As momentum for $15 builds in St. Paul, so does concern over corporate interference

March 23, 2018 by

Earlier this month Kiara Ivy stepped outside the hardware store in St. Paul where she works as a cashier, and found an organizer waiting for her with a clipboard and a question.

Would she support raising St. Paul’s minimum wage to $15?

Ivy, who earns $9.65 an hour, didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I had heard a lot of talk about raising the minimum wage, but didn’t know it was happening here,” she said. “I tend not to get my hopes up a lot, but it sounds so nice.”

Ivy was one of 539 low-wage workers who signed up to support a $15 minimum wage during a five-day organizing blitz earlier this month. It’s given the 15 Now campaign a jolt of momentum – and an even deeper well of public support – as the issue moves up the city’s agenda.

Working America’s Alisa Tennessen, who coordinated the blitz, said it also provided a glimpse of who is working for poverty wages in the capital city, as many supporters filled out surveys on what $15 would mean for themselves and their families.

“The answers are heartbreaking,” Tennessen said, noting “an astonishingly high number of people who talked about food – healthier food, more food, more food for their families.”

Ivy, in fact, met with a reporter on her way home from the food shelf. The 18-year-old shares a one-bedroom apartment in St. Paul with her mom and a roommate, chipping in $100 a month for rent and $50 each week for food, despite working only 25 hours per week.

Raising the wage to $15 in St. Paul, she said, would “mean I could finally move out on my own and still be able to help my mom out.”

Local elected officials in St. Paul, including Mayor Melvin Carter, have signaled support for giving workers like Ivy a raise. City Council President Amy Brendmoen said in February the plan is to “have an ordinance in front of us by fall.”

By that time, however, St. Paul may no longer have the authority to pass its own minimum-wage law.

As they did last year, corporate special interests and Republicans in the Legislature are trying to pull the rug out from under Ivy and other workers fighting for $15, pushing a bill that would bar local governments from raising employment standards in their communities – and strip newly won earned sick and safe time benefits from 150,000 working people in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the local preemption measure last year, but Republican majorities in the House and Senate have quietly brought it back to life this legislative session.

Brad Lehto, chief of staff for the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said one of Republicans’ first moves after the 2018 session began was to send the preemption bill (House File 600) back into conference committee.

“Whenever they see fit, they will convene the committee and pass it back to the House and Senate, where it already passed once,” he said. “Will they do that? I would think so. When? I think late in the session.”

Lehto and other Capitol observers anticipate the GOP will try to use preemption as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the governor.

Earlier this month, as 15 Now activists fanned out across the city during the organizing blitz, union groups like the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation began holding phone banks, connecting union members statewide with Gov. Dayton to urge him to stand firm on protecting local control again this year. [Click here to find a phone bank near you.]

Unions aren’t alone in the fight, either. Lehto said nearly 80 Minnesota cities have passed resolutions supporting local control.

“We’ve told (lawmakers) over and over, if you would pass a higher minimum wage, if you would pass paid family leave, if you would pass earned sick and safe time, then we wouldn’t have to do this on the local level,” he added.

As debate over the minimum wage and local control plays out this spring, Ivy will begin work at a second job as a personal-care attendant, earning about $12 per hour. (Roughly a quarter of St. Paul workers surveyed by 15 Now work two jobs to make ends meet.)

For Ivy, it means more money to help pay the bills, but less time to pursue her long-term goals – a car of her own, a college degree and a life in New York.

“I want to be in New York, and I want to be a psychiatrist,” she said. “I dream about it, but I haven’t started anything yet.” Earning $15, she added, “would help me to save more to get there.”

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Mayor’s race divides St. Paul unions

October 24, 2017 by

R to L: Melvin Carter, Pat Harris and Dai Thao.

It was no coincidence that Republican majorities in the Minnesota Legislature last session made stripping power from local governments one of their top priorities.

Frustrated by political gridlock at the state and federal levels, working people in Minnesota and beyond are building powerful coalitions to make their voices heard in local government, and their elected officials have been paying attention.

Municipalities across the country are taking action on issues where state and federal progress has stalled, like raising the minimum wage, expanding access to earned sick time and combating wage theft.

The momentum behind these local organizing efforts has prompted at least one Minnesota union to recalibrate its focus.

“We can’t count on federal lawmakers to help us with any of our issues, and the state is real iffy,” Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said. “So our interest has been turned onto city races.”

The MNA took a big step this year when it endorsed a candidate for mayor of St. Paul. It marks the first time in the union’s history that it has endorsed a candidate for office in the city.

Several other labor groups, including AFSCME Council 5, the Building and Construction Trades Council, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and Teamsters Local 120, have endorsed candidates in the Nov. 7 election to succeed outgoing Mayor Chris Coleman.

After taking office in 2006, Coleman enjoyed broad labor support in two re-election campaigns, including the endorsement of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, with over 100 affiliate unions. The federation has not endorsed a candidate for mayor this year, but it’s not for lack of good options, President Bobby Kasper said.

“Our federation hosted one of the city’s first mayoral debates last spring, and I was encouraged to see unanimous support among the candidates for a $15 minimum wage and other measures that will lift up working people,” Kasper said. “Labor may not be united behind one candidate this year, but whoever wins can be sure we will be united with our faith and community partners at City Hall next year.”

Candidates for mayor who have won union endorsements include:

Melvin Carter

A former member of the City Council representing Ward 1, Carter resigned to take a job advising Gov. Mark Dayton on education policy. That work was a big reason Carter won endorsement from the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, president Nick Faber said.

“The heart of what we’re pushing for is full funding for racial equity in our schools, and we can’t do that without a mayor who understands the issue,” Faber said. “Even if the mayor’s relationship to education is distant, having an ally in that office is going to mean a lot.”

For members of AFSCME Council 5, which represents people who work City of St. Paul’s parks, libraries, permitting offices and beyond, the mayor’s race has a much more direct impact. Denna Thurmond, a member of AFSCME Local 2829 who lives in St. Paul’s North End, said she supports Carter, in part, because he has been a “champion for workers and public employees.”

“His dad was a public worker,” she added. “I’ve been canvassing with his campaign, and Melvin is a very down-to-earth individual who relates to working people, who understands and sympathizes with people because he’s been there. His experiences make it easy for him to identify with people like us.”

Pat Harris

Another former council member, Pat Harris represented Ward 3 from 2000 to 2012. He currently serves on the Metropolitan Airports Commission and works as a vice president for BMO Harris Bank specializing in government banking.

Harris’ expertise in public finance – a critical part of urban development that puts union tradespeople to work – attracted support from the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council and its affiliate craft unions.

“What put Pat over the top for us was his ability and understanding of businesses and financing and getting projects done,” Brian Winkelaar, political director for Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said.

Winkelaar pointed to Harris’ push for project labor agreements that ensure labor peace on construction projects at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. “There’s a lot of building going on at the airport, and those agreements are extremely helpful for our members,” Winkelaar said.

In his role on the MAC, Harris also helped pass an airport-wide minimum wage $1 higher than the state’s, and he pushed for a labor-peace agreement with the airport’s concessionaires. That impressed Paul Slattery of Teamsters Local 120, which pushed in vain for a similar agreement governing organized trash collection in St. Paul.

“Organizing workers under a labor-peace agreement is a lot easier,” Slattery said. “And all the candidates say they’re behind $15 in St. Paul, but Pat actually did something at the airport.”

Dai Thao

Ward 1 Council Member Dai Thao picked up the nurses’ endorsement, MNA President Turner said, because of his leadership in passing the nation’s strongest earned sick and safe time ordinance last year.

Nurses also asked mayoral candidates to offer ways they could support efforts to improve staffing at hospitals and protect nurses from violence in the workplace – two of the union’s top legislative priorities.

“Dai Thao was the one who said even though the city can’t write new laws, as mayor he can bring together people and organizations that could be instrumental in helping educate the community on these issues,” Turner said. “He was the only one who came up with a plan rather than just checking the box saying, ‘Yes, I agree with you.’

“That made a difference.”

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Campaign for $15 sets sights on St. Paul

August 21, 2017 by

After an inspiring victory in Minneapolis, the coalition of unions, faith groups and community organizations working in support of a $15 minimum wage has shifted its focus to St. Paul, where a wide-open mayoral contest creates a strategic window of opportunity.

After it passed the City Council by an 11-1 vote, Mayor Betsy Hodges signed Minneapolis’ minimum wage ordinance into law June 30.

It marked a stunning turnaround for the city’s elected officials, who, when pressed to act on the minimum wage three years earlier, commissioned a study instead. Two years later, they voted to block a ballot initiative after 15 Now activists delivered over 20,000 signatures on a petition seeking to put the minimum wage question before voters.

While the city succeeded in keeping $15 off the ballot, 15 Now Minnesota lead organizer Celeste Robinson said, the overwhelming community support delivered a powerful message to Hodges and members of the City Council that “poverty wages aren’t a negotiable issue.”

“It’s not something they could stall on, it’s not something they could bargain away – because the rent won’t wait,” she added. “That relentless pressure that we applied to elected officials was the key.”

Organizers are taking a different approach in St. Paul, where a the mayor’s race already has catapulted the question of raising the minimum wage to the front burner. All five candidates who attended a mayoral debate hosted by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation earlier this year spoke in favor of raising the minimum wage to $15.

With candidates for mayor using $15 as a campaign pledge, organizers see an opportunity to win at City Hall without pounding the pavement to collect signatures on a petition.

“Of course, we’re having problems nailing down support on the City Council,” Robinson said. “But there does seem to be a lot of enthusiasm (in the mayor’s race), and that does offer us a window. Hopefully, those mayoral candidates can kind of pull the council members along with them.”

Union members played a critical role in the success of Minneapolis’ campaign to raise the wage, and they figure to do the same in St. Paul.

Some unions support 15 Now because the cause – a $15 wage floor – has become central to their contract campaigns. In Minneapolis, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ efforts to organize co-op workers got a boost from the fight for $15. Robinson called it an “incredibly effective” approach that resonated with young workers in particular.”

“For workers who haven’t had experiences with union power before, it might not be immediately evident to them why a union is good,” she said. “But if you tell people we can have $15 an hour and that’s not all – ask them, ‘What else should we fight for?’ – that’s a really good segue into unionization.”

Other unions see fighting poverty wages as a necessary part of the work their members do. For example, teachers see in their classrooms the strain poverty puts on working families, and nurses know the connection between higher incomes and better health outcomes.

“This is a public health issue,” said Deb Haugen, a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital. “We see it daily: people who can afford their medicine, eat a healthy diet and take time to exercise tend to be less sick than those who can’t because they are working two or three jobs and don’t have the wages to support these important pillars of health.

“That’s why the Minnesota Nurses Association supports a $15 minimum wage and, as a St. Paul resident, I am excited that the campaign is coming to my city next.”

Nick Faber, president of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, said his union not only supports a minimum wage ordinance, but has pushed the St. Paul Public Schools to adopt a policy requiring its contractors to pay $15 an hour.

“We know when the adults in our students’ lives are working three jobs at poverty wages, it negatively impacts a student’s ability to learn,” Faber said. “As educators, we not only want what’s best for our students in the classroom, but what’s best for their family. Families that are not worrying about food, rent or health care are more able to engage in their students’ learning the way we know all parents want to.”

In Minneapolis, studies found 71,000 working people will see their wages increase as a result of the city’s new ordinance. So far no similar study exists for St. Paul, but ballpark estimates put the number between 50,000 and 100,000.

15 Now has opened up a temporary office in the St. Paul Labor Center, thanks to support from the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. RLF President Bobby Kasper urged unions to get involved in the fight to raise St. Paul’s minimum wage.

“We made great strides in St. Paul by passing the nation’s strongest earned sick and safe time ordinance,” Kasper said. “I have confidence we’re going to make history with a $15 minimum wage, too.”

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Bobby Kasper: We’re organizing to amplify working people’s voice

April 17, 2017 by

Bobby Kasper

State lawmakers are more than a month away from the deadline for finishing their work, and although negotiations over big-ticket items like the state budget, an infrastructure bill and long-term transportation investments have yet to begin in earnest, it already has been a disappointing legislative session for Minnesota’s working families.

It’s been clear from the start that corporate interests – from health insurance companies to for-profit prisons – have the ear of Republican majorities at our Capitol.

GOP lawmakers ignored the sensible recommendation of union nurses, family farmers and advocates for the vulnerable to expand MinnesotaCare as an option for people seeking health insurance on the state’s individual exchange. Instead, we got so-called “reinsurance” legislation, a $542 million giveaway to insurers with scarcely any public accountability. It passed despite the insurance companies’ refusal to make any guarantees to consumers regarding affordability or provider choice. Worse, lawmakers payed for the bill by stealing $400 million from a fund dedicated to providing care to low-income Minnesotans.

The reinsurance scheme is shameful, but Republicans’ attack on local control might be worse. The House has passed a bill that would strip earned-sick-and-safe-time benefits from 150,000 working people in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and a similar measure is moving through the Senate. I served on the task force that crafted St. Paul’s historic earned sick time ordinance – the most progressive in the nation. I don’t think any of us involved in that process could have imagined that, less than a year later, legislators would seek to undermine our work – and put corporate priorities before our right to address the issues facing our local communities as we see fit.

When our elected officials listen to corporate lobbyists and not the working families and retirees in their districts, we get legislation that moves Minnesota in the wrong direction. That’s why, at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, we’re organizing to amplify working people’s voice, from the local level to the State Capitol. Here’s how:

Holding politicians accountable. We can’t expect elected officials to be responsive to our concerns if we don’t let them know where we stand. In the days leading up to the House vote on local control, St. Paul RLF volunteers filled our phone bank, connecting union members with East Metro lawmakers undecided on the bill. And it worked, as one of the lawmakers we called, Eagan Rep. Laurie Halverson, voted to oppose corporate interference. I also had to call Sen. Greg Clausen over the issue.

Additionally, we’ve organized numerous town-hall meetings with elected officials across our area, which covers Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties. These meetings give working people an opportunity to share, face to face with their representatives, the issues that matter most to them.

Shaping election campaigns. We wouldn’t be fighting the wave anti-worker, anti-public employee bills coming out of the Capitol if more labor-endorsed candidates had won in November. As a movement, we’ve got to get better at making the connection between political action and people’s wages, schools and retirement security.

No election is too small to warrant our attention. In St. Paul last month, working people packed a debate hosted by the St. Paul RLF and attended by all five candidates for mayor. It’s an encouraging sign that union members are excited at the opportunity to shape this critical race. It’s the same energy we’re seeing as we host phone banks in support of a labor-endorsed school referendum in North Branch, where teachers and school employees say the district’s buildings need safety and security improvements, facilities upgrades and new technology. I was also involved with superintendent interviews in the St. Paul district.

None of our efforts will be successful without the support – and participation – of union members and retirees. We need your energy, your voice and your participation. Workers Memorial Day on April 28 is a great opportunity to get involved. For updates on our campaigns, join our e-activist list, or like us on Facebook.

– President Kasper leads the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, with more than 100 affiliate unions in the East Metro.

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Photos: Labor, faith, community activists stand up for sick time, resist corporate interference

March 3, 2017 by

web-preemption-house-3The Minnesota House passed a bill last night that would strip 150,000 Minnesotans of newly won earned-sick-and-safe-time benefits and block local governments from raising labor standards in their communities.

As debate raged inside the Republican-controlled House, opponents from labor, faith and community groups rallied outside the chamber, calling the bill a corporate power grab and a step backwards in addressing the state’s yawning disparities between white workers and workers of color.

Rosheeda Credit, a McDonald’s worker and who has been a leader for paid sick time and a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis, shared her frustration with the preemption bill in a press conference before the House session, staged by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change.

“I recently became homeless with my five children because my rent in north Minneapolis more than doubled,” Credit said. “We need to be able to pass laws in Minneapolis that will help people in Minneapolis. We have been fighting for paid sick time and a $15 minimum wage for a long time and now corporate lobbyists are trying to take it away. What are they so afraid of? Why are they trying to silence our voices?”

More than 100 people answered the call to pack the House chamber with opponents to the corporate-interference bill, which could come before the Senate as early as next week. Click here to tell your state senator you oppose the measure, Senate File 580.

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