 94 percent of the workers Council 5 represents.

“We’re engaging them where they work, everybody coming in the door,” Westmoreland said. “Once we complete this campaign, I won’t have to worry about the Supreme Court justices anymore.”

It’s a lofty goal, but one public-sector union members – and, likely, all union members at some point – will need to meet to keep a strong voice on the job.

“We should make a commitment,” East Side Freedom Library director Peter Rachleff said at the close of the forum. “We’re all going to come back here in six months and see how it’s going.”

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