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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As local preemption debate heats up, new book charts CA city’s progressive renewal

March 1, 2017 by

978-080709426-6Mayoral elections are on the horizon in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Corporate lobbyists at the Minnesota Capitol are taking aim at local ordinances expanding access to earned sick and safe time.

The timing, it seems, couldn’t be better for author Steve Early’s book reading and discussion at 7 p.m. March 7 at the East Side Freedom Library. The labor rep-turned-journalist’s latest book, “Refinery Town,” traces a progressive revival afoot in Richmond, Calif., an industrial city in the Bay Area long dominated politically by its largest employer, the Chevron Corporation.

The book charts the course activists took, beginning more than a decade ago, to combat the deindustrialization, poverty, crime and public corruption plaguing Richmond in the late 20th century by electing municipal representatives who have since passed a string of progressive reforms, from a higher minimum wage to a nationally heralded approach to community policing.

In the forward to “Refinery Town,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders argues that Richmond’s success “reflects the lessons of grassroots organizing elsewhere,” and Early’s latest book “offers ideas and inspiration for making change where it counts the most – among friends, neighbors, and fellow community members.”

We asked Early what lessons Richmond’s progressive renewal might offer for activists in Minnesota and what to expect at the book event March 7. His answers have been edited for length.

UA: Why did you decide to write about the progressive turnaround in Richmond?

SE: “I retired (from the CWA) in 2007 and started doing a series of labor-related books. Five years ago I moved to Richmond from Boston, and that’s when I first got invested in the Richmond Progressive Alliance, which is the subject of the book. I got invested as a rank-and-file member of the RPA, and as it attracted more attention because of the unusual trajectory from a company town to a widely hailed progressive city, I decided it was going to be a good subject for a book.”

UA: The list of progressive policies coming out of Richmond City Hall is impressive. Is it replicable?

SE: “In some ways the agenda of people thinking about running for local office in Minneapolis and St. Paul seems to be very similar: trying to raise the minimum wage, raising labor standards, making housing more affordable, trying to make the police accountable and trying to provide greater environmental protections to the extent any municipality can impact the problem of global warming.

“They might not be the big-picture issues that motivated you to go to Bernie Sanders’ rallies or to join the resistance to Trump… It isn’t going to begin to change electoral politics as much as we need, but it is one way to do that incrementally, to start locally, to build a bottom-up base for a broader – hopefully nationwide – progressive movement.”

UA: What lessons does Richmond’s progressive success story offer for the rest of us?

SE: “To be successful here in Richmond, progressives really had to set aside some of the differences they had. People here have been willing to coalesce and campaign under a common banner. That’s paid off. And you have to be patient and persistent in pursuing your goals. You can’t expect to accomplish them overnight. Also, don’t just pop up every two years and run candidates. The RPA functions year round, it’s a membership organization that people pay dues to, and it’s constantly engaging in issue-based organizing. That’s not the usual model for political parties in this country.

“And the key part is RPA candidates are corporate free. They refuse corporate donations, just like Bernie.”

UA: In Minnesota, Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill to restrict local governments’ power to act on issues like sick time and minimum wage. Have you seen similar pushback in California or around the country?

SE: “This is very definitely part of a wider pattern to curb public policy initiatives at the city level, where governments have become more progressive. But this is happening not just as a conflict between progressives or Democrats at the city level and Republicans at the state level. In New York, progressives on the New York City Council adopted a modest measure to tax plastic bag use, trying to wean people away from an environmentally destructive practice, and this was blocked by a Democratic governor.”

UA: What can people expect at the event March 7?

“I try to make these events not just about telling tall tales about a city in California, but exchanging ideas and strategizing jointly with people who are similarly engaged in progressive local politics and community organizing.”

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‘End run’ around local sick-pay victories advances at Capitol

February 3, 2017 by

web-localcontrol-buttonsCorporate special interests clashed with working people during a Capitol hearing last night on legislation that would roll back ordinances extending earned sick and safe time to an estimated 150,000 workers in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The local preemption bill, authored by Rep. Pat Garafalo (R-Farmington), passed its first committee hearing after a lengthy round of public testimony. A companion bill in the Senate will receive its first committee hearing Monday.

The measure would restrict local governments from establishing higher employment standards – like earned sick time, fair scheduling and minimum wage – within their boundaries. Additionally, it would strike down any such ordinances passed after Jan. 1, 2016, nulling historic victories on earned sick time in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Minnesota Nurses Association director Rose Roach, who co-chaired a citizen task force that helped draft St. Paul’s sick time ordinance, called Garafalo’s bill “an end run around the will of the people” in her city.

Roach was among dozens of people who lined up to testify on the measure before the House jobs committee. An overflow crowd spilled into two additional hearing rooms, and the committee’s decision to take a dinner break – passed by a party-line, roll-call vote – drew groans from those still waiting for their chance to speak.

A diverse group of working people, religious leaders and small business owners voiced concerns with the bill, which they called a corporate power grab.

“We see what’s going on here,” Javen Swanson, pastor at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul, told committee members. “Businesses don’t want to expand worker benefits or increase wages. And with vast resources and an army of lobbyists in Washington and here in St. Paul, they usually get their way.”

Indeed, lobbyists for several industry associations and trade groups – representing restaurants, banks, temp agencies and others – spoke in favor of stripping local governments of their power to set higher workplace standards. A “patchwork” approach to workplace regulations, they warned, creates bookkeeping headaches for firms doing business across the state.

Doug Sams, owner of D. Brian’s catering, said his employees are like family, and he worried that different wage-and-benefit standards would drive a wedge between employees in different municipalities. “I’m looking at this as a challenge for me to keep my family together,” he said.

Mike Griffin, field director for Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, rallied opponents of the local preemption bill during the House jobs committee's unexpected dinner break.

Mike Griffin, field director for Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, rallied opponents of the local preemption bill during the House jobs committee’s unexpected dinner break.

But one after the other, working people at the hearing came forward to express fear and outrage that state lawmakers would seek to undermine their efforts to secure the sick time necessary to care for themselves and their families.

“My whole working life I have been a number, and an easily replaceable number,” retail worker Katie Drahos, a member of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, told committee members. “I have no say in the corporate world. My only saving grace is that I am able to lobby for my interests at a city level.”

“We get sick because we are human beings, so we need sick time,” SEIU Local 26 member Kadra Ali of St. Paul said. “If I miss one day at my job because I’m sick, I miss my check, or if I stay with my children when they get sick.”

Several small business owners joined workers in opposition, including Todd Mikkelson, a small business owner from Orono. While corporations and industry associations might have the ear of state and national lawmakers, he said, Main Street businesses have the ear of their local officials.

“To take away our local control of things is nothing more than an intrusion,” Mikkelson said. “City councils are listening to us constantly. We have much easier access to them, and they are our neighbors. To stifle them is to stifle us.”

If it’s uniformity corporate interests want, Swanson offered a proposal: “Let’s use St. Paul’s sick time ordinance as a model for statewide legislation that protects the most vulnerable members of our communities,” he said.

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