Nursing home workers plan to strike as new industry standards board ramps up work

February 23, 2024 by

Workers at nursing homes across the Twin Cities are voting to stage a one-day strike March 5 over unfair labor practices, escalating their fight for pay and benefit increases that they say are needed to address staffing shortfalls in their industry.

Two local unions, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663, had announced workers at 10 nursing homes would join the strike when the March edition of The Union Advocate went to press. Leaders said strike-authorization votes at other facilities were still in the works.

At a press conference Feb. 20 outside Saint Therese in New Hope, nursing assistant Monyou Taye said she voted to strike because “workers and our residents deserve better.”

“We don’t have enough staff and equipment to keep up with the work,” Taye said. “Over the years we have had to do more and more … because not enough people want to do this important work under the current wages and benefits.

“It makes us feel burned out and stressed. It makes us feel angry.”

In her 15th year working at Saint Therese, Taye still earns less than $20 per hour, and a survey of 1,300 Minnesota nursing home workers conducted by SEIU last fall suggests she’s not alone. Half reported making less than $20 per hour, 80% said they make less than $25 per hour and nine out of 10 said they struggle to afford basic needs.

A strike is sure to draw the attention of Minnesota’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, which began meeting last fall and is tasked with setting minimum employment standards in the industry.

The board, established by state lawmakers last year, is ramping up its work, and dozens of union members turned out for its first in-person meeting Feb. 21 in Brooklyn Park.

SEIU Healthcare members voted last year to push for a $25 wage floor in the industry, plus affordable health and retirement benefits.

“We know that these changes are possible, and we know that without them we are going to continue the staffing crisis that plagues the nursing home industry,” Jamie Gulley, the union’s president, said outside Saint Therese. “Workers are fed up, and that’s why we’re standing up and saying enough is enough. We are ready to strike.”

At press time, two nursing homes in the east metro, Cerenity in St. Paul and the Estates of Roseville, were among the locations where workers planned to strike March 5.

Teresa Brees, a Roseville worker with 25 years of experience in the industry, tore a tendon in her bicep after working 23 straight days last year. She and other long-term care workers “are at our breaking points,” she said, due to short staffing, and it won’t get better without better pay and benefits.

“How many more good people will we lose because of the low pay, lack of benefits and ongoing disrespect?” she said.

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Insulted by 1% wage offer, Half Price Books workers strike

July 13, 2023 by

Striking Half Price Books workers picketed the Roseville store Thursday morning.

Fed up with slow negotiations and an “insulting” wage offer, Half Price Books workers in the Twin Cities called a two-day strike this morning, and more than 40 union members – about three-quarters of the bargaining unit – showed up in Brooklyn Center at the site of scheduled talks with management.

But the bosses responded by canceling negotiations for the week and closing all four stores – the latest example, union member Hanna Anderson said, that the company is more interested in dragging out the process than in taking workers’ demands seriously.

“They told us that they needed the day to figure out the logistics of running the stores, so they couldn’t bargain,” said Anderson, a shift leader at the store in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. “An hour later we all got messages that all four of the stores were going to be closed for the next two days.”

That left workers, including longtime bookseller Aaron Kerr, fuming on the picket line.

“They are not in there. The stores are not open. Why are they not at the bargaining table?” Kerr said outside the Roseville location where he has worked for more than two decades. “That is something that makes me incredibly angry.”

Union members are angry, too, about HPB’s stubborn wage proposal, stuck at increases of 1% annually since the company made its first economic proposal in May. Anderson said the offer is insulting, especially given that the union scaled back its demands in bargaining earlier this week.

“This past session we came down a little bit,” she said. “They are holding to their 1%, and they refuse to even entertain anything else, which is obviously very upsetting to everyone here. Especially the past week, when the company basically said we don’t deserve a living wage, that really frustrated everyone.”

Workers have proposed increasing HPB’s starting pay from $15 to $16 per hour and $1.50 wage hikes for other employees, plus a new pay scale based on longevity.

Currently, workers get quarterly bonuses and annual raises at their bosses’ discretion, but raises of 2% or 3% don’t amount to much when your pay is stuck at $15 per hour, Anderson said.

“And there have been years where, if we were getting a new computer system, there weren’t bonuses,” she said. “It is just if they are willing to give us them. You can’t rely on them.”

Workers from the St. Paul and Roseville stores bargain jointly with workers from St. Louis Park and Coon Rapids locations. They all voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers – locals 1189 and 663 – in separate elections starting in November 2021.

Negotiations over a first contract began over 19 months ago, and they had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with tentative agreements on workplace health and safety, grievance procedures, scheduling. Other agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from union members, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Talks turned to economics this spring, and after a round of handbilling and informational picketing failed to move management, workers finally have called a strike, formally citing charges of unfair labor practices that the union filed over management’s failure to share “crucial information.”

It’s a big step for a new union to take, Anderson acknowledged.

“We have been saying ‘strike’ is kind of like the s-word,” she said. “People were nervous. But we have legal protections. We are really a close-knit community, and seeing everyone from all four stores has been really awesome.”

Kerr said support for the strike was overwhelming, and it showed in the turnout at the planned bargaining session this morning.

“In our meetings, everybody showed up and it was almost unanimous that we need to do this,” he said. “We have got to do whatever it takes to make management understand we are serious, or they will continue to pretend that what they want to give us is completely reasonable.”

Workers held picketing at all four stores today, traveling from Coon Rapids to Roseville in the morning, then hitting St. Paul and St. Louis Park in the afternoon.

Supporters are welcome to join the picket line (monitor the union’s social media feeds for locations). Union members are also asking supporters to call on Regional Manager Bill Holland to get back to the bargaining table and settle a fair contract.

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Hastings food service workers strike for higher wages

February 7, 2023 by

Striking food service workers line the sidewalk outside the entrance to Hastings Middle School on Day 1 of their strike.

About 35 school food service workers in Hastings went on strike for higher wages today, demanding more from a school district that recently increased its superintendent’s pay to over $200,000 per year.

“We feed their kids,” school cook Julie Clark said. “They should do more to help us feed ours.”

But in last-ditch talks with a state mediator Thursday, Independent School District 200 refused to put more money on the table, union leaders said on the picket line outside Hastings Middle School today.

The workers, members of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, are seeking wage increases of $3 per hour, but the district has refused to budge from an offer of roughly 2% per year, plus one-time bonuses.

Most workers in the bargaining unit earn between $15 and just over $18 per hour, with head cooks’ pay scale running about $7 per hour higher. Union members say one-time bonuses will do nothing to recruit and retain kitchen staff.

“I have kids ranging from 27 down to 11 years old, and my older kids make more money than I do with less required training,” said Clark, who earns $15.05 per hour after three years working in the district. “To be a cook, we’re required to take trainings and pass tests. My senior in high school is making $20 to $25 per hour.”

Hastings food service workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and say they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

But wages have been the biggest sticking point since negotiations began last June. Local 284’s previous, two-year contract expired June 30.

“I would prefer not to go on strike, but we haven’t seen much movement,” high school cook Sara Rapp said.

On Day 1 of the strike, union members picketed in two shifts, at the beginning and end of the school day. During the morning shift, several supporters honked their horns and waved as they drove by, and the picket line was overflowing with donated coffee and donuts.

Rapp said students at the high school were particularly supportive after workers, who voted to authorize a strike in December, publicly announced their strike date last month.

“The students have been really, really kind,” Rapp said. “I would hate to not serve them food, but at the same time they would hate to see us continue to make (the wages) we make.”

Union members said they plan to move their picket line to other school sites as the strike continues. They are asking supporters to join them on the picket line (follow the union’s Facebook page for locations) and sign onto a letter to the superintendent and school board members.

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Newly unionized Chisago Lakes custodians tap community support in first contract campaign

November 10, 2021 by

Custodians and supporters rally in advance of a first mediation session with the Chisago Lakes schools.

If administrators in the Chisago Lakes School District thought they could push their school custodians around without anyone noticing, then the semi-truck blaring its horn outside their offices at 8 a.m. Monday was a wakeup call in more ways than one.

The custodians, who formed a union earlier this year, rallied with dozens of supporters on the day of their first scheduled mediation session with the district, which has shown little interest, workers said, in addressing their concerns about wages, workloads and turnover.

The rally drew support from educators and other school staff. The local labor community turned out too, most notably with the Teamsters Local 120 big rig making a few passes through the district’s parking lot.

Scott Carlson, a custodian with three years of experience in Chisago Lakes, said he and fellow union members have appreciated the outpouring of encouragement in recent weeks.

“In my years with the district, I’ve always been treated with respect and as an equal by the teachers, parents and staff,” Carlson said. “Unfortunately, that does not seem to resonate within the walls of our district office.”

Kera Peterson, shown speaking at a union rally in the Chisago Lakes School District, is president of the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation.

The bargaining unit of about 20 custodians, represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, came together quickly after organizing began in January.

Carlson said conditions had reached a tipping point, with custodians in some buildings tasked with 40 percent more area-cleaning responsibilities than industry standards recommend, according to the school district’s own evaluation. And that’s without taking into account extra tasks required for pandemic safety.

Custodians’ wages start at just over $14 per hour – too low to attract and retain the workers needed to do the job right, union steward Chris Marks said. About one-third of the bargaining unit already has turned over, Carlson added, since custodians organized their union last school year.

“You can go to Kwik Trip and make more money working the second shift, just cashiering,” said Marks, the lead custodian at Chisago Lakes High School. “We want longevity. We need it to keep our students healthy, our buildings healthy.”

But in negotiations, the district has shown more interest in keeping the newly unionized custodians under management’s thumb.

In recent years, Chisago Lakes custodians’ terms and conditions of employment were governed by an agreement – but not a union contract – with the district. School administrators hand-picked two negotiators to represent custodians in drawing up the agreement.

“The human resource person representing the district told our reps what the board would or wouldn’t accept, and they abided by that,” Carlson said.

Now that custodians have a real seat at the table in collective bargaining, the district has responded by bringing in a high-priced, anti-union attorney, who did most of the talking in two sessions before the sides entered mediation, according to workers.

Custodians, Marks said, drafted a proposal for their first contract and presented it to the district at the first session.

“The attorney redlined the whole thing and put all the verbiage back from our previous agreement, including the pay scale,” Marks said. “He handed it back and said, ‘There you go, that’s our offer.’

“But they did change one thing: they took a 90-day probationary period and changed it to nine months.”

That district administrators would rather pay a lawyer to run out the clock than offer community members who maintain school facilities a living wage didn’t sit well with supporters at the rally Monday morning.

“They’re willing to pay him $250 an hour to do nothing,” Local 284 President Kelly Gibbons said. “He’s here to make his money and take it home to his family, but these folks can’t pay their bills.”

Kera Peterson, president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which represents over 50,000 union members in Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties, urged custodians to keep up their fight – and reminded them that union members never fight alone.

“Our labor community will be here, standing in solidarity with the custodians in Chisago Lakes Schools, for as long as it takes,” she said.

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Strike vote nets Minneapolis laundry workers a better deal

November 3, 2021 by

Ehler Moo joins a union rally outside the Aramark laundry facility in Minneapolis.

After voting 97-1 to authorize a strike last week, laundry workers at Aramark’s northeast Minneapolis facility today accepted an improved offer from their employer, roughly doubling the wage increase included in the contract.

The laundry workers, members of CMRJB Workers United, had planned a rally this afternoon to alert the company they were ready to strike if negotiations over a new contract did not progress before Friday, when the previous agreement expires.

Instead, workers found themselves voting on a new offer, one that included annual wage increases of 75 cents – up from around 35 cents in previous offers, according to a representative of the union.

That’s a 5% raise for workers like Ehler Moo, who makes $15 per hour loading and offloading trucks at the facility, a job he has had for over five years. Moo, who lives in St. Paul, said he and other workers needed to see more money in their next contract to keep up with the rising cost of living.

“I live with my parents, and I have to take care of my parents,” Moo said. “I pay the electricity bill, other bills. We need more money.”

Aramark is a Fortune 500 food and facilities-service company that reported over $14 billion in revenues in 2018. Workers at its northeast Minneapolis site clean linens, towels and clothing for facilities in the area.

Aramark worker Rita Yee speaks to a TV reporter during the rally.

Starting pay at the laundry is between $14 and $15, workers said.

Rita Yee, who sorts towels and uniforms after they are laundered, said she still makes an hourly wage of $15 after nearly 14 years with the company. Some workers with more than 25 years of service make around $17 per hour, she added.

The work is hard, Yee said as she pointed to her back, which hurts as a result of lifting 50-pound hangers throughout the workday. She said she approached management about a raise after being moved into the position from a less taxing one, but her request was denied.

She will get that raise soon.

“Gas, groceries, everything is going up,” the St. Louis Park resident said. “Everyone is sticking together because we want more money.”

CMRJB Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), represents thousands of workers across the Midwest in laundries, hotels, hospitals, distribution centers, food service, apparel, textile factories, light manufacturing and other industries.

“You absolutely deserve a fair union contract,” Phillip Cryan, executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, told Aramark workers. “You deserve raises, and you deserve respect.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

Half Price Books workers in Roseville, St. Paul form unions

October 18, 2021 by

These Half Price Books workers fully support forming a union.

Workers at Half Price Books stores in St. Paul and Roseville marched on their bosses Thursday, demanding the bookseller recognize their union.

Afterward, several workers traveled to other Half Price Books locations in the metro, encouraging workers to join the union drive, supported by Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers and its sister local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663.

Workers said they are joining together to bargain higher wages – currently they earn $12.50 per hour – and gain more say over working conditions that have worsened since stores reopened after pandemic shutdowns.

Laura Peña, who works in the St. Paul store, said management has cut staffing in half, leaving employees to do double the work.

“We take in a lot of books all day, and at first, when there was lower staffing, there was a restriction on how many (books) people could bring in to sell,” Peña said. “Then corporate kept ramping things up, telling us to take in more and more, but it’s not like we had any more staff to back the ramping up.”

Peña said workers also hope to amend a post-pandemic policy that makes all new hires probationary for 90 days, keeping them ineligible for benefits.

For many Half Price Books workers, the pandemic brought into focus both how little regard the company has for their concerns and how unsustainable their jobs have become, said Aaron Kerr, who has 24 years of experience working in Half Price Books stores.

“For years prior, we were really kind of just putting up with it, just accepting this as the way things are,” Kerr said. “And we would see so much turnover. People were saying, ‘I love this job, but I can’t afford to work here.’

“We all love our customers. We love being booksellers, and we want to continue being booksellers. We look forward to negotiating with Half Price Books to make our stores a great place to work and a great place for customers to come into.”

[Click here to sign a petition supporting Half Price Books workers’ organizing drive.]

Half Price books calls itself the nation’s largest family-owned retailer for new and used books, and successful organizing drives in Minnesota could give the UFCW a toehold in the chain of over 120 stores.

All 16 booksellers and shift leads at the Roseville store signed union cards, as did an overwhelming majority of employees in the St. Paul store, located in Highland Park.

Kerr and other Roseville employees began considering a union after surviving a round of layoffs that, to them, seemed unnecessary, given the availability of paycheck protection loans.

In May of this year, after the Center for Disease Control changed its masking guidelines, employees in Roseville sent a petition asking the company to hold off on lifting its in-store mask mandates. Half Price Books brushed it aside and lifted the mandate anyway.

“None of us wanted that,” Kerr said. “They lifted it without consulting the employees. They did it at a time when other big companies, like Target, were not.”

Half Price Books executives won’t so easily ignore workers’ petition for a union election. Perhaps by coincidence, the company’s district manager was in Highland Park when workers there marched on the boss, according to Peña.

“We were nervous, but I was glad we all had each other’s backs,” she said.

“We are prepared for the worst,” Kerr said. “But we’re already very organized, getting more organized and making more connections every day.”

UPDATE 10/19/21: Workers at a third Twin Cities store, in Coon Rapids, marched on their boss today, demanding recognition of their union.

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As driver shortage hampers start of school, unions point to low pay, benefits

September 22, 2021 by

A shortage of school bus drivers hampered the start of school in St. Paul and districts across the state this fall, but it came as no surprise to local union leaders, who have long pushed officials to head off the crisis with better wages and benefits, including unemployment insurance.

“We can fix this problem, but first we have to understand what caused the shortage,” said Teresa Jakubowski, a driver in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district. “If we want to get out of this mess, it has to be done with higher wages, better benefits and access to unemployment benefits.”

A steward with Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union, Jakubowski spoke with reporters during a virtual press conference arranged by her union as school districts scrambled to address the driver shortage.

In the St. Paul Public Schools, administrators abruptly changed start times the week before school was to begin. Families in several districts reported finding out they would temporarily need to arrange transportation to and from school for their children.

Teamsters Local 320, which represents transportation workers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, said the bargaining unit, which typically includes about 170 workers, was down to 90.

“This is not a bus driver shortage; this is a bus driver crisis,” Local 320 Communications Director Gus Froemke said. “People are on the edge.”

Split shifts, limited hours

Typical wages for drivers are $17 to $20 per hour, according to Local 284 President Kelly Gibbons, who drove bus for 18 years in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools.

But driving bus is part-time work, and the split between morning and afternoon shifts makes it hard for bus drivers to supplement their income with a second job. Drivers often must build up seniority to bid for additional duties, like field trips and extracurricular routes, Gibbons added.

“Sometimes a beginning bus driver can’t get more than four hours a day,” she said. “Who can live on four hours a day?

“You come in the morning, and you come in the afternoon. It’s split up, there’s down time in between and sometimes there’s not enough time even to go home. Some drivers are just sitting in the transportation center, not getting paid.”

In the Rosemount district, Jakubowski said, drivers see just four full paychecks per year, with scheduled school breaks, cancelations and holidays cutting into the rest. Drivers able to work in the summer see their hours cut in half, she said.

Long fight for UI

Access to unemployment insurance would help retain drivers through the lean times, advocates said.

While construction workers, landscapers, resort workers and other seasonal employees are eligible for unemployment, hourly school employees are not, according to the state’s unemployment statute, because they have a “reasonable assurance” of returning to work.

Earlier this year, the DFL-controlled House included language reversing that policy in its jobs bill, but a lobbying group for school districts succeeded in keeping it out of the Senate bill. The measure never made it to Gov. Tim Walz’s desk.

Gibbons did not mince words in pinning partial responsibility for the transportation crisis facing local districts on the administrators and lawmakers who blocked the unemployment measure.

“This is a discriminatory law, and it’s time to make real positive change for the workers, for the kids and for the school districts we represent,” Gibbons said. “Our members were on the front line every single day since this pandemic started. Our members have gotten sick. They’ve had long-term effects of COVID. Some have died.

“We need to make sure they are respected, valued and paid.”

Pandemic makes things worse

Bus driver shortages plagued school districts before the pandemic, but COVID-19 exacerbated the problem everywhere. In a survey of school transportation providers conducted earlier this year by three industry groups, 78% of respondents indicated the shortage is getting worse.

Jakubowski said many drivers who left her district were people who previously retired from a different career and had taken jobs as drivers to keep busy and serve their community. But when the pandemic hit, the risks of continuing to drive outweighed the benefits.

“We’ve been relying on (previously retired workers) for a long time, and we shouldn’t be,” Jakubowski said. “We need to bring in new workers who are younger, who will be there for a lot longer.”

That means anteing up for higher wages and better benefits.

“The people who safely drive your children to and from school should be valued, full-time employees with a livable wage,” Jakubowski said. “That would allow us to draw new employees from all age groups.”

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

Strikes surge nationwide

March 2, 2020 by

About 4,000 janitors across the Twin Cities, members of SEIU Local 26, went on a 24-hour strike over unfair labor practices last week.

Some 4,000 Twin Cities janitors walked off the job Feb. 27 for higher wages, paid sick days and other demands.

HealthPartners brought 1,800 nurses, technicians and other caregivers at its metro-area clinics to the brink of a strike before reaching a last-minute deal.

And next Tuesday, 3,600 union educators, frustrated by the district’s refusal to consider their student-centered contract proposals, could go on strike in St. Paul.

Strikes have been in the news a lot here lately, but it’s not just a local phenomenon.

According to labor market statistics released by the federal government last month, the number of U.S. workers who participated in major strikes surged in 2018 and 2019.

On average over those two years, 455,500 workers joined major strikes or work stoppages involving 1,000 or more people. That’s the highest two-year average in 35 years, and more than the total number of striking workers in the previous six years combined.

The numbers suggest that, despite low unemployment and steady economic growth, the U.S. economy isn’t as great as some would claim, particularly not for working people.

St. Paul teachers Remi Eichten (L) and Mary Rddad prepare signs for a potential strike beginning March 10. The #RedForEd movement to restore public school funding sparked strikes across the country, with some 237,400 educators joining strikes in North Carolina, West Virginia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kentucky and Oregon last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, said the strike surge reflects a “sea change” taking place nationwide.

“Working people, completely fed up with an economic and political system that does not work for us, are turning to each other and using every tool at our disposal to win a better deal,” Trumka said. “Because of the courage of every worker who said enough is enough, we all stand on a stronger foundation today. Solidarity works. And we’re just getting started.”

Despite healthy corporate profits, wage growth has been slow since the economy emerged from the Great Recession. The 2017 tax cut, which President Trump promised would raise average household wages by $4,000, has overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy instead.

Youth climate strikers and other environmental activists picketed in solidarity with striking janitors, whose contract demands include getting contractors to commit to green cleaning practices.

Executive pay, meanwhile, continues to outpace the wages of average working people. In 2018, CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies earned, on average, 287 times more than the median employee.

Historically, worker frustration has boiled over onto the picket line when working people feel they have leverage, said historian Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.

The low unemployment rate likely has emboldened people to stand up for themselves and risk employer retaliation, knowing they can easily find another job. Frustration, meanwhile, has been building for decades, as gains in productivity have failed to trickle down into workers’ paychecks.

“Much of this productivity growth has also emanated from a growing intensification of work, which has made life on the job harder and more stressful,” Rachleff said. “So workers are not only generating more wealth, which is being captured by their employers, but they are also just plain working harder.”

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Hotel workers planning May Day march: ‘One job should be enough’

April 25, 2019 by

Ade Adigoun (L) and Jose Maquin

Last fall, nearly 8,000 Marriott workers in eight cities carried out the largest hotel strike in U.S. history. After two months on the picket lines, UNITE HERE members declared victory, ratifying new contracts that raised wages by as much as $4 an hour and established new protections against sexual harassment and assault on the job.

Marriott workers’ rallying cry – “One job should be enough!” – captured the struggle many families face to maintain healthy work-life balance. Wages aren’t keeping up with rising rents, health care costs and other expenses in many parts of the country, especially urban areas.

Now the slogan has been adopted by hotel workers in the Twin Cities, where 1,200 members of UNITE HERE Local 17 are bargaining contracts with eight hotels this spring. The union will mobilize hundreds of members and supporters for a march through the streets of downtown Minneapolis on International Workers’ Day, May 1, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in Peavey Plaza. (Click here for more information.)

In interviews, two hotel workers leading the contract campaign explained what’s at stake in this round of negotiations – and shared their experiences trying to survive on one job in our community. Jose Maquin of south Minneapolis has over 10 years’ experience working in hotels, most recently in room service at Hotel Ivy. Ade Adigoun of St. Louis Park has worked as a housekeeper at the Millennium Hotel for the last 15 years. Their remarks have been edited lightly for length and clarity.

UA: What issues are most important to you in this round of contract negotiations?

JM: Not so much my department, but housekeeping. Ninety percent of housekeepers are minorities or immigrants. They are the most vulnerable group of employees in a hotel. They work hard; I see that every day. And I see that they are shy, they are quiet and they don’t always feel comfortable speaking up when they are hurt or feel unsafe. And they often work paycheck to paycheck. I feel we need to stick together.

UA: What improvements are you seeking?

JM: Wages. The minimum wage is going up, and that is good. But I feel like housekeepers should earn higher than just the minimum. I make the minimum, and I’m OK with that because I get tips. Unfortunately, I don’t think people who stay at hotels think they should tip their housekeeper. Sometimes they do, but housekeepers should be compensated better.

UA: The slogan of the May 1 march is “One job should be enough.” How hard is it for you and your co-workers to survive on one hotel job alone?

AA: People are doing two jobs because the hotels are not paying enough money. I’ve been working at Millennium for 15 years, and I still only make $15 an hour. It’s not enough; I’ve looked for a second job. People need to make $20, $25 an hour or more.

JM: I have two jobs. I have a baby with my wife. She works, and she just got a second job. We had to. It’s hard to survive without a second job. So when I hear “one job should be enough” – I wish that would be the case. If I’m absent from home because I have to work to survive, then I don’t have as much quality time with my baby.

When you think about it, there are so many social issues that arise because we are not able to spend time with our children, because we have to work a second shift. Otherwise, we won’t be able to eat or pay the mortgage or rent.

UA: As a union, you’ve reached out to workers in other unions for support. Why is that important?

AA: We have a lot of other union groups who want to support us, people who fight for good employment, good wages. We tell everyone, don’t just bring yourself. Bring your friends, your wife, your boyfriend, your kids – everyone who can walk.

JM: An issue like fair wages, it doesn’t affect just us. It affects everybody. As workers, we need to support each other in order to accomplish anything we want to accomplish.

UA: This is the highest-profile contract campaign at Twin Cities hotels in at least a decade. Is there a sense of urgency?

AA: In a day, we might make $100. But every day one housekeeper makes $3,000 for the hotel. You give me $100 out of $3,000 or more? That’s cheating. We want to eat a little of their cake…

JM: The hotels are making record profits. They have a lot of money. If we don’t ask them to share it with us, to give us a little part of the pie, they won’t.

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

Home care workers push Walz to address ‘crisis of care’ with higher wages

January 25, 2019 by

Home care workers and their clients plan to rally at the Capitol Thursday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m.

Home care workers in Minnesota are fighting for a $15 wage floor in ongoing contract negotiations with the state, and fighting alongside them are the clients and families they serve.

The connection is obvious to Lauren Thompson, a Minnesotan with cerebral palsy, who receives in-home care thanks to state and federal subsidies.

“Think about how you’d want to be cared for and the people you want taking care of you,” Thompson said. “A minimum wage of at least $15 an hour would start to create a stronger workforce. It would mean that good PCAs would be able to keep working.”

Thompson is part of a unique team bargaining on behalf of nearly 30,000 home care workers statewide. It not only includes members of the workers’ union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, but also the seniors, people with disabilities and families who rely on personal care to remain in their homes.

The united front reflects growing concern over a shortage of home care workers – there are currently 8,000 unfilled positions statewide, according to the union – at a time when the state’s population is aging.

The nonprofit research initiative Minnesota Compass projects the number of Minnesotans 65 and older will exceed those ages 5 to 17 for the first time ever “around 2020,” and nearly a third of people 65 and older have a disability.

The confluence of workforce and demographic trends amounts to a crisis, home care workers and clients warn. And addressing it starts with raising wages in the industry.

That’s the message they will deliver to lawmakers during a rally planned next Thursday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m. in the Capitol. [Click here to RSVP on Facebook.]

“We have a huge shortage of care workers in south central Minnesota where I live,” said Dalene Annen, a home care worker from Winnebago. “If we can win at least a $15 minimum wage in our new contract, it will give good people an incentive to be home care workers instead of choosing to work at the grocery store or fast food because they pay more.”

Annen and other workers hope one lawmaker, in particular, is paying attention next Thursday.

On the campaign trail, Gov. Tim Walz backed a $15 minimum wage for all workers. His administration’s contract negotiations with home care workers offer an early opportunity to back up talk with action.

In addition, home care workers say getting to $15 now would ensure their pay remains in step with rising minimum-wage rates in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where thousands of them work.

The current wage floor for home care workers in Minnesota is $12, and it’s risen steadily since workers formed a union with SEIU in 2014. The union also has won paid time off, holiday pay and increased training opportunities since organizing.

Yet in spite of those gains, too many Minnesotans still are not getting the care they need to stay in their homes. Patsy Gibson, a home care worker from Bloomington, hopes this is the year things change. 

“We are losing valuable people in such an important profession,” Gibson said. “I really hope our government is aware of what is happening… When we say we can only afford to pay poverty wages it means people’s lives are at stake. We need our governor and elected officials to help us get to a decent living wage.”

SEIU anticipates reaching a tentative agreement with the state’s Department of Management and Budget on a new two-year contract in the coming weeks, so that it can be included in Walz’s first two-year budget proposal, expected early next month.

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