New state grants support suicide prevention in construction industry

February 3, 2026 by

Text or call 988 to find judgment-free support for mental health, substance use, and more. Or chat with someone at 988lifeline.org.

The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry awarded new grant funding last month to help two organizations tackle a leading safety hazard in the construction industry: mental health.

Minnesota Building Trades unions partnered last year with their employers, represented by the Associated General Contractors (AGC), to push state lawmakers to address the mental-health crisis in their industry, pointing to suicide rates among construction workers that are four times higher than the national average – and even higher among men.

With the combined $750,000 in new funding, two organizations – the AGC of Minnesota Foundation and Suicide Awareness Voices of Education – will create outreach and engagement programs tailored to construction workers, aimed at promoting mental well-being and preventing suicide.

In a statement announcing the grants, DLI Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said prioritizing construction workers’ mental health “will save lives.”

The new grant program is modeled after a similar initiative, led by the state’s Department of Agriculture, to address higher suicide rates among family farmers.

Both farmers and tradespeople face stressors unique to their communities. For construction workers, they can include working long hours away from home. And employment is cyclical for most; when their trade wraps work on one project, there is no guarantee of a job waiting for them on another.

LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President and Business Manager Joel Smith, a leading advocate for the DLI’s new grant program, said the macho culture on a construction job site can make some tradespeople hesitant to ask for help dealing with stress.

But the construction industry has changed its culture before, Smith added.

“Thirty-four years ago when I got my start, safety wasn’t emphasized nearly as much,” Smith said during a breakout on mental health during LIUNA’s infrastructure summit last October.

“We changed the culture around safety. Now we need to change that culture around mental health, to remove the stigma and let our people know it’s OK to talk about it. But it’s going to take all of us.”

For its part, the unionized trades and their contractors in Minnesota already have begun the work of changing their approach to mental health, even before lawmakers approved funding for the new grant program.

Many unions and their contractors have begun including mental-health awareness into their first-aid trainings and increasing the number of times workers can access their employee-assistance programs (EAPs). LIUNA rolled out a hardhat sticker – “What’s Underneath Your Hardhat?” – encouraging members to look out for each other’s wellbeing.

With the new grant funding, AGC CEO Tim Worke said, the contractors’ foundation and its partners in labor – and, he hopes, local developers – will expand on work to break stigmas around mental health in the industry.

Plans include an expanded suicide prevention training, with a new, tailored curriculum that will reach more than 1,500 construction apprentices statewide.

During the summit last fall, Worke said the stakes are high not just in terms of saving lives, but for the industry’s success in recruiting and retaining young workers, too.

“I’m absolutely convinced that if we cannot change folks in the industry that do not value mental health, the workforce is going to respond with their feet,” he said. “They’re going to move to another industry that does.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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LIUNA summit digs into Minnesota’s infrastructure outlook

October 16, 2025 by

State Sen. Erin Murphy accepts an Infrastructure Champion award from LIUNA Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler (L) and LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President Joel Smith.

Advocates for public infrastructure gathered Oct. 10 at the Minnesota Laborers’ Training Center in Lino Lakes to take stock of the state’s investment needs and celebrate recent legislative gains.

The 2025 LIUNA Infrastructure Summit and Open House, sponsored by LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, brought together over 100 representatives of unions, contractors, state agencies and other infrastructure-minded groups.

The half-day event covered topics like water and energy infrastructure, incentives for high-road housing development, workforce development and initiatives within the industry to increase workers’ access to mental-health resources.

Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan addressed the summit, and LIUNA officers presented awards recognizing lawmakers and the union’s lobbying partners for their work to strengthen and expand prevailing wage and secure new investments in transportation, water, energy and other infrastructure needs statewide.

Walz noted that the awards recognized both Democrats and Republicans. He called it a testament to LIUNA’s ability to work “bipartisanly” in support of public investments and standards like prevailing wage, ensuring infrastructure jobs go to safe, highly trained and fairly compensated tradespeople.

“It’s a really difficult job right now to try to find common lines, and LIUNA and the Building Trades have been doing it year after year,” Walz said.

Earlier this year, Walz signed a $700 million infrastructure jobs bill into law. It will chip away at a backlog of requests from communities and agencies across the state that has surpassed $7 billion.

The governor struck a hopeful note that lawmakers will continue to invest.

“I think we have set a precedence with this leadership that’s here at the Legislature that it just makes good sense to continue to pass robust bonding bills every year to make sure that we’re staying ahead of what needs to be done,” he said.

In anticipation of that work, LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, which represents about 14,000 workers, will expand its apprenticeship and training programs to include a second campus in North Branch, where the union recently acquired 96 acres.

The Lino Lakes facility already operates Minnesota’s largest registered apprenticeship program. The site delivers about 150,000 training hours each year, LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President Joel Smith said, at no cost to taxpayers.

“This campus represents our commitment to connecting Minnesotans, including more women, people of color and veterans, to lifelong careers with family-sustaining wages, excellent benefits and dignified retirement,” Smith said.

Recipients of LIUNA’s 2025 Infrastructure Champion awards included two state lawmakers, Sen. Judy Seeberger (D-Afton) and Rep. Nathan Nelson (R-Hinckley), who authored legislation that appropriates $1 million to promote mental-health initiatives in the construction industry, where suicide rates are over three times higher than the U.S. average.

State Reps. Kaela Berg (D-Burnsville) and Mary Franson (R-Alexandria), Sens. Jen McEwan (D-Duluth), Rob Kupec (D-Moorhead), Grant Hauschild (D-Hermantown) and Erin Murphy (D-St. Paul), and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith also received awards.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Construction union celebrates new laws to keep ‘bad actors’ from cashing in on public subsidies

July 19, 2024 by

Eduardo Canales brought his daughter, Dariana, to the rally at Callisto Commons in Fridley. The development used Environmental StoneWorks, a contractor that Canales said misclassified him as an independent contractor when he installed stone veneers like the one visible at the Fridley site.

Members of the Laborers union (LIUNA) staged a demonstration June 24 outside a subsidized housing development in Fridley, publicly shaming a construction-supply company they allege has cheated both workers and taxpayers.

Environmental StoneWorks’ veneer product was on full display at the future site of Callisto Commons, a development along University Avenue Northeast where LIUNA members rallied with lawmakers and community supporters.

The action kept the heat on StoneWorks, which faces allegations of discrimination and worker misclassification. But the event also raised awareness of new laws passed this year by the labor-endorsed “trifecta” of state lawmakers, including new labor standards on subsidized housing projects and stiffer penalties for worker misclassification.

“This isn’t about a few bad actors,” Rep. Emma Greenman (D-Minneapolis) said. “This is about a business model that is about extracting from workers, extracting from taxpayers. The business model is what has to change.”

And it likely will, thanks to new laws requiring contractors on developments that access funds through the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit – like Callisto Commons in Fridley – to pay prevailing wages. Minnesota is the first state to tie prevailing wage to the tax credit.

Other measures now on the books will make it harder for contractors with a history of labor violations to bid on publicly subsidized projects, give state regulators new tools to shut down job sites where labor violations are occurring and create new penalties of up to $10,000 for employers that misclassify their workers as independent contractors.

LIUNA members from across the country, in the area for an organizing conference, joined the rally.

That’s what Eduardo Canales alleges happened on job sites where he installed Environmental StoneWorks’ product over a period of four years.

Although he worked exclusively as an installer for the firm, Canales said he was never classified as an employee by the firm. As an independent contractor, he was ineligible for workers’ compensation, collective bargaining rights and overtime pay – even in weeks when he worked 70 or more hours installing the stone veneer.

“It means if there is an accident and someone gets hurt on an Environmental StoneWorks project, it is my problem, not theirs,” Canales said through a Spanish language interpreter at the rally. “There was a guy who broke his foot working for Environmental StoneWorks, and instead of providing medical treatment, he said his boss terminated him.”

StoneWorks’ manufacturing facility, meanwhile, is the subject of a discrimination complaint filed with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Angel Torres, who worked at the North Branch facility from 2009 until he was fired in December 2023, said the company offered two wage scales, one for immigrant workers and another, higher scale for those born in the U.S.

Torres, also using a language interpreter, told rally-goers that he complained to management that newly hired “American” workers were making $2 more per hour than immigrants who had been working at the plant for several years. “I believe that’s the reason I was fired from this company, for speaking up for the workers,” he said.

Angel Torres (L) said StoneWorks discriminated against immigrant workers at its North Branch manufacturing facility.

“The reason we came to this country is to better our lives for our families, but we should be treated with dignity like any other employees,” Torres added. “That’s why I came here to speak today, to ask the community to not be quiet. We need to speak up in order for things to change.”

On the construction worksite, at least, change appears to be coming.

Lucas Franco, a LIUNA researcher, said Minnesota’s new laws “will, we are confident, break the cycle of unscrupulous contractors and worker mistreatment on publicly funded projects.”

That’s no small slice of the construction industry, either.

An analysis published by NorthStar Policy Action in November 2023 found that $84 million of taxpayer subsidies went to affordable housing developments in Minnesota that used contractors tied to proven or alleged exploitation of workers. And that’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” author Jake Schwitzer said, noting that the Callisto Commons project was not named in the report.

“We’re here today because we know Minnesota can meet its affordable housing needs and development goals without sacrificing worker dignity and safety,” Franco said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Minnesota unions praise historic legislative session

May 24, 2023 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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State to invest $240 million in replacing lead pipes

May 17, 2023 by

In April, Gov. Walz visited the site of ongoing lead-pipe replacement work in St. Paul, accompanied (L to R) by Rep. Sydney Jordan, SPRWS Director Patrick Shea and Council Member Chris Tolbert.

Minnesota will make a $240 million, jobs-creating investment in mapping and removing lead water pipes across the state, thanks to legislation Gov. Tim Walz signed into law this week.

Currently, about 100,000 water service lines in the state leach lead into the drinking water they carry, according to an estimate from the state Department of Health. Lead exposure can damage vital organs and slow childhood development.

Walz touted the legislation during an April 20 event in St. Paul’s North End neighborhood, held on a residential street where a union crew from St. Paul Regional Water Services was working on the capital city’s ongoing $14.5 million initiative to remove and replace lead pipes.

The governor said St. Paul’s program, which taps into funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, was “visionary” in demonstrating what the state might accomplish with a portion of its $17.5 billion budget surplus.

“No matter where you live, we’re making investments that will improve your quality of life,” he said. “Our proposal will fund local projects to identify and replace lead pipes across the state at no cost to families and homeowners. Minnesotans deserve to know where their water comes from and that it is safe and healthy.”

Several construction unions, including the Laborers (LIUNA), banded together with environmental groups and local governments to lobby in support of the statewide legislation, authored by Rep. Sydney Jordan (D-Minneapolis) and Sen. Jennifer McEwan (D-Duluth).

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan greeted a crew of Laborers working to replace lead pipes in St. Paul.

The measure drew bipartisan support, passing 64-2 in the Senate and unanimously in the House.

While health risks associated with lead pipes have been known for decades, a statewide approach to identifying and replacing them in residences has long eluded Minnesota lawmakers.

The mechanism they traditionally use to fund major infrastructure projects – bonding – was a non-starter, as the state constitution prohibits bonding funds from improving privately owned property. Water service lines extend from the public right of way to the private residence.

“You can’t replace half a pipe,” Rep. Jordan quipped at the April 20 event.

Joel Smith, president of LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, said the coalition of supporting organizations “worked tirelessly for years” to get lead-pipe removal on state lawmakers’ agenda. The historic budget surplus, bolstered by one-time federal relief funding, created a golden opportunity for action.

“LIUNA members will be put to work to combat the serious and statewide health threat posed by lead water lines, and get the lead out,” Smith said. “The tradespeople who do this work are excited to contribute to protecting the water and health of our communities, lakes and rivers.”

In Ramsey County, SPRWS has ramped up hiring to meet the demand for its lead-pipe replacement initiative, partnering with LIUNA Local 363 on a fast-track career training program tailored for entry-level jobseekers.

“For the folks doing this, it’s really great work,” Walz said. “I really believe we are at the beginning of a great renaissance of infrastructure investments in America.”

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Senate Republicans block $1.9 billion infrastructure jobs proposal

March 16, 2023 by

IUPAT members (L to R) Tadd Tratar, David Kroger, Jordan Fry and Zach Thoemke rallied for the bonding will with Tim Stender (R) from the Carpenters union.

Before the Minnesota Senate voted today on infrastructure jobs bills worth $1.9 billion, union tradespeople pleaded with Republican members not to hold up the package of local public-works projects as leverage in a political fight with the DFL majority.

“Quit playing little games with my livelihood,” Carpenters Local 1382 member Mandy Reese, from Zumbrota, told lawmakers. “Do your jobs, get back to work and get this bonding bill passed today.”

Unfortunately for Reese and nearly 100 other union members who gathered outside the Senate chambers, most Republicans chose politics over jobs. The bonding proposal, which would see the state borrow $1.5 billion for infrastructure projects, fell shy of the three-fifths majority needed to pass the Senate, despite gaining bipartisan support in the House earlier this month.

The result prompted DFL leaders to scrap plans for a vote on a separate package of infrastructure projects that would be paid for with nearly $400 million from the state’s projected budget surplus.

Sen. Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul), chair of the Senate Capital Investment Committee, said during a press conference before the vote that if the borrowing bill failed, DFLers in both chambers would begin crafting a new all-cash package, which they could pass with simple majorities.

But that bill is unlikely to be as robust as the two bills they had hoped to approve today, Pappas warned. And because it won’t need a three-fifths margin, the cash bill may also not be as inclusive of Republican spending proposals.

LIUNA Local 563 member Carolyn Wood of Rosemount spoke in support of the $1.9 billion local jobs and projects bills. “By creating good construction jobs, thousands of Minnesotans will gain access to the Trades and a better future like I did, including our young people, more women, people of color and veterans,” she said.

Pappas called the proposal rejected by Republicans today “the fairest and the largest” bonding bill in state history. She touted a 50-50 split between projects funded in metro and rural areas, and singled out proposed transportation, water-treatment and public-safety projects in GOP-represented districts.

“Frankly, it’s embarrassing for me to go back to these communities time after time, year after year, and they’re still waiting” for lawmakers to fund local capital projects, Pappas said.

As for an all-cash bill, she added, “I don’t know if it can be as balanced” as the borrowing proposal.

On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mark Johnson (R-East Grand Forks) recognized the strong support from organized labor for the infrastructure jobs bill, calling out several unions by name. But he said support from Republican leaders hinged on inclusion of tax relief.

“We wanted to help you,” Johnson said. “We Republicans wanted to get these projects done in the state of Minnesota. We have one simple request. Let’s get this done, but let’s ensure Minnesotans are taken care of as well, make sure that they have tax relief, make sure that we know what’s happening in our fiscal policy.”

The construction season is approaching quickly, and Minnesota’s asset upkeep falls further behind schedule – and costs continue to increase – each time lawmakers fail to act on a bonding bill, as they have since October 2020.

“We shouldn’t be talking about these projects,” said Bradley Peterson, director of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities. “We should be talking about the next round of projects.”

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

Unions move quickly to keep tradespeople safe on jobsites

April 28, 2020 by

St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455 delivered gang boxes filled with cleaning supplies and protective gear – and, yes, toilet paper – to its larger job sites last month. Smaller sites received supplies as well. “We want these job sites to stay open,” Business Manager Tony Poole said. “The best way to have our members continue to work is to keep them safe.”

 

Minnesota’s construction industry has not shut down during the pandemic, but it’s not business as usual on the job site either, as local Building Trades unions and their contractors make adjustments to prevent the virus’ spread and keep tradespeople healthy.

“Any time you work construction, there’s high risk involved. These are risky jobs,” Pipefitters Local 455 Business Manager Tony Poole said. “But this virus, it definitely changes the game.”

The outbreak prompted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to declare a state of emergency in March, closing most public gathering places and ordering businesses to allow their employees to work from home if possible.

For tradespeople, of course, it’s not.

Construction unions worked with the governor to get their industry on the “essential services” list, allowing work to continue. Now, unions are working to give their members the tools they need to stay safe as they continue building the state’s critical infrastructure.

That starts with education.

The Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council has created a page on its website with an evolving list of resources on the virus and best practices for preventing its spread on the job site. Most craft unions also maintain COVID-19 resources on their local websites.

“We’re sending out communications through our website constantly, just about every day, with CDC recommendations and information about COVID,” Poole said. “And we’re sending mass texts to all members when something is particularly important.”

Unions also are working with their contractors to incorporate best practices into the workflow, LIUNA Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler said.

“We’ve been really working with the contractors on social distancing,” Fowler said. “Providing more sanitization stations. Requiring workers to break separately. Forgoing toolbox talks every morning, or doing them weekly instead of daily.”

In some cases, unions are supplying needed equipment to their members directly. Local 455 delivered gang boxes stocked with hand sanitizer, soap, disinfectant cleaner, paper towels, toilet paper, gloves, N-95 masks and more to several large jobsites across the east metro, after hearing from workers concerned about sanitation.

“If you’re working around somebody who’s not wearing a glove, and you’ve got to work on that same piece of equipment?” Poole said. “We want our members to be able to disinfect what they feel they need to disinfect. Rather than wait, the local took it upon itself to supply some of these sites with what our people need.”

Union leaders are taking COVID-19 – and their members’ concerns about the pandemic – seriously, Fowler added.

“We want to keep people working, but we don’t want any of our members working in an environment that they feel is unsafe,” he said. “If they feel that way, they need to reach out. We’re still open for business.”

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Kasper to retire, Peterson elected to lead St. Paul labor federation

December 12, 2019 by

Kera Peterson (L), pictured at a rally to raise the minimum wage, will be sworn in as president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation in January 2020.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation will have new leadership in the coming new year.

After a decade in office, RLF President Bobby Kasper will retire at the end of December, a decision he made official at the federation’s delegate meeting Dec. 11. Kasper, a “proud” member of LIUNA Laborers Local 563, has served as RLF president since October 2009.

Delegates unanimously elected RLF Political Director Kera Peterson to succeed Kasper as president. She will be sworn into a four-year term in January.

“I want to thank our federation’s delegates for their trust and confidence in electing me to represent them and their powerful unions,” Peterson said. “We’ve accomplished a lot together over the years, but there’s still much to do. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves with all of you.”

Kasper began his union career in New York, where he was a member of Laborers Local 66, Service Employees International Union Local 1199 and UNITE HERE’s New York affiliate. After moving to Minnesota, he joined St. Paul-based Laborers Local 132.

Kasper worked as the local’s business agent before running for president of the St. Paul RLF. Previously, he served as secretary-treasurer of the RLF’s forerunner, the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, and he has been secretary-treasurer of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council for 15 years.

“In the last 11 years, we’ve grown the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation by building new relationships with unions in our area, and our local labor movement is stronger and more unified as a result,” Kasper said. “We’ve set a high bar for ourselves when it comes building power for working people, whether it’s at the Capitol or at the bargaining table.

“Kera’s leadership has been a big part of that success, and I know she will only set the bar higher in the future.”

Peterson is a member of Machinists Local Lodge 459, and she has been on the RLF political staff since 2008. Previously, she served as an AFL-CIO Community Services liaison with the St. Paul RLF’s nonprofit organization, the St. Paul Labor Studies and Resource Center, and with the St. Croix Valley Central Labor Council.

Peterson signed her first union card in 1997, when she took a job as a living-skills instructor at a mental-health facility at a Minneapolis, joining SEIU Local 113 (now SEIU Healthcare Minnesota).

She currently serves as vice president of her local lodge, vice president of Machinists District Council 77 and second vice president of the State Council of Machinists.

During her time on staff with the St. Paul RLF, Peterson has worked closely with labor assemblies in Chisago, Ramsey and Washington counties, helping establish local support for labor campaigns in those areas. She has directed efforts to elect more labor-endorsed candidates in the east metro’s swing legislative districts. And she has represented the federation in coalitions working to raise the statewide minimum wage and establish new local labor standards in St. Paul.

The St. Paul RLF unites over 100 affiliate unions. Together, they represent more than 50,000 people who live or work in Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties. The federation is part of the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO.

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

St. Paul boxers with a union in common enter Hall of Fame together

October 24, 2019 by

Brian Brunette (L) and Matt Vanda, on a union job site in Minneapolis. (photo courtesy Dwight Engen)

Two St. Paul natives who traded in their boxing gloves for work gloves were inducted into the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame this month.

Brian Brunette and Matt Vanda, both members of Local 563 of the Laborers International Union (LIUNA), received the honor during a banquet Oct. 11 at Mystic Lake Casino.

After working in the field for 15 years, Brunette, 61, is now a marketing representative for LIUNA’s Great Lakes Regional Organizing Committee. He joined the union in 1976 as a teenager, after his father discovered he had no prospects for a summer job.

“My dad said, ‘Get in the car,’ and he drove me down to the Laborers hall,” Brunette said. “I eventually went to college, but I always found my way back into the Laborers union in the summer.”

Vanda, 41, joined LIUNA in 2012 after taking a job with a local excavating company. The choice to go from breaking down opponents in the ring to breaking down rubble on the job site, he said, was “the best move I’ve ever made in my life.”

“The best part of demo work is I don’t get hit in the head,” Vanda laughed.

The ‘Saintly City Slugger’

Boxing is in Brunette’s DNA. His father was an accomplished Golden Gloves fighter in the 1930s, and Brian began boxing in the backyard with brothers Tom, Bobby and Al as a young kid. Growing up on St. Paul’s East Side, he remembered, “it was either boxing or baseball.”

Initially, Brunette chose baseball. He excelled as a middle infielder in high school and accepted a scholarship to play for coach Dick Siebert at the University of Minnesota. But when Siebert, during a fall meeting, advised his players to commit to a conditioning program during the school year, Brunette could think of only one place to go – the boxing gym.

When one of the gym’s fighters dropped out of a bout in February 1978, a coach approached Brunette with a question.

Brian Brunette

“He asked me, ‘What do you weigh?’ And that was pretty much the start of my career,” Brunette said. “I fought the next night and won.”

Brunette fought the next two years as an amateur, continuing to play baseball for the Gophers, then turned professional as a 21-year-old. By 1980 he was on the undercard of a Larry Holmes fight produced by famed boxing promoter Don King.

Brunette didn’t lose a bout after turning pro until 1986, when he challenged Patrizio Oliva for the world light-welterweight championship in Naples, Italy. Brunette took an accidental thumb to the eye in the first round. Two rounds later, at the urging of his trainer, Brunette threw in the towel.

“The fight didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but the way I look at it, I was a champion just getting there,” Brunette said. “Not everybody gets a chance to fight for a world championship.”

The loss in Naples turned out to be his only as a professional. He signed on to fight for the championship again – this time in South Africa – but after reinjuring his eye in training, Brunette retired from boxing at 28.

Still, Brunette remained active in the sport. His family opened an amateur gym, Brunette Boxing, in 1983, and after hanging up his gloves, Brian took on a more active role in working with young fighters in St. Paul.

“It provides structure for so many young kids,” he said. “The work ethic, having to be somewhere at the same time every day, the diet, the training. And when they go home at night, all they want to do is go to sleep.”

‘The Predator’

Vanda began boxing at 12 and compiled a 12-2 record as an amateur before turning pro in 1996, at the age of 17. At the time, only a handful of states allowed minors to box professionally, and Minnesota wasn’t one of them. So Vanda hit the road, boxing in South Dakota, Indiana and Colorado before finally returning home a year later.

It didn’t take long for Matt “the Predator” Vanda to become a hometown favorite. He won his first 11 professional bouts by knockout.

(photo courtesy Dwight Engen)

“After a few fights people came to watch,” Vanda said. “They liked watching me fight, I guess.”

Vanda fought in five middleweight title bouts. He won one, defeating Luis Ramon Campas for the I.B.A. Americas Title in June 2005. He ended his career with a 45-16 record and 25 knockouts. His last bout came in January 2014 at Madison Square Garden, where Vanda lost a title challenge by technical knockout.

Vanda jokes that his wife, Cyndi, forced him to retire, but he knew his days were numbered.

“I was 34 years old, and I had a good run,” he said. “But it gets to a point when they start using you as bait, as someone who they know can go the distance against an up-and-coming young guy but probably not win. That’s when you could get hurt.”

‘Everyone works together’

Retirement hasn’t been easy for Vanda. He and Cyndi briefly separated, but they reunited after Vanda embraced sobriety three years ago. The couple has since welcomed a new daughter, 2-year-old Magdalena, into their family, which also includes 15-year-old Gabriella and 10-year-old Viviana.

“People think I’m crazy, but I enjoy getting up at 4:30 a.m., going to work and getting away,” Vanda said. “Since I quit drinking, the only time I get out is to go to work. It’s almost like a party for me. The guys at work call me a social butterfly.”

Brunette and Vanda see a few similarities between boxing and working as a laborer.

“You’re there to work hard, and you have to get out there and work with your co-workers, share the responsibilities,” Brunette said. “It’s the same thing in the boxing gym. You might have 50 kids on the floor, but everyone’s treated equal, no matter where you’re from or what your background. When you’re in the gym, everyone works together.

“You go from one hard job to the next, breaking down whatever’s in your way,” Vanda said. “And you’ve got to be in shape to go the distance in a fight, just like you’ve got to be in good shape to be a Laborer.”

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Union volunteers provide Clinton, Sanders with boots on the ground in Minnesota

March 1, 2016 by
Left: Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan rallies a crowd of Hillary Clinton volunteers. Right: Bernie Sanders thanks members of the Minnesota Nurses Association for their support.

Left: Laborers President Terry O’Sullivan rallies a crowd of Hillary Clinton volunteers in Little Canada. Right: Bernie Sanders thanks members of the Minnesota Nurses Association for their support.

 

Energized by the prospect of keeping a pro-labor president in the White House, union volunteers in Minnesota are hitting the streets, working the phones and planning a major presence at tonight’s precinct caucuses, one of 14 Super Tuesday nominating contests nationwide.

[Click here to learn how to participate in the caucus process. Click here to learn where you caucus.]

While their enthusiasm may be shared, not all union activists agree when it comes to the best candidate for the job.

Members of AFSCME, the Carpenters, LIUNA, the Painters, the Pipe Trades, the Service Employees and other unions rallied in support of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in Little Canada on Saturday, with nearly 100 volunteers fanning out to knock on doors across the metro area.

 

SEIU volunteers map out a door-knocking route.
Members of IUPAT get a primer in door-knocking.
AFSCME Council 5 volunteers hit the streets for Hillary Clinton.
Carpenters cheer a speech by U.S. Rep. Tim Walz at the Clinton rally.
LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan
Union members rally in support of Hillary Clinton at the IUPAT hall in Little Canada.

 

Although Clinton has drawn an overwhelming majority of union endorsements, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has garnered support from National Nurses United and the Communication Workers of America, and both unions have mobilized their own network of volunteers in advance of tonight’s caucuses.

CWA members have been holding phone banks for weeks, and members of the Minnesota Nurses Association spent the days running up to tonight’s caucuses riding the “Bernie Bus” across the state, urging people to caucus for Sanders.

Differences in style and substance

Clinton’s union supporters point to their candidate’s extensive resume as a public servant, as well as her results-oriented approach. Sanders’ backers tout the senator’s independence and his fiery, populist message.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry (R) knocks doors in support of Hillary Clinton with Local 284 member Nate Mathias and SEIU Healthcare MN member Robin Pikala (L).

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry (R) knocks doors in support of Hillary Clinton with Local 284 member Nate Mathias and SEIU Healthcare MN member Robin Pikala (L).

Nate Mathias, a pre-kindergarten teacher from Plymouth and member of SEIU Local 284, said he initially gravitated toward Sanders. But on Saturday, he knocked doors on St. Paul’s east side with SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, rounding up support for Clinton.

“I love a lot of the things Bernie is saying, but Hillary Clinton is a bit more of a pragmatist,” Mathias said. “I just think she has more of the experience and political savvy we need in a candidate.”

Henry, the SEIU’s highest-ranking elected officer, said Clinton met with rank-and-file members in seeking the union’s endorsement last year. “Members said, ‘She gets us, she’s tough and she fights,’” Henry said. “She understands the agenda we think matters most to working people.”

Policy differences, too, have steered unions into the Clinton or Sanders camp.

Sanders greets nurses in St. Paul.

Sanders greets nurses in St. Paul.

At a private reception with Sanders in St. Paul Feb. 12, many nurses said Sanders won them over with his support for expanding Medicare to cover everyone – and taxing Wall Street to pay for it.

“From the beginning, Bernie made total sense to me,” said United Hospital nurse Jennifer Michelson, who traveled to Iowa to volunteer for the Sanders campaign earlier this winter. “I like that he’s challenging the power structure of Wall Street, and I like that he wants to get profit out of health care.”

Energy policy, meanwhile, marks a substantive difference for many Building Trades unions, who draw work from pipelines and other energy-infrastructure projects.

Speaking at the rally in Little Canada, LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan praised Clinton’s commitment to an “all-of-the-above energy strategy that works for us and works for our economy.”

High stakes

Despite their differences, union members on both sides agreed the stakes are high in 2016, and they hoped early enthusiasm among volunteers would carry over into the fall.

“Regardless of who our candidate is, if we don’t win we’re going to see a rollback of help for working families,” Mathias said. “We’re going to go back to policies that foster inequality and don’t do enough to help working people. We can’t afford that.”

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