Retired Ironworker maintains steady presence in Local 512

January 8, 2019 by

Frank Sramek pauses for a photo with Local 512 Business Manager Barry Davies (R) and Duluth-area reps Keith Musolf and Darrell Godbout.

It’s been 33 years since Frank Sramek logged hours on a job site, but the retired member of Ironworkers Local 512 remains a fixture in his union. He attends meetings, speaks to graduating apprentices and stays active in the local labor movement.

And at 93 years old, Sramek has no plans to slow down.

“From time to time I meet someone who says he knows an Ironworker,” Sramek said. “I tell them, ‘Ask him if he knows Frank.’ And they always do.”

Local 512 Business Manager Barry Davies says there’s good reason so many people know Sramek.

“Frank is responsible for every Ironworker in northern Minnesota having a pension,” Davies said. “Frank was on the union’s executive board, and he pushed them to get into the pension fund. The business agent up there didn’t want to do it, but Frank stuck to his guns.”

It’s one of the many stories Sramek, who lives in the Duluth area with his wife, Jo-Ann, will gladly recount for fellow Ironworkers, union members or, in this case, a labor reporter with a recorder.

UA: When did you get into the Ironworkers union, and how?

FS: In those days you got a union book – not a union card – that you placed stamps in as you paid your dues. I got my book in 1955. There was no apprenticeship at that time. In fact, there was quite a bit of nepotism… I joined Local 563 in Duluth, which was smaller than the Twin Cities local. There was a pecking order, and we were lower on the totem pole than the guys in the Cities. But that all changed after the taconite plants began being built.

UA: What drew you to the trade?

FS: I grew up on a dairy farm near Meadow-lands. I’d never heard of an Ironworker, but my dad always talked about the need for unions. He was a very strong union supporter even though he was a farmer… My dad worked for the WPA during the Great Depression. I actually remember Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats. Just like nowadays Trump is on Twitter, in those days Roosevelt took advantage of the radio. My dad just admired him. He told me many times if it were not for Frank Roosevelt, we would’ve lost the farm.

UA: You kept farming the family’s land, even while you were working as an Ironworker?

FS: Yes, and I went around trying to organize other farmers in St. Louis County to join the National Farmers Organization. Let me tell you, farmers were impossible. They said, ‘I’m going to wait and see if it works first.’ What the hell? We don’t need you then… Eventually I thought to myself, ‘Why am I busting my ass when in the Ironworkers union, it was all set up?’ I made up my mind then and there to be a good union man.

UA: How did you learn your craft without an apprenticeship program?

FS: I remember my first job working on structural iron, I worked with a guy named Tom, and he was mad. ‘How in the hell,’ he said, ‘did I get teamed up with a dummy like this?’ I felt like just dropping everything and going home.

But you worked with some other guys who were good guys, and they’d show you some tricks here and there. And over the years, you got to be an experienced Ironworker.

UA: What was your role in getting the pension set up for Ironworkers on the Range?

FS: We had an influx of Ironworkers on the taconite mines. They came from all over the country, and they paid in work assessments and travel service dues. A lot of bucks came into our home local.

At the time, we had a participation agreement with Local 512, but our pension was only half of what those guys were getting. I was an observer to the pension fund at the time, and when it was my turn to speak I said, ‘Listen, we can use this money to double the pensions of our Ironworkers up here.’ And from that time on, we were on equal status with Local 512. (Eventually, the two locals merged.)

UA: What keeps you hanging around the union?

FS: I like the Ironworkers because I never had a brother Ironworker be an enemy of mine. I was OK with all the guys. I enjoyed the brotherhood. Now that I’m old, this is when it really matters. Even though there’s a big gap between me and these young guys, I can call a young guy to help me – and he’ll come and help me. Even after I’ve been retired longer than they’ve been a member!

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Unions praise Dayton’s approach to building a ‘state that works for everyone’

March 10, 2016 by

MNSTOSIn his State of the State Address last night, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton called on legislators to join him in addressing the state’s racial and geographic disparities, and in making needed investments in public education, transportation and infrastructure.

Afterward, union leaders from across the state praised Dayton’s speech.

Education Minnesota President Denise Specht called Dayton the “Education Governor.” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy said he “demonstrated his commitment to ensuring that Minnesota is a state that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.”

“Hardworking Minnesotans have always formed the backbone of our economy,” AFSCME Council 5 Director Eliot Seide added. “We applaud Gov. Dayton’s focus on infrastructure, transportation, and expanding economic opportunity for all Minnesotans. Those smart investments will help build a better Minnesota that works for all of us.”

Supporting workers left behind

Early in the address, Dayton reiterated his support for extending aid to Iron Range workers suffering from a slowdown in the mining industry and to minority communities that have yet to reap the benefits of Minnesota’s economic recovery.

Illegally dumped foreign steel has flooded the U.S. market, leading Iron Range mining companies to lay off an estimated 2,000 workers in the last year. The slowdown has impacted an additional 4,700 workers in mining-related jobs.

A relief package would extend unemployment benefits for about 2,750 workers, but Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, insist on pairing the relief package with tax breaks for businesses.

“To hold $29 million of desperately needed unemployment benefits hostage to $272 million in fund cuts is unnecessary,” Dayton told Republicans. “And it’s cruel.”

Dayton also cited several sobering statistics regarding racial and ethnic disparities in the state. Compared with Minnesota’s white families, he said, U.S.-born African American families’ annual income is 55 percent less, and their poverty rate is more than 4 times greater. Mexican-American, Ojibwe and Somali families also have fallen behind.

“We cannot resolve these disparities in one legislative session, but we must begin now,” Dayton said, pledging a “significant initiative” to increase economic opportunities for Minnesotans of color.

He also called on the state’s businesses to increase its outreach into minority communities and set a goal of doubling the percentage of minorities working in state government by the time he leaves office.

Modest investments, targeted tax cuts

As for how to approach Minnesota’s $900 million budget surplus for the next two years, Dayton said he would support pairing “modest spending increases” with tax cuts targeted for middle-class families, like an increase in the child-care tax credit.

But the governor, who faced a $6 billion budget shortfall when he took office in 2011, emphasized the importance of keeping the state on firm financial footing.

“Some people are proposing permanent tax cuts, which would put our state’s budget, once again, on a fiscal precipice,” he said.

“What we have been doing is working,” Dayton added. “Minnesotans are working. Minnesota is working. How could we stop now, when there is more work left to do?”

Investments in statewide broadband access, clean energy, rural water-treatment facilities, infrastructure, roads and bridges would create jobs and expand economic opportunities statewide, Dayton said. And he renewed his call for greater investment in early education to “prevent achievement gaps before they appear.”

Specht, president of the statewide educators’ union, praised Dayton’s support for learners at all levels.

“Gov. Dayton understands the foundation of our state is a great system of public education that prepares all students for successful lives,” she said. “His commitment to expand access to high-quality preschool and to support public colleges and universities will reduce the opportunity gaps which hold back too many of our students.”

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House Republicans play politics with unemployment extension for steelworkers

March 4, 2016 by

capitolSteelworkers pleaded with members of a House committee yesterday to pass a clean bill extending unemployment benefits to workers impacted by the Iron Range mining slowdown, but they couldn’t convince Republicans, who continued holding the relief package hostage for $271 million in tax cuts for businesses.

“Believe me, this is not an easy thing for us proud Iron Rangers to do,” Cliff Tobey, president of United Steelworkers Local 2660, told members of the House Job Growth and Energy Affordability Committee.

Tobey and another laid-off Steelworker traveled to St. Paul to testify in favor of extending benefits by 26 weeks for workers impacted by the crisis, which was triggered by an influx of cheap foreign steel that flooded the U.S. market and left ore prices at a 10-year low.

Most of the region’s 11 mining outfits have issued layoffs in the last 12 months, and by the time the legislative session starts Tuesday, about 1,200 Iron Range workers will have exhausted their unemployment benefits.

Toby urged committee members to pass the extension “without attaching unnecessary demands,” but Republicans couldn’t resist including a tax rebate for businesses that pay into the state’s unemployment insurance fund.

The bill passed the committee over objections from members of the DFL minority, who said the two issues – extending benefits for steelworkers and reforming the state’s unemployment insurance system – deserve separate consideration.

Rep. Jason Metsa, whose District 6B includes the heart of taconite mining country, choked up as he appealed to his Republican colleagues.

“These guys gotta go back to their families and their friends and tell them we didn’t get it done,” Metsa said of the Steelworkers who testified. “Let’s do the right thing and set these (issues) on two different tracks.”

The committee’s vote cast doubt on whether lawmakers will be able to pass an extension of benefits during the first week of session, a goal set by Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates mining companies have laid off 2,000 workers since March 1, 2015, and the slowdown has impacted an additional 4,700 Iron Range workers in mining-related jobs.

DEED has crafted a relief package to extend benefits for about 2,750 workers at a cost to the unemployment insurance trust fund of $29.7 million. The Republican tax break would siphon nearly 10 times that amount from the state’s unemployment trust fund, leaving its balance below federal guidelines, DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben said.

“We know that a recession can deplete reserves quickly,” Sieben warned.

In 2009, for example, the unemployment fund paid out $1.7 billion – more than its current $1.57 billion balance. Faced with $1.4 billion in claims in 2010, the fund was forced to borrow from the federal government to meet its obligations, a debt that took almost three years to pay back.

“Putting the future solvency of our unemployment insurance trust fund at risk is unconscionable,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy told the committee.

But with each additional day Republicans play politics with the issue, more Iron Range families see their benefits disappear.

Tobey, a third-generation miner, said his local has 360 members “out on the street right now trying to feed their families, trying to pay their mortgages, trying to get by.” He questioned whether Republicans would insist on business tax cuts before providing flood relief or assistance in the wake of a bridge collapse.

“We have no more control over other countries flooding our market (with cheap steel) than the people of Minnesota have over falling bridges and flooding rivers,” he said.

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