As lockout drags on, community group ponders forming new orchestra

March 26, 2013 by
Mariellen Jacobson, chair of Save Our SPCO, announces plans to explore forming a new chamber orchestra in St. Paul.

Mariellen Jacobson, chair of Save Our SPCO, announces plans to explore forming a new chamber orchestra in St. Paul.

A community group working to end the five-month lockout of St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians is exploring the possibility of forming a new group to replace the SPCO – and prevent any further losses of SPCO musicians to other orchestras around the country.

Save Our SPCO, a grassroots group of patrons and audience members, announced its latest effort at a press conference today outside Ordway Center for the Performing Arts – the SPCO’s home.

SOSPCO Chair Mariellen Jacobson listed several SPCO musicians who have taken jobs with other orchestras since the lockout began. “We want to keep our world-class orchestra together,” she said, rather than watch as it is “dismantled piece by piece.”

To that end, an exploratory committee of “arts, philanthropy, education, business and political” leaders – including two influential state legislators – will consider whether “a new arts organization could house a world-class orchestra,” she said.

One of the two lawmakers on the exploratory committee, Minneapolis Rep. Phyllis Kahn, chairs the House Legacy Committee, which oversees the process by which conservation and arts organizations – including the SPCO – receive public funding from the Legacy Amendment, a sales tax approved by voters in 2008.

Kahn, a DFLer, said she was interested in efforts to “set up something so that the (Legacy) funding would go to musicians to play music, as it is intended to do.”

Inver Grove Heights Rep. Joe Atkins, another DFLer, is also a part of the exploratory committee.

Learn more about the exploratory committee, and audience-driven efforts to end the lockout of 34 St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians, at www.sospco.org.

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

Union agenda includes minimum-wage hike, privacy protections for Minnesota workers

January 29, 2013 by
Meslissa Tesora, a physical therapist and member of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America, supports raising the state minimum wage to $10.55 to make the middle class more accessible to people in low-skilled jobs. “People want to work, but the current minimum wage makes it prohibitive for less-skilled workers to support their families and attend school – and ultimately attain higher-skilled jobs," the St. Paul resident said.

Meslissa Tesoro, a physical therapist and member of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America, supports raising the state minimum wage to $10.55. “People want to work, but the current minimum wage makes it prohibitive for less-skilled workers to support their families and attend school,” the St. Paul resident said.

Emboldened by victories won at the polls in November, the state’s largest labor federation will push an ambitious legislative agenda that calls for hiking the state’s minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits for locked-out workers and expanding the freedoms and protections Minnesotans enjoy in the workplace.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents more than 1,000 affiliate unions and more than 300,000 members statewide, unveiled its “Agenda for Middle Class Dignity and Fairness” at a Capitol press conference today.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said the agenda’s “common-sense proposals” – along with the proposed state budget outlined by Gov. Mark Dayton earlier this month – represent a positive alternative to the attacks on workers that marked the previous 2011-12 legislative sessions.

Dayton’s budget “puts middle class families first by recognizing the need for new investments, but also raising revenue fairly to pay for those investments,” Knutson said. But, she added, there are other steps lawmakers should take to “level the playing field” for middle class workers. Those steps include:

• Raising the minimum wage to $10.55 per hour and “indexing” it, so that the rate is adjusted for inflation in the future.

Minnesota has the “unfortunate distinction,” Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Steve Hunter said, of being one of four states with minimum wage rates lower than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. (Five southern states have no minimum wage laws at all.)

Workers in Minnesota can be paid as little as $5.25 per hour, according to the Department of Labor.

Raising minimum wage to $10.55 per hour would restore the buying power it had in 1968.

“Hard work should be supported with a wage that can support a family, and it’s ridiculous to think that someone can support a family at $7.25 an hour,” Hunter said.

• Extending workers’ unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout – and adding a penalty to the unemployment tax paid by employers who lock out their workers.

“As long as the clock ticks, an employer has an incentive to lock workers out, while also putting a strain on the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund,” Knutson said. “This is what’s happened to the 1,300 employees of American Crystal Sugar.”

Becki Jacobson, who has been locked out of her job by the Moorhead-based sugar beet cooperative since Aug. 1, 2011, said many of her fellow union members opted to leave the region or take early retirement after their unemployment benefits ran out last year.

Knutson said the Minnesota AFL-CIO is working with lawmakers on a bill to hold accountable employers, like Crystal Sugar, that choose to force workers onto unemployment rather than engage in contract negotiations – and also “give employers pause” before they engage in such a war of attrition.

• Protecting Minnesota workers’ credit privacy and workplace freedoms.

Knutson and Hunter said they hope to see two bills introduced in the coming weeks: the Worker Freedom Act, which would give employees the right to walk out of workplace meetings aimed at changing their vote, religion or union affiliation; and the Credit Privacy in Employment Act, which would ban the use of credit checks in employment-related decisions.

“This is really a fundamental workplace protection that all Minnesotans should have,” Knutson said.

Several examples of bosses telling their employees how to vote emerged during the 2012 presidential campaign, most notably the case of a Florida timeshare company CEO, who warned his 7,000 workers via e-mail that layoffs would be the result of a victory for President Obama.

The use of credit checks in employment decisions – from hirings and firings to promotions – is also on the rise. A July 2012 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 47 percent of U.S. employers run credit checks on their job candidates.

The practice creates a catch 22 for job seekers who have faced financial crisis.

“This recession forced many people into financial situations that have impacted their credit scores,” Hunter said. “That credit score can sometimes be the only reason somebody is not a hired for a job that would return him or her back to the middle class.”

Click here to read the full Agenda for Middle Class Dignity and Fairness.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

With lockouts on the rise, state lawmakers weigh social, economic impacts

January 24, 2013 by
Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers, but state lawmakers yesterday began examining the impact these prolonged work stoppages have had on families, communities and businesses.

The House Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee’s hearing on lockouts was likely a first step toward legislative action to protect locked-out workers – and make the tactic less appealing to employers.

Committee members surveyed ongoing lockouts at American Crystal Sugar, the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as the recently settled dispute between the National Hockey League and its players’ union. Testimony, often impassioned, came from labor, management and community stakeholders.

Becki Jacobson, a Moorhead, Minn., resident locked out of her job by Crystal Sugar for nearly 18 months, fought back tears as she talked about struggling to make her mortgage payments after her unemployment-insurance benefits expired six months ago. She added that she was recently diagnosed with severe depression.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills,” said Jacobson, one of 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union locked out by the sugar-beet cooperative. “I don’t know where my next meal is going to come from.”

Heidi Durand, a sociology professor and member of the Moorhead City Council, said her community was not equipped to handle the volume of problems Jacobson and Crystal Sugar’s other locked-out workers are facing, from increased foreclosures and bankruptcies to mental-health issues and substance abuse.

Receipts are down at local businesses, and Moorhead’s homeless shelters have been “beyond capacity” since the fall, Durand said. Longtime friendships have splintered, leaving the community’s “social fabric greatly weakened.”

Orchestras locked out

In the metro area, two pillars of the classical music scene fell silent after the Minnesota Orchestra and the SPCO locked out their musicians last fall.

The musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-72, voted overwhelmingly against contracts that included steep salary, benefit and work-rule concessions. Rather than continue negotiating during the 2012-13 concert season, the orchestras went on the offensive, canceling concerts and cutting musicians off from their jobs.

At the House committee hearing, orchestra fans and business owners joined locked-out musicians in describing the ripple effects – economic, civic and artistic – of the lockouts.

Laurie Greeno, co-chair of the community group Orchestrate Excellence, said downtown Minneapolis merchants already have lost $1.25 million as a result of the lockout. Restaurants have told the group they are losing between $3,000 and $10,000 per concert.

Minnesota Orchestra trombonist Doug Wright said orchestra board members have shown a “disregard for the greater musical community,” pointing to music-education programming in schools across the state that has been canceled as a result of the lockout.

And SPCO musician Carole Mason Smith warned the committee that each day the lockout continues, the likelihood increases that another world-class musician from one of the Twin Cities’ orchestras will take their talents elsewhere. “Some of us have sold our homes,” she said, pointing to growing frustration among musicians with management’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue with the union.

Legislative action coming?

Although the committee hearing was not related to any specific bill, lawmakers heard some suggestions for how they might get involved. Greeno urged a “thorough analysis” of lockouts’ economic impact on the state, while Mark Thoson of the audience-driven group Save Our SPCO suggested holding the orchestras’ accountable for their nonprofit statuses.

“When the state confers nonprofit status to an organization, the state and organization have a duty to ensure the benefit to the public are protected,” Thoson said.

Musicians said lawmakers would not be overstepping their bounds by getting involved in the orchestra lockouts, as the state has financially supported the orchestras’ programming and facilities in the past, most notably a $14 million investment in ongoing Orchestra Hall renovations.

“We didn’t build Target Field for a minor league baseball team,” Wright said.

Unions also will push lawmakers to extend workers’ unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout. Such an extension would prevent employers like Crystal Sugar from starving workers like Jacobson into accepting their contract demands.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the state’s largest labor federation also would support adding a penalty to the unemployment tax paid by employers after a lockout enters its second month. Money collected through the penalty would be split equally between the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and the Workforce Development Fund.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Steve Hunter: Labor agenda includes investments, tax fairness, new jobs and workplace dignity

January 24, 2013 by

mug-hunter-webThe 2013 legislative session presents Minnesota’s labor movement with opportunities we haven’t seen since 1990, the last time we had a pro-labor governor and labor-friendly majorities in both the House and Senate. After 22 years of playing defense, we finally have an opportunity to accomplish positive change for working people. The Minnesota AFL-CIO, working with our affiliate unions, has assembled an agenda for this session that focuses on new investments, tax fairness, job creation and workplace dignity and fairness.

Our No. 1 priority is the state budget. We need to make new investments in our roads and bridges, schools and colleges – and provide care and dignity for our senior citizens. To make these important investments, there needs to be new tax revenue. We need to increase revenue by reforming our tax system to ensure fairness and stability. We have witnessed years of cuts to state and local government services, education, higher education, health care, human services, transportation and public safety. At the same time we’ve been asked to pay more in fees, property taxes and tuition. To protect the wealthiest Minnesotans from paying their fair share, previous governors and legislators have resorted to spending down reserves and borrowing from schools and endowments. It’s time to balance the budget without gimmicks while providing the additional funding needed to invest in our future.

We can also increase revenue by putting Minnesota back to work. The state AFL-CIO supports the Mall of America expansion, and we also support a significant bonding bill to put people back to work improving our state’s infrastructure, which will support and facilitate future economic growth.

Feb. 1 will mark the 18th month of the American Crystal Sugar lockout. As I write this, both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra remain locked out, and the NHL has only recently resumed games after a prolonged lockout. Locked out workers in Minnesota qualify for unemployment benefits, but cases like Crystal Sugar show that lockouts can linger well beyond the length of those benefits. That’s why we are proposing legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout, and also add a penalty to the employer’s unemployment tax after the beginning of a lockout’s second month. Half of that penalty would go to the UI Trust Fund; the other 50 percent would support the Workforce Development Fund.

We will also support initiatives to protect workers’ right to organize, raise minimum wage and limit employers’ use of credit checks related to terms of employment. We will soon announce our complete agenda to the public.

The election was only the first half of ensuring pro-labor policies become law; the other half is holding elected officials accountable. We need union members to contact their legislators concerning these issues. For more information on labor-related legislation, contact our offices, visit www.mnaflcio.org or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

– Steve Hunter is Secretary-Treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the statewide labor federation representing over 300,000 workers.

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

Operation Christmas Solidarity lifts spirits of locked-out sugar workers

January 14, 2013 by
John O’Neil, president of United Steelworkers Local 264, sorts toys donated to Operation Christmas Solidarity.

John O’Neil, president of United Steelworkers Local 264, sorts toys donated to Operation Christmas Solidarity.

For the second consecutive Christmas, the families of workers locked out of their jobs by American Crystal Sugar received a holiday boost from their extended union family.

Operation Christmas Solidarity, co-sponsored by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and American Income Life, drew $45,000 in donations from local unions and members, who gave toys, food, household goods and cash.

It was enough to fill two semi-trucks that delivered items Dec. 18 and 19 to locked-out workers in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota, as well as facilities in Chaska and Mason City, Iowa.

Crystal Sugar locked out 1,300 workers 18 months ago. Union members have voted four times since then to reject the company’s offer.

Helping load the Laborers Local 563 semi truck with Operation Christmas Solidarity donations are, L to R, (front) Frank Loffler, Bobby Kasper, Ryan Connelly, Dave Saunders, Dan McGowen, Mike Connelly, John O’Neil, (back) Mitch Nohrenberg, Mark Borowicz, Chris Peltier, Laura Wilson and Erica Dalager.

Helping load the Laborers Local 563 semi truck with Operation Christmas Solidarity donations are, L to R, (front) Frank Loffler, Bobby Kasper, Ryan Connelly, Dave Saunders, Dan McGowen, Mike Connelly, John O’Neil, (back) Mitch Nohrenberg, Mark Borowicz, Chris Peltier, Laura Wilson and Erica Dalager.

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Operation Christmas Solidarity to support Crystal Sugar workers

November 29, 2012 by

Last year’s Operation Christmas Solidarity raised more than $25,000 in toys and household items for locked-out families.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and American Income Life will sponsor a second Operation Christmas Solidarity this year, with proceeds of the gift, toy and household-goods drive benefiting families of workers who have been locked out of their jobs by American Crystal Sugar.

Over 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa have been affected by the lockout, which began more than 16 months ago. As the need in these families has grown, their resources have depleted, but last year’s holiday drive raised more than $25,000 for locked-out families.

Unwrapped items and monetary donations will be accepted through Dec. 17 at the following location, by mail or in person: St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, Attention: Laura Testor, 411 Main Street, Suite 202, St. Paul, MN 55102.

Make checks payable to: St. Paul Labor Studies & Resource Center (LSRC). Please note in memo line: Operation Christmas Solidarity. All donations are tax deductible.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Renowned conductor, Minnesota Chorale join benefit for SPCO’s locked-out musicians

November 29, 2012 by

Locked out of their jobs, the Musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are looking to grow public support in their ongoing dispute with orchestra management by doing what they do best – performing world-class music for their fans.

The Musicians of the SPCO will partner with the Minnesota Chorale, the region’s premier symphonic chorus, for two performances Dec. 20- 21 of the traditional holiday classic Handel’s Messiah at Central Lutheran Church downtown Minneapolis. Both performances will start at 7:30 p.m.

Central Lutheran Church is located across the street from the Minneapolis Convention Center, at 333 South 12th Street. Convenient parking is adjacent to the church.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Hugh Wolff, the SPCO’s principal conductor and music director from 1988 to 2000, will conduct the concerts.

Tickets cost between $15 and $45, and they are available through the Central Lutheran Church website, or at messiahmpls.brownpapertickets.com.

The concerts will benefit SPCO musicians, who have been out of work since being locked out by orchestra management Oct. 21. The orchestra is seeking steep cuts to pay and benefits – cuts orchestra members say will have a negative impact on the group’s artistic quality.

The holiday benefit concerts will follow an all-Mozart benefit concert Dec. 2 at Wayzata Community Church, staged by the SPCO musicians with Pinchas Zukerman, an internationally acclaimed violinist and conductor.

For more information on the SPCO musicians and their lockout, go to www.musiciansspco.org.

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

Holiday baking? Be sure not to use Crystal Sugar!

November 29, 2012 by

This holiday season, your Christmas cookies will taste better knowing union-busting Crystal Sugar isn’t among the ingredients.

The Moorhead-based company has locked 1,300 union workers out of their jobs for 16 months, prompting the AFL-CIO to call a nationwide boycott.

The easiest way to avoid buying Crystal Sugar is to buy cane sugar, like the C&H brand, instead. For more on the boycott, go to www.boycottacs.com.

Locked-out workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union, were scheduled to vote on the company’s contract offer for a fourth time  on Dec. 1.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Minnesota Orchestra musicians, fans rally as lockout enters second month

November 1, 2012 by

Nils Halker, a longtime orchestra patron from St. Paul, joins the locked-out musicians’ rally in Peavey Plaza.

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the Minnesota Orchestra rallied with patrons, union leaders and other supporters in Peavey Plaza downtown Minneapolis today, as the lockout of 95 members of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73 entered its second month.

Although buoyed by strike benefits from their international union, the American Federation of Musicians, locked-out orchestra members have been without regular paychecks and health insurance for 31 days.

Many have accepted temporary, fill-in positions with orchestras around the country. Others are beginning to seek permanent work elsewhere, which is bad news for the orchestra’s fans and patrons, clarinetist Tim Zavadil said.

Attrition among orchestra members “is going to severely threaten the world-class status that the Minnesota Orchestra has been known for and what the state of Minnesota has supported for 110 years,” Zavadil said.

Orchestra ticketholders at the rally echoed those concerns. Nils Halker of St. Paul carried a homemade sign identifying himself as a “locked out patron” supporting the union musicians.

A longtime season ticket holder, Halker already has missed two concerts as a result of the lockout. He said he sides with the union in the dispute because he believes gutting musicians’ salaries would erode the artistic quality of a “cultural treasure.”

Bringing corporate tactics to Orchestra Hall?

The onus for preserving and protecting that treasure, Halker added, falls on the orchestra’s Board of Directors, which includes the powerful CEOs of corporations like U.S. Bank, Land o’ Lakes, Xcel Energy and others.

“They are not being good custodians,” Halker said of board members. “I believe it’s an irreplaceable treasure we are going to lose if this is not resolved in a good way.”

Some observers have questioned whether orchestra board members are bringing their corporate values – and hostilities toward unions – with them to Orchestra Hall. Halker pointed to the increased use of lockouts among employers – from the National Hockey League to American Crystal Sugar – looking to exact steep concessions from their workers.

“It seems to me to be a pattern,” he said. “The lockout has become a new management strategy, very widespread, because management feels they have a lot more leverage now than they have in the past.”

Holiday offerings in doubt

Orchestra management and its Board of Directors made the decision to lock out musicians Oct. 1 despite the union’s offer to continue negotiations while playing out the 2012-13 season – with a guarantee that musicians would not interrupt the concert schedule with a strike.

That offer was rejected, and concerts have been canceled through Nov. 25.

Management may decide next week to cancel more events, including popular holiday offerings.

That would deal a stinging blow to restaurants, parking ramps and other businesses around the Minneapolis Convention Center, which will house the orchestra during construction of a $52 million lobby at Orchestra Hall.

Tim Zavadil, a clarinetist and member of the union’s negotiating committee, talks to the media during the rally.

Zavadil called management’s decision to expand Orchestra Hall while demanding 30 to 50 percent pay cuts from musicians a “remarkable juxtaposition.”

Union members at the rally renewed their call for the orchestra to open its books to an “independent, third-party financial analysis” of whether the pay cuts are really necessary – a request the orchestra repeatedly has denied.

“We don’t know what they’re afraid of, why they won’t agree to this,” Zavadil said. Pointing out that the orchestra is demanding the average musician sacrifice $60,000 in concessions, Zavazil added: “I’ve never invested $60,000 anywhere before, but were I going to … I would need the most complete and verified financial information I could possibly find.”

If the orchestra moves forward with canceling holiday concerts, Zavadil said, the union has plans in the works to give concerts to fans and supporters at alternative venues, like musicians’ homes. Muusicians were encouraged by the turnout – more than 2,100 people – at a sold-out concert staged by the union Oct. 18.

Halker was in the second row for that show. It was his only opportunity to hear the orchestra since the last season ended and, he hopes, not his last.

“It was spectacular,” he said. “It was emotional, it was powerful, it was thrilling – and sad at the same time.”

Click here for more information on the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, and what supporters can do to help.

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

Locked-out musicians reject SPCO’s contract proposal

October 31, 2012 by

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra voted unanimously today to reject a contract offer from management, prolonging a work stoppage that began Oct. 21.

Management’s proposed reductions to current musicians’ salaries and benefits are unacceptable, union members said. They warned even bigger proposed cuts to future musicians’ compensation would undermine the orchestra’s quality and artistry.

Lynn Erickson, SPCO member and spokesperson for the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, said the SPCO would be “unable to identify any qualified artistic consultant who would support the proposed reductions.”

Kyu-Young Kim, an SPCO violinist and member of the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, called the contract proposal an attempt by management to divide current and future orchestra members.

“Management again fails to realize that an orchestra functions as a team, and that none of us in the SPCO have any interest in selling our present or future colleagues down the river,” Kim said.

Kim pointed to a letter made public Oct. 25 in which SPCO management said it planned to reduce the pay of highly paid “principal players” significantly less than those who receive the base pay.

SPCO management has said it is looking to cut $1.5 million from its annual budget in contract negotiations. Musicians have presented management with a counter-proposal that, they say, would save the SPCO more than $700,000 over the course of three years – while continuing to live up to the orchestra’s high artistic standards.

“Our goal is to preserve the artistic excellence of the SPCO in a fiscally responsible way, for our supporters and for this community,” Erickson said. “We want to resume negotiations as soon as possible and hope that a mutually agreeable solution can be quickly achieved.”

The proposal rejected today also would give management the ability to terminate musicians at any time with no recourse, the musicians said.

Click here for more information on the Musicians of the SPCO and their lockout.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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