St. Paul workers, families keep pressure on as council takes up $15

October 19, 2018 by

Mayor Melvin Carter snaps a selfie with advocates for a $15 minimum wage outside City Hall.

It felt like a victory celebration as working people and their families rallied with elected officials outside City Hall Wednesday, just minutes before council members formally introduced an ordinance that would put St. Paul on track to a $15 minimum wage.

The finish line may be in sight, but Mayor Melvin Carter had a warning for supporters.

“We’re not done yet,” he said, listing the procedural hurdles and public hearings the ordinance faces before it can receive a vote. “But I’ve committed myself and our city to passing this into law by the end of the year, and I remain committed. And I want to say thank you to all of you for being engaged.”

Carter was speaking to union members, tipped workers and other low-wage workers who have been pushing for action in St. Paul since Minneapolis adopted its ordinance over a year ago. At the rally, they stood together in support of the proposed ordinance, unveiled a week earlier by Mayor Carter.

Co-authored by five of the council’s seven members (Amy Brendmoen, Mitra Jalali Nelson, Rebecca Noecker, Dai Thao and Chris Tolbert), the ordinance closely mirrors recommendations of a task force that spent more than three months studying the potential effects of a wage hike and listening to workers, business owners and others who would be impacted by the ordinance.

“We have been listening, talking, debating and voting for almost a year now,” said SEIU Healthcare Minnesota Political Director Rick Varco, who co-chaired the task force. “Now is the time to act.”

Action by the council would raise wages for an estimated 56,000 people – nearly a third of the city’s workforce – who earn less than $15 an hour.

Rosalio Vences, a janitor at a Target store in St. Paul, is among them. The cleaning contractor he works for has raised his pay just once – from $11 to $11.25 per hour – in the nearly three years Vences has been on the job. Lately, he said, the boss has been cutting hours off his scheduled shifts, too.

“But they always give us a raise in workload,” Vences said. “We always have more work to do, faster and faster.”

With the extra money he’d be earning with a $15 minimum wage, Vences could afford to move out of the room he rents in someone else’s home and get his own place. “With our current wages, we can’t afford to pay our rent and our bills,” he said.

Erin Lynch, a server at a full-service restaurant in St. Paul, speaks at a press conference staged by supporters of a $15 minimum wage with no tip adjustment.

Servers like Erin Lynch also praised the proposed ordinance, which would not carve out a lower wage for workers who earn tips. The question of whether to include a so-called “tip adjustment” has been a focus of debate, but Lynch said earning a livable wage makes servers more likely to stand up to harassment from customers and managers who “wave the prospect of a tip over your head.”

Restaurant workers experience sexual harassment on the job more frequently than workers in any other industry. A 2014 report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United found 9 of 10 women working in the industry had experienced sexual harassment on the job, and so had 7 of 10 men. Sexual harassment is more prevalent, the report found, in states that allow servers and bartenders to be paid less than minimum wage.

“It’s really demoralizing that me and my coworkers have to put up with this stuff every day, to varying amounts,” Lynch said. “A $15 an hour minimum wage would alleviate this and would lessen my dependence on tips. It puts me in a better position to stand up for my dignity.”

The ordinance, as currently drafted, would take effect in 2020, and would affect employers differently based on their size.

Large businesses – those with more than 100 workers – would be required to pay $15 per hour by July 1, 2023. Workers at small businesses would reach $15 by July 1, 2026. Microbusinesses – those with five or fewer employees – would have two more years to phase in the full minimum wage, which would adjust annually for inflation.

The ordinance also would put the city’s own employees on track to earn $15 by July 1, 2022.

The Met Council’s most recent analysis of census data shows 40.8 percent of St. Paul residents live in poverty, a higher rate than any other metro-area community.

“We’re so grateful to the mayor for having listened to our words to help bring change with our employers,” Vences, a member of the Twin Cities worker center CTUL, said. “For so long we’ve been lifting our voices to say we need a raise to $15 an hour.”

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Restaurant industry pushes tip penalty; unions and tipped workers push back

April 25, 2018 by

You might not have noticed the sky falling in Minnesota’s restaurant industry – unless, that is, you’ve been hanging out in meetings of the House Committee on Job Growth and Energy Affordability Policy and Finance.

The Republican-controlled committee has tucked a measure into its Omnibus Jobs and Energy Bill that would allow restaurants to pay servers and bartenders less than minimum wage. In hearings last month, industry lobbyists claimed the concession is necessary to shield establishments from annual, inflationary increases to the state’s minimum wage.

Minnesota is one of just seven states where employers may not pay a lower, sub-minimum wage to workers on the basis that their income includes tips. Lawmakers removed the “tipped tier” from Minnesota’s minimum-wage rules three decades ago.

But time hasn’t exactly softened the restaurant industry’s opposition.

The state’s minimum wage has increased from $7.25 to $9.65 for large employers over the last four years, and restaurant owners – and some workers – claim the increased labor costs have upended their industry, forcing layoffs, increasing automation and threatening the vibrancy of the local dining scene.

“The goal of this is to keep jobs intact and to keep our businesses open,” Minneapolis bartender Adam Borgen told committee members April 16.

But employment data collected by the state doesn’t back up the industry’s claims. An analysis by the JOBS NOW Coalition found that job openings in Minnesota’s restaurant industry have increased by 200 percent since 2014, when the minimum wage began to climb.

“Restaurants literally can’t get anyone to fill these jobs in the first place,” JOBS NOW’s Kevin Ristau said. “But they say that by raising the minimum wage, you’re going to hurt the very people you’re trying to help, that those opportunities for workers will no longer exist. Well, we raised the minimum wage, and there are more ‘opportunities’ than ever.”

Minnesota’s restaurant scene, meanwhile, remains hot. Ten local chefs and two restaurants were named semifinalists for the prestigious James Beard Foundation awards earlier this year.

So if a political push to make it legal for restaurants to pay workers less than minimum wage sounds like a solution in search of a problem, that’s because it is, UNITE HERE Local 17 Political Director Wade Luneberg said.

“My industry’s obsession with removing income from employees’ pockets has always stumped me,” Luneberg, a former server and longtime officer in the Twin Cities hospitality union, told committee members.

“This is not an industry in crisis,” he added. “Instead, it keeps expanding and diversifying to find more ways of doing business.”

Although most people who testified for or against the measure last month were from the Twin Cities, the bill’s chief author, Rep. Joe McDonald (R-Delano), stressed it was not his intention to preempt local minimum-wage rules.

Minneapolis did not carve out a sub-minimum wage for tipped workers in its $15 ordinance last year, meaning even if McDonald’s bill were to become law, Minneapolis restaurants would have to raise servers’ wages annually in accordance with the ordinance.

Still, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper warned the tip penalty is just one piece of a broader corporate agenda Republicans are pushing at the Capitol. Another piece of the agenda: preempting local control.

“We’re going to fight any effort to put a tip penalty into St. Paul’s minimum wage ordinance because workers in the hospitality industry deserve one fair wage,” Kasper said. “But we can’t ignore what’s happening at the Capitol. These politicians are only listening to their corporate donors, and they could wipe out everything we’ve been working for.”

That’s exactly the feeling Desiree King had when she heard tip penalty legislation was alive in the House. A longtime server who now waits tables in St. Paul, King testified in favor of scrapping the lower minimum wage for tipped workers 30 years ago, and she never imagined she’d have to come back, King told lawmakers last month.

“To say that we, as a group of people because we earn tips, are not valuable enough to make the minimum wage is insulting,” King said. “We are worth more than that.”

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Four takeaways from the new report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage

February 22, 2018 by

Jess Manthe, a longtime retail worker in St. Paul, speaks at a rally outside council chambers, calling poverty wages a barrier to the middle class for too many people in the city.

Low-wage workers listened as the author of a report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage summarized her findings at yesterday’s City Council meeting. Then they put council members on notice.

“Now is the time for the city to take a stand and get us the wages we need,” personal care attendant Daniel Maddox, a member of the low-wage worker center CTUL, said during a brief rally outside council chambers.

Council members at the meeting indicated they plan to move at a more deliberate pace. Council President Amy Brendmoen said the plan is to “have an ordinance in front of us by fall.”

What that ordinance should look like is already the subject of a heated debate, as the report presented yesterday confirmed.

The nonpartisan Citizens League prepared the report to give council members an overview of available data and research on the topic, and to identify which constituencies are likely to be impacted by a higher minimum wage. It’s available on the Citizen League’s website.

Here are four takeaways from the report and Citizen League Executive Director Pahoua Yang Hoffman’s presentation to the Council yesterday.

1. Despite an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent, too many working people and families in St. Paul live in poverty.

The Met Council’s most recent analysis of census data shows 40.8 percent of St. Paul residents live in poverty, a higher rate than any other metro-area community. And areas of concentrated poverty are spreading within the city, a trend Ward 7’s Jane Prince called “disturbing.”

Jess Manthe, a longtime retail worker in St. Paul, called poverty wages a barrier to the middle class.

“I have huge amounts of (student) debt that I’ll carry with me for the next 25 years,” she said. “Our unlivable wages mean my husband and I aren’t going to be able to buy a house, and having kids is completely off the table. I think it’s time for St. Paul to invest in its workers.”

2. People working for poverty wages know their paychecks don’t get bigger by accident or their bosses’ goodwill.

In preparing the Citizens League’s report, Hoffman met with more than 100 “stakeholders.” In her presentation to the Council, she singled out the story of a retail janitor who, after 14 years on the job, has seen her wages increase from $7.25 to $10.75 per hour.

The state minimum wage has increased from $6.15 to $9.65 over the same time frame. “She wanted me to let you know that if not for a mandate, she may never get to $15,” Hoffman said.

3. The janitor working for $10.75 after 14 years on the job is not a statistical outlier. In St. Paul poverty wages affect workers of all ages.

Stereotypes that cast minimum-wage earners as students working around classes or retirees keeping themselves busy are bogus. The Citizens League report cites a 2016 study by the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, which considered the impacts of a minimum-wage increase in Minneapolis and in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

“There is no distinction between ages where there might be in other cities, where low-wage workers might be younger or older,” Hoffman said.

Tipped workers packed council chambers to hear the report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage.

4. Whether it’s a tip penalty or a training wage, interest groups will attempt to poke holes in St. Paul’s minimum wage.

The Citizens League report reflects a split within the restaurant industry over the tip penalty, which allows employers to pay a sub-minimum wage as long as workers make up the difference in tips. Working people on both sides of the issue showed up in council chambers yesterday.

Servers who support a tip penalty say a lower minimum wage is vital to their employers’ profitability, as well as preservation of a tipping culture. Opponents argue the tip penalty opens the door to wage theft, as some employers fail to make up the difference between workers’ tips and the minimum wage.

Research also shows tip penalties contribute to a culture of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry. A study released earlier this month found female tipped workers in states like Minnesota experience report sexual harassment at half the rate of their counterparts in states with a lower minimum wage for tipped workers.

Catherine Olsen, a tipped worker at a small business in St. Paul, called on city officials to pass an ordinance lifting all workers to $15 per hour, with no tip penalty and no youth wage. “St. Paul has an opportunity to act now and act fast – and to not leave anybody behind,” she said.

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Teachers, allies keep heat on Ecolab, U.S. Bank as Super Bowl party ramps up

January 29, 2018 by

St. Paul teachers and supporters march through the streets of downtown St. Paul to the NFL’s “opening-night party” at Xcel Energy Center.

Hundreds of people whose work keeps the Twin Cities running shut down traffic outside a Super Bowl party in St. Paul tonight.

Teachers, low-wage workers and other activists called out the corporations funding the Super Bowl Host Committee – Ecolab and U.S. Bank, in particular – for prioritizing a high-profile game over local student outcomes and people’s lives.

“During this upcoming week, corporate elites will earn millions of dollars and use Minneapolis and St. Paul as their corporate playground, while we, the workers, continue to face wage theft, poverty wages and increased militarization in our communities,” Donia Caldwell, a member of CTUL’s fast-food worker organizing campaign, said during a post-march rally.

Activists marched through the streets, from Ecolab’s offices in Hamm Plaza to the Xcel Energy Center, site of the Super Bowl’s Opening Night party. As helicopters hovered overhead, marchers took over the busy intersection of Kellogg and West Seventh Street, backing up traffic in all directions.

Most people in the crowd carried signs supporting members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, who are scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote Wednesday. Members of the union’s negotiating team have said the two sides are making no progress on teachers’ top priorities, including smaller class sizes, pre-K programming and funding for nurses, librarians and language specialists.

But teachers aren’t just negotiating with the school district. SPFT is reaching out to corporations like Ecolab and U.S. Bank, the beneficiaries of local property-tax breaks, in an effort to recoup some of the funds diverted away from the district’s general fund.

So far the corporations haven’t been receptive to the idea, SPFT President Nick Faber said.

“Ecolab has said no even though they’ve got $2.1 billion of untaxed dollars in offshore accounts. They’ve said no even though they’re going to be gaining $96 million a year through the new GOP tax bill,” Faber said. “Same with U.S. Bank, and they’re going to be getting about $1.1 billion from the new tax plan.

“And what will our students get? They’re going to get a party for millionaires and a game in the town across the river.”

While teachers called for an investment in schools, low-wage workers like Caldwell called on U.S. Bank and Ecolab to “divest” from poverty wages by supporting a $15 minimum wage in St. Paul and funding for enforcement efforts targeting wage theft across the state.

Support for language programs is among SPFT’s core bargaining proposals.
As the NFL staged its Open Night Party in St. Paul Monday, protesters shut down several streets downtown, calling on Super Bowl sponsors to support local schools and racial equity.

Bakery workers organizing Saturday’s Taste of Justice joined the demonstration, too. They pledged to keep shining a light on working conditions and union-busting at Franklin Street Bakery, even as co-owner Wayne Kostroski basks in the glow of his star-studded gala in St. Paul this week.

Bruce Peglow, an officer of Bakery Workers Local 22, called Franklin Street Bakery unsafe – one reason workers are trying to organize a union.

“Several weeks ago there was carbon-monoxide poisoning in the bakery,” Peglow said. “Two of the workers went to Hennepin County Medical Center. One woman, if she’d have been there five more minutes, she would be dead.”

Inside the Xcel Energy Center, Black Lives Matter activists succeeded in dropping a banner supporting the demonstration’s theme: “Divest from violence. Invest in community. Imagine what’s possible.”

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Prominent activist to talk $15, #MeToo with tipped workers in St. Paul

January 16, 2018 by

Saru Jayaraman

A leading voice in the nationwide campaign to improve wages and working conditions for restaurant workers will meet tomorrow with tipped workers fighting for a $15 minimum wage in St. Paul.

In a 7 p.m. presentation at the St. Paul Labor Center, Saru Jayaraman will examine the connection between efforts to raise the minimum wage and the #MeToo movement to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. The event is free and open to the public.

Jayaraman is co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center and director of the University of California-Berkeley’s Food and Labor Research Center. An advocate of one fair wage for hospitality workers, Jayaraman walked the red carpet at the Golden Globes last week with Amy Poehler, one of several actresses who invited #MeToo activists as their guests.

Jayaraman’s visit to St. Paul reflects growing momentum in support of a citywide $15 minimum wage. Minneapolis put a strong $15 ordinance on the books last year, and St. Paul’s newly elected mayor, Melvin Carter, made $15 a rallying cry during his 2017 campaign.

A key question elected officials will face as they craft a minimum-wage ordinance is whether St. Paul, like Minneapolis, should establish one fair wage or carve out a subminimum wage for tipped workers, known as a tip penalty.

Restaurant industry groups fought hard for a tip penalty in Minneapolis, serving up doomsday predictions of layoffs and restaurant closings if servers’ wages increase. The same arguments already are surfacing in St. Paul.

Jayaraman’s work, meanwhile, has exposed the tip penalty’s troubling impact on working conditions in the restaurant industry. Tipped workers in two-tiered minimum wage states experience sexual harassment at nearly double the rate of their counterparts in states like Minnesota with no subminimum wage.

Learn more about the Jan. 17 event, RSVP and invite others to attend on Facebook. The St. Paul Labor Center is located at 353 West 7th Street.

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Organizing drive pays off for big-box janitors with landmark first contract

February 22, 2017 by
Retail janitors celebrated recognition of their union last fall after a six-year campaign.

Retail janitors celebrated recognition of their union last fall after a six-year campaign.

What’s the value of a union contract? For nearly 500 retail janitors in the Twin Cities, who made history last year by forming the industry’s first metro-wide union, it’s a cool $4.5 million in wage increases and paid time off over the course of their new, three-year contract.

Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union, which represented the janitors who clean big-box stores like Best Buy, Target, Macy’s and others in negotiations with cleaning subcontractors, announced the landmark agreement in a press release today, calling it a “path forward for working families” to combat rising income inequality.

“While working people are under attack right now from the billionaires in charge of our country, we are showing that we can win if we stick together and fight,” said Maricela Flores, an employee of Carlson Building Maintenance who cleans the Target in Shakopee.

The “vast majority” of janitors in the bargaining unit are people of color, according to Local 26, so the contract’s gains will help combat Minnesota’s yawning disparities between white workers and workers of color.

The contract goes into effect immediately, and many union members will see their hourly wages jump from $9.50 to $11. They include Lizbet Vega Lopez, a Carlson employee who has cleaned the Cub Foods in Brooklyn Park for 12 years.

“This was not an easy fight, but I am so glad we stuck together and now have a union contract that moves us forward,” Lopez said. “I hope others will see our fight and realize that no matter how difficult the challenge may be, you can win positive changes if you are willing to stand up to those in power.”

In addition to wage increases and PTO, workers won up to three weeks of vacation time, stronger workplace protections and job security, and guidelines for workload conditions when covering absences.

Retail janitors’ new union grew out of a six-year campaign facilitated by CTUL, a Twin Cities worker center. Workers and community allies pressured corporations like Target and Best Buy to take responsibility for low wages and unsafe working conditions inside their Twin Cities stores by signing onto a “Responsible Contractor Policy.”

The campaign continues at Kohl’s, Home Depot and other big-box stores.

“We are contracted to clean the stores of some of the biggest corporations in the world, so it was a big win just to get to the negotiation table with our employers, and now we have won gains that cannot be taken away,” Lopez said. “We weren’t waiting on Trump’s empty promises and scapegoating. We decided to fight back and win changes for ourselves, and hope others do too!”

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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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Five reasons workers are fighting Trump’s pick for labor secretary

January 30, 2017 by
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members (L to R) Pam Ganser, Amy Pauly and Jodi Klembrook delivered a petition opposing Andy Puzder as labor secretary to Sen. Al Franken's office in Minneapolis.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members (L to R) Pam Ganser, Amy Pauly and Jodi Klembrook delivered a petition opposing Andy Puzder as labor secretary to Sen. Al Franken’s office in St. Paul.

Working people aren’t waiting for fast-food CEO and robotics enthusiast Andy Puzder’s confirmation hearings – twice delayed because he’s having difficulty completing the required ethics paperwork – to oppose President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor secretary.

Last week fast-food workers led a demonstration outside Hardee’s, a chain operated by Puzder-led CKE Restaurants, in St. Paul. And this morning, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota delivered a petition to Sen. Al Franken’s office in St. Paul with nearly 5,000 signatures opposing Puzder’s nomination.

Similar actions have popped up across the U.S., with more coming as Puzder’s confirmation hearing, set for Feb. 7 (if he can wrap up that pesky paperwork), draws nearer.

Why can’t working people stomach Puzder at the helm of the Department of Labor, an agency charged with enforcing and administering federal labor laws, from health and safety protections to overtime and discrimination rules?

1. As an employer, Puzder’s company has a disturbing track record of violating laws designed to protect working people.

An analysis of Department of Labor data by The Century Foundation found that since Puzder took over as CEO in 2000, at least 1,563 CKE workers have been exposed to wage theft, unsafe working conditions or other violations uncovered by the agency’s inspectors.

Combined, OSHA and Wage-and-Hour inspectors have closed 166 investigations of CKE facilities since 2000, leading to more than $156,000 in civil penalties and an additional $145,310 in back pay to 877 employees. In one case, Hardee’s restaurants in the St. Louis area were “having workers punch-in to work later than when they arrived to work, not paying them overtime for double shifts, and even striking hours off of time cards,” the Century report’s authors, Michael McCormack and Simon Glenn-Gregg, wrote.

Additionally, workers at 13 CKE restaurants in 10 states last week filed 33 new complaints alleging sexual harassment, unfair labor practices (union busting) and wage theft.

2. Last year, Puzder earned more in one day than his company’s minimum-wage workers earned in the entire year. Yet he not only opposes raising the wage, he spends his fortune financially backing efforts to stop it.

According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, Puzder donated $10,000 to a campaign trying to stop Nevada voters from passing a ballot initiative raising the state’s minimum wage by a mere $1, from $5.15 to $6.15. (Voters eventually approved the increase.)

Opponents of Andy Puzder's nomination to lead the Labor department rallies last Thursday outside Hardee's in St. Paul.

Opponents of Andy Puzder’s nomination to lead the labor department rallied last Thursday outside Hardee’s in St. Paul.

3. Puzder’s low-road approach to employment forces taxpayers to pick up the tab – to the tune of an estimated $247 million per year.

The National Employment Law Project ran the numbers in a report released last week, coming up with the jaw-dropping price tag for government services accessed by CKE employees. The report draws on an analysis by University of California Berkeley economists who found that low wages and lack of benefits force 52 percent of fast-food workers to rely on public assistance to make ends meet.

4. Puzder’s company outsourced jobs to the Philippines.

In 2010, according to a report by the Associated Press, CKE laid off 20 Americans employed in its restaurant information technology department, which later reopened in the Philippines. The decision also resulted in layoffs at a staffing firm in California.

5. His public statements reveal contempt for working people, particularly those people most vulnerable to the kinds of mistreatment the Department of Labor is supposed to police.

In a 2011 address to students of Westmont College, Puzder described his hiring practices by saying, “In fast food, you sort of compete for the best of the worst.” And in an interview with Business Insider, Puzder openly fantasized about replacing fast-food workers with robots because they “never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”

And who could forget Puzder offering a stirring defense of his company’s advertising campaign that showed scantily clad models wolfing down Thickburgers? “I like our ads,” Puzder told Entrepreneur magazine. “I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”

American, indeed. Just like low wages, outsourcing and corporate welfare. It’s no surprise working people are raising hell.

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Jeff Couillard: What if retail workers took a two-week break – starting on Black Friday?

November 22, 2016 by

mug-couillard-webIt’s that time of year when retail executives get excited about the kind of record profits they will be raking in from mid-November to the end of the year. Retailers have been pushing out their deals earlier and earlier so consumers have more and more choices to cash in on a “super” deal ahead of the mania that is Black Friday. As consumers we benefit from the expanded number of “savings” we can get, so why we would ever complain?

Maybe consumers won’t complain but take a look at who’s providing those goods and services so Johnny can have the latest cool toy for Christmas. They’re workers – laborers – putting in long hours for low pay and generally little to no benefits. Many are single parents forced to work 2 to 3 jobs in addition to collecting public assistance, who hope to be able to provide a decent holiday meal for their children.

The greatest barrier for these workers is almost none of them are organized. Richly compensated corporate lawyers take advantage of laws written by politicians who are bought and paid for by the same corporations. This system of “legal bondage” keeps the pay for most service-sector employees at or just above minimum wage, and it almost always prevents these same workers from ever having a chance to organize. The logic of how this actually works is beyond me, since on paper it is legal for workers to vote on whether they want to join or form a union. It is very ironic how the interpretation of different laws provides a mechanism for companies to systematically prevent workers from getting together and organizing without fear of employer retaliation – or termination.

What can workers do? They have to feed themselves and their families. They need to provide shelter and clothing for their families. Most don’t want to do anything “insubordinate” for fear of employer reprisals. Incidentally, Walmart actually includes propaganda about the evils and excesses of unions in their official orientation video. I remember watching it when I worked for Walmart as a temporary employee back in 2001. My guess is the anti-union message is still a part of the video.

Worker advocates, community organizers and other supporters can only do so much. In order to truly disrupt the machinery of big business, all non-management workers who work for large retail chains and restaurants should simply not show up to work the last week of November and the first week of December across Minnesota. Imagine the chaos and uncertainty this would create for corporate executives who wouldn’t possibly be able to make up the millions in lost revenue. Sure, the workers could be replaced but there’s no way new employees could be hired and trained to assist customers like seasoned professionals in the span of two weeks.

Maybe literally nothing getting done would finally demonstrate to corporate executives and corporate boards the value of labor. Maybe it would demonstrate that labor is more than an expendable commodity. Maybe – just maybe – it would be an inroad for long repressed workers to have a voice at the table again.

Something has to happen; otherwise, this country will truly be a country where 2 percent of the population has everything, and 98 percent of the population has nothing. It is painful to admit, but if things don’t change soon this will be the case in the U.S. before too long. I don’t want that future to become a reality for generations of Americans to come.

– Jeff Couillard is a member of Local 306 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He also serves as a delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, and on the AFSCME Council 5 Executive Board.

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

Janitors, teachers protest Kohl’s during back-to-school rush

August 23, 2016 by
Janitors and their supporters march along County Road B2 in Roseville, near Rosedale Mall.

Janitors and their supporters march along County Road B2 in Roseville, near Rosedale Mall.

 

Looking to build on recent victories at Target and Best Buy, retail janitors in the Twin Cities put the pressure on Kohl’s Saturday – during the busy back-to-school shopping season – to do right by the workers who clean its stores.

Janitors brought busloads of supporters, including union teachers, nurses and construction workers, to Kohl’s locations across the metro area Aug. 20, a day of action that culminated with a march to the Roseville store that briefly shut down traffic on County Road B2.

Kohl’s janitors, who are organizing with the Twin Cities worker center CTUL, have been pushing Kohl’s to address concerns about its Twin Cities cleaning contractor, Kimco, for more than two years. They want the retailer to join Target and Best Buy in signing onto a policy ensuring the chain’s cleaning contractors treat workers fairly.

Esteban Miranda cleans the Kohl’s in Blaine.

Esteban Miranda cleans the Kohl’s in Blaine.

Kimco employees at the march described working long hours for low wages, with no voice on the job.

Esteban Miranda, a two-year Kimco employee who cleans the Kohl’s in Blaine, earns minimum wage and receives no paid sick days or holidays. He has to work multiple jobs to help support his family of four.

“We’re fighting for a Responsible Contractor Policy so that they will listen to our voices,” Miranda said. “That’s why we’re here, and we’re going to keep up the fight.”

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Miranda during the march in Roseville were several members of St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28. SPFT President Denise Rodriguez called it a “cruel irony” that Kohl’s rakes in 15 percent of its profits during the back-to-school shopping season, while many of the janitors who clean its stores can’t afford new clothes for their children.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Vice President Nick Faber speaks at a rally outside Kohl’s in Roseville.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Vice President Nick Faber speaks at a rally outside Kohl’s in Roseville.

When parents work multiple jobs or lack access to earned sick and safe time, SPFT Vice President Nick Faber added, it creates barriers to success for their children.

“We see older brothers and sisters not coming to school because they have to stay home with younger siblings who are sick,” Faber said. “We see students who can’t concentrate because they’re hungry. We see students who can’t concentrate because they haven’t slept.

“Kohl’s needs to recognize the importance of their janitors in creating an inviting climate for spending money, and they should be ready to share it with those janitors.”

CTUL, a Spanish acronym for Center for Workers United in the Struggle, reached a historic agreement with Target two years ago in which the retailer agreed to do business with contractors that do not force janitors to work seven days a week, allow formation of safety committees made up of at least 50 percent workers and provide protections for workers to join a union without fear of retaliation.

Best Buy agreed to a similar policy in June.

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