Solidarity actions with Verizon strikers to continue in Twin Cities

May 10, 2016 by
Workers picketed in solidarity with 39,000 striking Verizon workers outside the company's Roseville store last week. (Labor Review photo)

Workers picketed in solidarity with 39,000 striking Verizon workers outside the company’s Roseville store last week. (Labor Review photo)

Union members in the Twin Cities plan to keep the heat on Verizon this week with two more actions in support of the company’s 39,000 striking workers in the Northeast U.S.

Solidarity actions are planned from noon to 2 p.m. May 11 outside Verizon’s store at 474 Hamline Ave. N. in St. Paul, and from noon to 1 p.m. May 12 outside the company’s downtown Minneapolis location, at 800 Nicollet Ave (RSVP on Facebook).

Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison joined more than 50 protesters outside Verizon’s Roseville location, calling on Verizon to get back to the bargaining table and stop trying to outsource union members’ jobs. “It’s got to be us in Minnesota standing with people struggling for decent pay and decent treatment,” Ellison said.

Striking workers are members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The work stoppage began April 13, and it continues despite Verizon’s move to cut off striking workers from their health insurance benefits effective May 1.

Verizon workers’ previous contract, settled after a 2-week strike in 2011, expired last August. In negotiations since then, workers say, the company has refused to drop its demand for language allowing Verizon to contract out their jobs – the same demand that led to the strike four years ago.

Why is a highly profitable company looking to cut costs with cheap labor? The answer is simple: greed.

According to Verizon’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s top four executives raked in $41 million in 2015 alone, and they’ve taken home $114 million in the last three years.

“Verizon wants to boost their bottom line by taking away the stability and reliability their employees once had,” Mona Meyer, president of the CWA Minnesota State Council, said. “This strike is bigger than Verizon. It’s about protecting good, hometown jobs in this country. It’s about securing a brighter future for our families and our communities. It’s about standing up and fighting back!”

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White House summit lifts up Minnesota workers’ success stories

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ellison to U of M researchers: Use collective action to reverse dwindling federal support

November 13, 2015 by
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison meets with researchers at the U of M - Twin Cities.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison meets with researchers at the U of M – Twin Cities.

 

Frontline researchers alerted U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison to the impacts of dwindling federal and institutional support for their work in a meeting at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities yesterday.

Ellison, a DFLer whose 5th District includes the Twin Cities campus, pledged to continue supporting research funding in Congress, and he praised U of M faculty, who are in the process of organizing a union, for taking collective action to raise awareness of the issue.

Rep. Keith Ellison pledges to share with his colleagues in the state's congressional delegation an open letter from U of M researchers.

Rep. Keith Ellison pledges to share with his colleagues in the state’s congressional delegation an open letter from U of M researchers.

“Your perspective is unique,” Ellison told faculty. “Your process is hands-on. And you’ve got to be able to handle that process in a way that is meaningful for people making policy decisions.”

Ellison met with academics on the same day they released results of a recent survey of U of M researchers, “The State of Research Funding and Support at the University of Minnesota.” Distributed over the summer, the survey drew 342 responses, which revealed several common threads.

• As federal support for research decreases, U of M researchers are spending more time chasing funding, and their research suffers as a result.

Overall spending on university-based research across federal agencies fell $21 billion, or 13 percent, from 2005 to 2015. The share of the federal budget dedicated to research, at 12 percent in 1965, is less than 4 percent today.

Jerry Cohen, a professor of horticultural science, pointed to a national survey that found academic researchers spend, on average, 43 percent of their day navigating the bureaucracy of federal grant funding.

“We are throwing good ideas away,” Cohen said. “It challenges our ability as a nation to remain a premier scientific-research country on the planet.”

• Lack of federal funding and institutional support is driving talented researchers out of the academic field.

“I personally know of faculty who have left academia because of the giant pressure put on them to find funding,” post-doctoral associate Geoffrey Rojas said.

• The U of M is failing to provide adequate support for researchers competing for federal funds, and the U is not being transparent when it comes to administrative costs taken out of research grants.

Just 40 percent of survey respondents said they feel the university “adequately supports and values their research,” the same amount that feel they are given “adequate time in the workweek” to meet the demands of their positions.

Meanwhile, just 1 in 7 researchers at the U feel their employer is being transparent about how it uses “overhead rates” taken out of federal grants to cover facility and administrative costs, according to the survey.

“One of the reasons we’re organizing a union is precisely because of these issues,” geography professor Bruce Braun said. A union, he added, would give U of M faculty a better voice in shared governance at the U, and it would empower researchers to “advocate for the kind of federal funding we need at the university and that the public deserves.”

Tenure-line and contingent faculty at the Twin Cities campus are organizing with MN Academics United, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union Local 284.

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Dems get an earful from seniors, workers during Minneapolis meetings

September 2, 2015 by
15Now Minnesota supporters rally outside the Hilton in Minneapolis during the DNC's meetings.

15Now Minnesota supporters rally outside the Hilton in Minneapolis during DNC meetings.

 

As Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and other presidential hopefuls wooed party leaders in Minneapolis during the Democratic National Committee meetings last weekend, local worker and retiree groups mobilized inside and outside the event, looking to push their concerns to the forefront of the 2016 campaign.

On Friday, activists with 15Now Minnesota rallied for a $15 minimum wage outside the downtown Hilton, where contenders for the Democratic presidential were offering much-publicized speeches.

And on Saturday, union retirees and other Minnesota seniors elbowed their way onto the agenda of the DNC Seniors Coordinating Council’s meeting. They urged the party to put forth a bold vision for strengthening Social Security and Medicare, and ensuring economic security for all seniors.

Led by the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO, seniors staged a program that featured testimonials, a sing-along with the Twin Cities Labor Chorus and an actor – Barry ZeVan – portraying former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ZeVan’s childhood hero.

FDR signed the Social Security Act 80 years ago, in part, to combat high rates of poverty among the nation’s seniors. Martha Johnson, a retired member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, urged party leaders to “be in the FDR tradition and take strong positions on senior issues.”

Retired AFSCME member Martha Johnson addresses the DNC's Senior Coordinating Committee.

Retired AFSCME member Martha Johnson addresses the DNC’s Senior Coordinating Committee.

‘Scrap the cap’

Johnson, a former president of the retiree council, drew a standing ovation when she called on lawmakers to “scrap” the payroll-tax cap that shields income earned above a designated amount – currently $118,500 – from Social Security deductions.

“That would fund full benefits to the middle of the century,” Johnson said, and would represent a “step toward long-term stability” for Social Security.

Other speakers warned against efforts to privatize Social Security or reduce benefits, including President Obama’s failed attempt to link annual inflationary increases to the so-called “chained CPI.” It’s estimated a third of U.S. seniors rely on Social Security as their only source of income, and weakening the program would threaten the economic security of millions of other retirees.

“People face very unattractive choices,” Johnson said. “They keep working into old age, or they retire into poverty.”

After the retirees’ program concluded, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison took the podium and pledged to keep fighting for Social Security, Medicare and income security for seniors. The Minneapolis DFLer urged retirees, in turn, to tune into debates surrounding proposed service cuts at the U.S. Postal Service and the sprawling Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The NAFTA-style trade agreement has the potential to impact prescription drug prices, Ellison warned, as pharmaceutical companies look to extend patents on pharmaceuticals and grow their profits.

“I’m just appalled – a life saving drug that you need to survive, and somebody wants to ratchet up the price on it?” Ellison said. “It’s not fair and it’s gouging people.”

Najma Ahmed speaks in favor of a $15 federal minimum wage.

Najma Ahmed speaks in favor of a $15 federal minimum wage.

Raise the wage

About 20 people joined the rally for a $15 federal minimum wage a day earlier. 15Now organizer Ty Moore said DNC officials reached out in advance of the demonstration, a sign that party leaders “understand that this issue, even with just this small crowd today, has a huge resonance in the wider community.”

15Now campaigns – alive in Minneapolis, St. Paul and at MSP International Airport – have won minimum-wage hikes in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. And two Democratic presidential candidates, Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, already support $15 nationwide.

“We welcome that, but we want to push on,” campaign organizer Ginger Jentzen said. “We want every presidential candidate to speak to the issue of $15 an hour.”

Minnesota’s minimum wage recently increased from $8 to $9 per hour. But Najma Ahmed, who works two minimum-wage jobs and attends Minneapolis Community and Technical College, said she and her family of five “scrounge just to live.”

If given the opportunity, what would she tell the presidential candidates gathered inside the Hilton?

“I would tell them that it’s really hard as it is making $9 per hour,” Ahmed said. “I would tell them to support free education and to increase the minimum wage. We have a right to live and be paid decently.”

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Ellison joins home care worker on the job, reaffirms support of Fight for $15

August 31, 2015 by
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (L) chats with Clara Nakumbe and her sons Siran and Shmel Bogan (R).

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (L) chats with Clara Nakumbe and her sons Siran and Shmel Bogan (R).

Clara Nakumbe is fighting for $15 an hour, but the Minneapolis resident doesn’t work in a fast-food restaurant or behind the scenes at the airport. She works in her own home, providing round-the-clock care for her son Siran, who lives with a severe form of multiple sclerosis.

It’s work that earns Nakumbe $11 per hour, thanks to a new contract between the State of Minnesota and home care workers, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, that went into effect this summer.

Nakumbe was an early supporter of the union drive that led to that historic first contract. Now, she’s among a growing number of home care workers nationwide raising their voices as part of the “Fight for $15.”

“Just because we’re doing this doesn’t mean we don’t have bills,” Nakumbe told U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison during a visit at her kitchen table today. “People need decent wages because they still have responsibilities.”

Ellison, a DFLer from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, visited Nakumbe’s north Minneapolis home as part of an event organized by SEIU to expose lawmakers to the challenges home care workers face on a daily basis.

He asked several questions of Clara, Siran’s brother Shmel Bogan and Siran himself, who could offer only “yes” or “no” as answers. The conversation ranged from Siran’s life before his diagnosis to the family’s daily routine.

“What do you think about the home care workers getting $15 an hour?” Ellison asked Siran.

“He said yes!” Clara laughed.

web.homecare-ellison32Although Social Security benefits help, Nakumbe said her income remains far below what she was earning at the job she left in order to keep Siran out of a nursing home – a decision that not only keeps Siran close to family, but saves the state money as well. She said she supports the Fight for $15 movement for the same reasons she supported the union drive four years ago.

“We fought for the union in order to have a voice,” she said. “If more of us come together collectively, we can do more than we can individually.”

Ellison said seeing home care work firsthand reinforced his belief that both home care workers and clients deserve better than wages that keep workers at or below the poverty line.

“If we pay this work fairly, it means we value all members of our community,” Ellison said. “We’re all one injury or one illness away from needing the care you all provide for Siran.

“If his home care worker is paid the right way, then he’ll be taken care of properly. But if you’re paying (home care workers) not even enough to stay out of poverty, how can you expect them to continue to do the work?”

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Dayton, Ellison celebrate Medicare’s 50th birthday with Minnesota Nurses

July 31, 2015 by
Nurses celebrated Medicare's 50th birthday with PIE, symbolic of the union's call to "protect, invest and expand" the popular health care program.

Nurses celebrated Medicare’s 50th birthday with PIE, symbolic of the union’s call to “protect, invest and expand” the popular health care program.

 

web.MNA-Medicare-nursesMedicare turned 50 years old yesterday, and Minnesota nurses celebrated by throwing President Lyndon B. Johnson’s landmark legislation a barbecue birthday bash in St. Paul.

More than 100 million people are enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans and also turned 50 yesterday. Together, the programs ensure seniors maintain health coverage after retiring and children receive the health care they need to avoid falling behind.

“Health care is a truly patriotic issue tied to our freedom,” Minnesota Nurses Association Executive Director Rose Roach said. “Are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness really possible when you don’t have your health?”

Doctors, patients and elected officials, including Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, joined nurses in pledging to protect Medicare – and expand the popular health care program into a single-payer health plan covering all Americans.

“I don’t know if we’ll see single payer in my lifetime,” Dayton said. “But if we do, I hope it starts here in Minnesota.”

Rep. Ellison speaks at the nurses' celebration of Medicare's 50th anniversary.

Rep. Ellison speaks at the nurses’ celebration of Medicare’s 50th anniversary.

Ellison, a DFLer from Minneapolis, said he was proud to have supported the Affordable Care Act, passed during President Obama’s first term. “But deep down and in my heart of hearts,” Ellison added, “I have been and will always be a single payer person.”

The ACA increased access to the private health insurance market and allowed states, including Minnesota, to expand Medicaid eligibility for the working poor, extending coverage to an estimated 16.4 million Americans over the last 5 years.

But even in Minnesota, people are slipping through the cracks of the private insurance market. That’s why Ellison said he supports the American Health Security Act, introduce by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) in March. It would allow states to administer their own universal health insurance systems, subject to federal standards.

Ellison and Dayton agreed that the bill would empower Minnesota to set a course toward single payer, universal health care – one the rest of the nation could follow.

“That’s how Canada ended up with single payer,” Ellison said. “It wasn’t just one big national plan. It was Ottawa, then Saskatchewan, and it spread.”

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Labor urges Congress to pump the brakes on fast track

February 23, 2015 by
U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan host a field hearing on trade at Richfield City Hall.

U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan host a field hearing on trade at Richfield City Hall.

Unions are joining a national day of action to stop fast track March 4, and two members of Congress from Minnesota got an earful as to why last week at a field hearing in Richfield.

DFL Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan heard testimony from trade experts, union leaders, business owners and advocates for family farmers, who passionately exhorted the representatives to resist President Obama’s push for fast-track authority to enter trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The Obama administration, looking for ever-elusive common ground with Republicans who took over Congress this year, has moved fast track and the TPP to the top of its agenda. And the president has plenty of powerful allies in that effort, Nolan warned.

“Not only the administration, but the multinational (corporations) are putting a full-court press on this thing,” the 8th District Congressman said. “Every member is getting collared and called and pushed and urged.”

Ellison wryly noted that White House representatives reached out to him as he was leaving Washington to return to the 5th District, letting him know they were aware of the field hearing – and less than pleased with it.

But testimony at the hearing raised several concerns with fast track and the TPP, a looming NAFTA-style trade agreement among 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

An undemocratic notion

By passing fast track, also known as “trade promotion authority,” Congress would limit its own ability to influence trade policy, forcing members to take an up-or-down votes on 1,000-page trade agreements like TPP without offering amendments.

“That’s clearly an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Congress of the United States,” Nolan said.

Worse, members of Congress are severely limited in their ability to monitor or influence the TPP negotiations, Nolan added. Draft agreements and transcripts of the talks are shielded from the media.

“We’re not allowed to even sit in on the negotiations,” Nolan said. “Now, finally, they’re saying they’ll let us look at some of the transcripts, but all the names and all the essential elements are eliminated. It’s kind of like reading the newspaper with a third of every article being eliminated. So it’s not really time very well spent.”

Machinists union representative Rick Ryan (R) testified before a field hearing on fast track and the Trans Pacific Partnership last month. Ryan appeared on a panel with CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer and Bob Ryan of the United Steelworkers.

Machinists union representative Rick Ryan (R) testifies before a field hearing on fast track and the Trans Pacific Partnership. Ryan appeared on a panel with CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer and Bob Ryan of the United Steelworkers.

Profits over people

Leaked drafts of the TPP hint at why Obama’s trade negotiators and hundreds of cleared “advisors” – most of whom represent multinational corporations – might not want the public to see their proposals. Like NAFTA and other free-trade agreements of the last 20 years, TPP appears to give corporations more power over the global economy.

These multinationals have dictated U.S. trade policies at the expense of middle-class wages and jobs for too long, said Mona Meyer, president of the Communications Workers of America’s Minnesota State Council. Look no further than the annual trade deficit of $476 billion.

“The promoters of TPP are again promising job gains,” Meyer said. “But we can do the math, and any job growth with be dwarfed by the flood of jobs that go offshore.”

Trade agreements put manufacturing jobs, in particular, at risk. About 6 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and 60,000 factories have been lost since 2001.

Nilfisk, a company that manufactures industrial floor-cleaning equipment, employed 500 members of the Machinists union at a facility in Plymouth before NAFTA passed. After several rounds of outsourcing, Machinists District 77 representative Rick Ryan said, about 70 workers are left at the plant.

But Ryan warned the TPP goes beyond tariffs and trade.

‘Why are we not at the table?’

“It will affect all sectors of our economy, our courts, our intellectual property rights, labor standards, environmental standards and more – done at the bidding of the world’s largest multinational corporations, further benefiting the 0.1 percent at the expense of the 99.9 percent worldwide,” Ryan said.

How? Dave Levine, CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council, said TPP language could empower corporations to sue local governments that pass “buy local” laws – a school district looking to serve food from area farmers at lunch, for example. It’s one reason the council’s 225,000 member companies oppose fast track and the TPP.

“None of them got a call to be at the table,” he said. “If it’s good for business, why are we not at the table to bring our interests to the proceedings?”

Josh Wise, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, noted that the TPP and other trade agreements create extrajudicial trade tribunals, presided over by judges with deep ties to multinationals, that have jurisdiction over local courts.

Lone Pine Resources, an energy company suing the government of Quebec over its ban on fracking, maintains its headquarters outside Canada “for the sole purpose of being able to challenge the fracking ban via the trade court rather than the judicial system,” Wise said.

Fair trade, not free trade

Ellison and Nolan entered the hearing already opposed to fast track and the TPP. Both insisted they were not against trade, but favored trade policies that strengthen labor and human rights, protect U.S. families us from unsafe imports and promote the export of goods instead of jobs.

“We built this economy with rules and regulations on health and safety, wages and benefits,” Nolan said. “To say that we’re going to allow anyone and everyone to come in here and dump their products on us without any countervailing measures … is to really destroy the essence of who we are and what we’re all about.”

Ellison added, “I believe American workers can compete with any workers in the world” if given a level playing field.

“I know that you guys will fight for democracy,” Wise told the members of Congress. “I wish you the best of luck in convincing your colleagues to do the same.”

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Airport workers rally behind Delta baggage handler fired for activism

December 5, 2014 by
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison speaks in support of fired Delta baggage handler Kip Hedges (blue coat) at a rally at MSP Airport.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison speaks in support of fired Delta baggage handler Kip Hedges (blue coat) during a rally at MSP Airport.

Airport workers, union members and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison today called on Delta Air Lines to reinstate Kip Hedges, a pro-union activist fired just days ago for speaking publicly in favor of a $15 minimum wage at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

About 200 people joined the demonstration outside Termainal 1 at MSP Airport. They shut down the terminal’s Upper Level Roadway before being ordered by police to disperse.

Originally planned as part of the Black Friday Week of Action that also included Walmart and fast-food strikes, the airport protest became an outlet for activists and co-workers outraged at Hedges’ dismissal. Protesters carried signs and joined chants urging Delta to “bring Kip back.”

Hedges, a baggage handler and 26-year airline employee, told Workday Minnesota that Delta management issued the termination after citing comments he made in a video supporting of the “15 Now” campaign for a higher airport minimum wage.

In this video from today’s protest, Hedges recounts what he said about Delta, as his supporters echo his statement.

“In spite of being fired by Delta, I don’t plan to stop speaking out about low-wage workers at Delta, or the issue of unionizing,” Hedges said. “In the past two days, I’ve received massive support from my co-workers, from brother and sister flight attendants at Delta, the International Association of Machinists and the labor movement in Minnesota. This is the kind of force that it will take to win $15 at MSP, and it’s the kind of spirit that will lead to unionizing Air Serv and Delta ramp workers.”

About 200 people joined the march along outside the upper level of Terminal 1, calling for $15 wages and union rights.

About 200 people joined the march along outside the upper level of Terminal 1, calling for $15 wages and union rights.

Meanwhile, passenger-support workers at MSP, employed by contractors like AirServ, said Delta’s effort to silence Hedges would not keep them from working for a $15 minimum wage and a union.

“I do important work at the Airport for other peoples families,” said Randa Jama, a mother of two who works as a wheelchair assistant for AirServ. “I wish AirServ would support my kids the way I help Delta passengers and unaccompanied minors.”

Ellison, a DFLer from Minneapolis, called on Delta to reinstate Hedges. He also encouraged passenger-support workers’ to continue their organizing campaign.

“We can go a day, a week, a month without the CEO of Delta. We actually don’t need him,” Ellison said. “But you try to go even a short period of time without the cleaners or the drivers or the baggage handlers, and this whole place stops.

“You deserve respect, and you must be paid fairly.”

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In Minneapolis, hundreds rally against Social Security’s closed-door policy

August 28, 2014 by
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (R) leads a rally outside the Social Security office in Minneapolis, which has reduced its service hours.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (R) leads a rally outside the Social Security office in Minneapolis, which has reduced its service hours.

Doors to the Social Security Administration’s field office in Minneapolis were locked at 3 p.m. yesterday, and they could stay locked permanently – in Minneapolis and at field offices across the country – if the federal agency gets its way.

That’s the warning sounded by federal workers rallying on the street outside the Chicago Avenue office yesterday.

About 200 members of the American Federation of Government Employees, holding a convention in Minneapolis this week, rallied with federal lawmakers and local retirees, raising awareness of Social Security’s plan to close hundreds of local offices just as the number of Social Security-eligible Americans is about to hit its peak.

AFGE President David Cox speaks to the crowd in Minneapolis.

AFGE President David Cox speaks to the crowd in Minneapolis.

Already, the Social Security Administration has closed 80 community offices nationwide, AFGE President David Cox told demonstrators, and “they’re looking to shutdown all the rest.”

A report released earlier this year by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging found the agency had shed 11,000 workers and closed 553 contact stations over the previous three years, and “had reduced or eliminated a variety of in-person services” at a time when Baby Boomers are filing claims in record numbers.

Social Security provides financial assistance to elderly, disabled, widowed and orphaned Americans, “people who through no fault of their own cannot provide for themselves,” Cox said. AFGE members who staff Social Security offices – and the Americans who rely on them – are baffled by dwindling federal support for “the most popular government program in our nation’s history.”

Marie Milsten-Fiedler of Minneapolis relies on face-to-face service provided by Social Security employees.

Marie Milsten-Fiedler of Minneapolis relies on face-to-face service provided by Social Security employees.

Social Security Administration officials have said office closures and staff cuts are part of a plan, known as Vision 2025, to transition most of the agency’s face-to-face services online and to call centers. But the plan does not sit well with Social Security beneficiaries like Marie Milsten-Fiedler of Minneapolis, who called it “pennywise and pound foolish.”

“Not all of us have the ability to pay for computers or Internet access,” Milsten-Fiedler said. Filing for benefits “is a major life changing event. It is extremely stressful, and folks should not be stuck alone in front of a computer screen. People should be available to help us through it.”

Professionals also are needed to protect against Social Security fraud. Milsten-Fiedler said she had to show several forms of identification in order to begin receiving her Social Security benefits. “How’s that going to happen over the Internet?” she asked.

Dana Duggins, an officer with the AFGE’s Social Security branch, said 95 percent of claims submitted over the Internet result in error, and reports of fraud are on the rise.

About 200 AFGE members joined the rally outside the Minneapolis Social Security field office.

About 200 AFGE members joined the rally outside the Minneapolis Social Security field office.

“We think the agency has put the cart before the horse,” Duggins said. “They don’t have the safeguards in place to protect the public. What’s worse is that Social Security staff are expected to push this system, knowing that it is hurting the American public.”

As the rally proceeded, several people approached the Social Security office, only to turn around after seeing the “Closed” sign. Before the rally began, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison told demonstrators, he encountered a woman who had traveled by bus to the office from Plymouth, “which I’m telling you is not close.”

“We need to make sure people who need Social Security have an open door when they show up to get Social Security,” the Minneapolis DFLer said. “If they can give a big tax cut loophole to some oil company, then they can open this office.”

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland also attended the rally. He thanked activists for standing up on behalf of “millions of people who worked hard, who made America great, who invested in the Social Security program and want to walk through that door during normal working hours.”

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New endorsements give shape to Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2014 political push

June 18, 2014 by

mnaflcioThe state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, added to its list of endorsed candidates for state and federal offices yesterday, as Labor’s 2014 political push continued to take shape locally.

Most notably, the Minnesota AFL-CIO backed 55 DFLers running for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

The DFL Party will look to defend its 12-seat majority in the House in balloting Nov. 4. Members of the Minnesota Senate, where the DFL also controls a majority of seats, will not stand for re-election until 2016.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO also announced yesterday its endorsement of Minnesota Rep. Steve Simon for Secretary of State, incumbent U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson in the 7th Congressional District and Sharon Sund in the 3rd District.

Earlier this year the state AFL-CIO endorsed Gov. Mark Dayton and his running mate, Tina Smith, along with six DFL candidates for federal offices: Sen. Al Franken; Reps. Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Rick Nolan and Tim Walz; and Mike Obermueller, Rep. John Kline’s opponent in the 2nd District.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the federation and its 1,000-plus affiliate unions will work to get the state’s 300,000 union members – and 250,000 members of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, Working America – to the polls in support of labor-endorsed candidates this fall.

“When the Minnesota AFL-CIO endorses a candidate, it means that working people can count on that person to be their voice when they are elected to office,” Hunter said. “We look forward to electing these candidates to office and working with them to continue building a better Minnesota and country.”

In the East Metro, endorsed House candidates include incumbent Reps. Barb Yarusso (District 42A), Peter Fischer (43A), Leon Lillie (43B), Sandra Masin (51A), Laurie Halverson (51B), Rick Hansen (52A), Joe Atkins (52B), JoAnn Ward (53A), Dan Schoen (54A), Will Morgan (56B), Erin Murphy (64A), Rena Moran (65A), Carlos Mariani (65B), Alice Hausman (66A), John Lesch (66B), Tim Mahoney (67A) and Sheldon Johnson (67B).

Other East Metro candidates endorsed yesterday include Paul Gammel (32A), Laurie Warner (32B), Greg Pariseau (38B), Tim Stender (39A), Tom DeGree (39B), Kay Hendrikson (53B), Don Slaten (54B), Denise Packard (57B), Amy Willingham (58A), Marla Vagts (58B) and Dave Pinto (64B).

The federation noted it expects to add to the list of endorsed candidates in the coming weeks and months.

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