For St. Paul city workers, bargaining shifted into high gear after Her took office

February 27, 2026 by

Members of AFSCME locals 1842 and 2508 held informational picketing three years ago during the mayor’s State of the City speech.

Clerical and technical workers at the City of St. Paul ratified new three-year contracts earlier this month after just three bargaining sessions, locking in wage increases that will ensure most union members earn $20 per hour by 2028.

Negotiations between the city and two AFSCME locals, which bargain in tandem on behalf of a combined 1,000 workers, progressed much faster than they did three years ago, when dragged on for six months, sparked informational picketing and required 60 hours with a state mediator.

Two key factors, union leaders said, contributed to the quicker resolution. Workers were fired up from the start to support their bargaining team, and St. Paul voters elected a new mayor, Koahly Her, who sought to get her relationship with city workers off on the right foot.

“Some things we can give the city credit for, and some things we can credit ourselves with doing well,” AFSCME Local 1842 President Isaac Mielke said.

In the end, the new contracts will deliver a $1 across-the-board wage increase April 1 and increases of 3% and 3.5% on Jan. 1 of the next two years. Workers also gained a floating holiday, bereavement leave and a deferred-compensation match.

What’s more, those gains came with no concessions, Local 2508 Treasurer Chelsea Beary said.

“What did we give up? Nothing,” she said. “We took back some of our initial proposals, but the city didn’t add anything. There weren’t any real carveouts or concessions, and we’re really proud of that.”

The relationship between AFSCME – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – and city leadership has warmed significantly since last fall, when administrators surprised city workers and their unions with a list of proposed changes to its civil-service rules that they planned to implement by year’s end.

The proposal, which administrators told union leaders they had been working on for about three years, sparked outrage – and action – among AFSCME members, who had already been organizing in opposition to then-Mayor Melvin Carter’s proposed staffing cuts at rec centers and a library.

Locals 1842 and 2508 began gathering support from city unions for a letter to council members opposing the civil-service changes, which would have doubled the probationary period, shortened the timeline for unions to file grievances and lifted guidelines for management in responding to worker complaints, among other changes.

“I think every city local was extremely concerned, and we all hit the ground running, talking to city council members to say this is not how you make these changes,” said Beary, an executive assistant in the Parks Department. “This is something we’re going to negotiate.”

Meanwhile, about 50 AFSCME members showed up to the city’s Truth in Taxation hearing Nov. 25 to oppose the staffing cuts.

“We wanted to do something proactive for these negotiations,” Mielke, a library associate, said. “It turned out, we got a lot of support from community members at that hearing, even people there to talk about other issues. And we won that budget fight.”

Unions won the fight over civil-service rules, too, and they took that momentum into contract talks with the city.

Labor Relations representatives were dismissive, Mielke and Beary said, of AFSCME’s proposals in two bargaining sessions before Carter left office, but that changed in their first – and only – session after Her’s inauguration in January.

“There was an immediate kind of visual change because the city literally brought us donuts,” Beary said. “We met for nine hours, but it became clear as the day went on that the city (representatives) were there to wrap this up.”

After union members voted to ratify the contracts, several members of the bargaining unit who were not signed up as AFSCME members showed their enthusiasm by joining the union, Mielke said.

“Right after we reached the tentative agreement, [Parks and Recreation] had their staff day, and we signed up 11 new members that day alone,” he said. “It’s really exciting.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Worker advocates welcome St. Paul’s new wage theft law

December 10, 2024 by

Supporters of a measure to crack down on wage theft were pictured during a rally at the Minnesota Capitol in 2019.

St. Paul will have a new wage theft ordinance on the books Jan. 1.

The measure, pushed by Mayor Melvin Carter and co-authored by all seven members of the City Council, drew praise from labor leaders and worker advocates as a step toward more robust, efficient protections for people working in the capital city.

Construction and service-industry unions, in particular, pushed city officials to add wage theft to the scope of its labor enforcement work.

At a public hearing on the ordinance in October, Carpenters Local 322 member Saben De Smet called wage theft a “competing business model” for too many developers and non-union contractors in his industry.

“Here in Minnesota, a construction contractor using a wage-theft model can underbid other contractors – whether union or non-union – by up to 20%,” De Smet told council members. “This is because they avoid paying worker compensation, unemployment insurance and other costs associated with being above board.

“This is both a leveling of the playing field and a human-rights issue for us.”

Wage theft has come under increased public scrutiny in recent years, after a 2014 report by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that it costs U.S. workers more than $50 billion annually. In Ramsey and Hennepin counties alone, construction workers lose $3 million to wage theft each year, according to a 2022 report authorized by the county attorneys offices.

“If someone was to shoplift or steal a car, you’d expect them to get arrested or get in trouble,” Ironworkers Local 512 member Nick Petrucelle, a co-chair of Minnesota’s Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, told council members. “But employers, they can rip off their employees, they can steal their wages, and it’s really hard to do anything about it.”

St. Paul’s new ordinance largely aligns with state legislation passed in Minnesota five years ago. Hailed at the time as the nation’s toughest wage theft law, it gave state regulators and the Attorney General new powers to investigate wage theft and created stiffer penalties, both civil and criminal.

While St. Paul’s ordinance does not create new requirements for employers, it does complement the city’s unique minimum wage and earned-sick-and-safe-time laws, advocates on the city’s Labor Standards Advisory Committee (LSAC) said.

“City staff should be able to resolve all of these issues together in one package,” LSAC member Rick Varco, political director for SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, told council members.

Varco noted that city investigators pursuing a minimum-wage complaint are well positioned to identify other forms of wage theft, too. But without an ordinance on the books, the city must turn the matter over to state regulators.

“This is better for workers who don’t have to navigate one more bureaucratic maze,” he said. “It is better for employers, especially those who fail through ignorance or capacity issues, to have one stop that can get them back on the right track.”

The city’s Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity (HREEO) will begin handling wage theft complaints when the new ordinance takes effect Jan. 1.

Wage theft occurs any time employers fail to pay wages employees are legally entitled to, including paying below minimum wage, not paying overtime, requiring work without pay, denying legal breaks, misclassification, withholding tips, failing to pay fringe benefits and making illegal payroll deductions.

“Wage theft is one of the largest types of theft in our country and is a pervasive and systemic problem throughout Minnesota,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said. “It affects workers in all sectors of our economy. This ordinance helps to make workers in Saint Paul more secure and helps level the playing field for employers who are following our state laws and local ordinances.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Labor nonprofit helps OPEIU, HealthPartners bring learn-and-earn training to life

July 21, 2023 by

Supporters of the clinic assistant training program joined a celebration and press conference June 29. Pictured (L to R) are Jeff Ambroz, Kelsie Anderson, Mayor Melvin Carter and HealthPartners’ Lynzee Herfindahl and James McClean. (OPEIU photo)

Office and Professional Employees Local 12 and the Minnesota Training Partnership have tapped federal pandemic-relief funds to launch an earn-while-you-learn training program that will prepare young workers for in-demand jobs as clinic assistants with HealthPartners and other providers.

The program is open to Ramsey County residents ages 18 to 30. Coursework will take place both online and in person over the course of eight to 12 weeks, beginning in September. And best of all, participants will get a weekly stipend – the equivalent of $15 per hour over a 32-hour workweek – as they complete the training and search for jobs.

The clinic assistant program is among the training opportunities sponsored by Ramsey County’s new Learn and Earn Initiative, a joint venture with the City of Saint Paul that will invest $14.65 million in American Rescue Plan funds toward workforce development.

Officials announced the new training opportunities at a press conference in downtown St. Paul June 29.

Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran, who took a lead role in the city-county collaboration, said Learn and Earn partner agencies will provide 700 young workers with training in entrepreneurship, information technology, tree care, diesel technology and other fields over the next two years.

“That’s a true impact,” Moran said. “We are so excited to see the amazing impact that these investments will have on our young residents – and what that will bring to all of us in Ramsey County.”

“The work that we’re doing together with our federal partners, with our county partners, with the nonprofit folks … this work is critical,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said, adding that the program represents “democratized, equitable opportunity” for communities that have long faced institutional barriers to prosperity.

Offering a stipend to trainees removes a significant barrier for many jobseekers, Minnesota Training Partnership (MTP) Director of Develop-ment and Communications Jeff Ambroz said. MTP is the county’s nonprofit partner for the clinic assistant program.

“It’s going to open doors for a lot more people to participate,” he said. “For many young adults looking to enter a training program like this without a stipend, they would have to find a way to pay the rent, make the car payment or maybe cover child care. Most lower- to middle-income people can’t do that.

“This paid training program will give people a chance to get on the path to a great career, and we definitely wanted to be part of that.”

OPEIU Local 12 members who work at HealthPartners – which supported development of the clinic assistant training program – earn over $20 per hour to start, with industry-leading health benefits.

But like so many employers in recent years, HealthPartners has struggled with staffing shortfalls, Local 12 Business Representative Kelsie Anderson said. Finding qualified clinic assistants, who check in patients at the front desk, answer phones and handle other clerical work, has been particularly challenging since the COVID outbreak.

It’s become a point of frustration for other clinic workers, too.

“HealthPartners kept telling us there’s not any qualified candidates that are applying for this position,” said Anderson, who was a longtime HealthPartners employee before taking a position with her union. “And because we’re so short staffed, I’m not sure if HealthPartners is giving the best training opportunities to the people they do hire, because they don’t have the bodies to do it.”

Last year, when Ambroz checked in with Local 12 leaders about potential training ideas, the lightbulb went on. HealthPartners offered insight into the job description, and MTP enlisted St. Paul College to help build the right curriculum.

Ambroz said the clinic assistant training program is exactly the type of venture that leaders of the Minnesota AFL-CIO had in mind when they founded the Minnesota Training Partnership as a nonprofit organization in 2019.

“Union leaders have so many great ideas about ways to help their members build up their skills,” Ambroz said. “We try to find ways to find funding and help facilitate that, by letting them take the lead in a union-driven training.”

“Our union leadership has really emphasized training and education,” Anderson added. “But if it wasn’t for the Minnesota Training Partnership, we would never have been able to do this.”

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AFSCME members picket Carter’s State of the City speech

April 19, 2023 by

Members of AFSCME locals 1842 and 2508 picketed outside the Oxford Rec Center.

Clerical and technical workers staged informational picketing outside Mayor Melvin Carter’s State of the City address April 18, putting their frustration over a slow-moving round of contract negotiations on full public display.

“We have felt disrespected at the table,” Como Park horticulturist Bryn Fleming said. “Management has shown up late while we’ve been present. It’s disappointing that this is moving so slowly.”

Fleming is a chief steward with Local 1842 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), representing the city’s technical workers. With the clerical union, AFSCME Local 2508, the unions represent about 1,000 workers in talks that began in December.

AFSCME members’ previous, two-year contracts expired New Year’s Eve, and after six mostly fruitless bargaining sessions, the unions will enter mediation with the city May 8.

Union members’ top priorities in bargaining include 6% annual wage increases, affordable health benefits and safety on the job.

AFSCME members staff the city’s offices, libraries, rec centers and other facilities. Many who work in public-facing positions have described an alarming increase in threatening and violent behavior that leaves them feeling unsafe and understaffed, Fleming said.

“Folks in libraries have experienced assault, verbal abuse,” she said. “For folks in rec centers, it’s the same thing. Safety is a big concern, and we’re really trying to have stronger language on that in our contract. We have seen some movement, but we’d really like to have better collaboration.”

The city’s demands, meanwhile, have included elimination of AFSCME members’ promotional rights, which give union members a first shot at interviewing for certain job openings. Union members also have balked at a proposal to eliminate grievances over civil service violations and, instead, shift the process to a commission controlled by the city.

Those are non-starters for AFSCME’s bargaining team, Local 2508 President Jen Guertin said.

“We are the lowest-paid union members in the city,” she said. “For us to be able to promote up to a higher-wage job, that right to take a test and go to the top of a list for an interview, that’s our career path.”

Members of three unions – the Tri-Council – who work in St. Paul’s parks, public works and water departments ratified a new, three-year contract in March that will raise wages by up to 26%. But they took the city to the brink of a strike to get a deal done.

“We’re not there yet,” Guertin said. “We’re going to try mediation, and I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.”

With a mediator involved, Guertin and Fleming said, talks stand a better chance of starting on time and ending when they stop being productive, if nothing else.

“We would set the meeting to start at 5 p.m., and management wouldn’t come into the meeting until 5:30 or 5:45 – on the regular,” Guertin said. “Then we would pass an offer across the table, and they’d leave us sitting there for six or seven hours before coming back to say we can’t get anything done. What’s the point?”

By picketing the State of the City, union members hoped to put Carter on notice that they’re holding him accountable for the city’s lack of urgency.

“When we say things like we’re scared to go to work or we feel unsafe, we’d like to see somebody do something about that,” Fleming said. “And when we say we can’t pay our bills, we’d like to see somebody pay attention to that.

“I would love to feel like the mayor actually respects the work that we do and respects how difficult it can be.”

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After nearing strike at Allina, SEIU members at local hospitals ratify new contracts

April 21, 2021 by

Dee Tomic, a nursing assistant who volunteered to work in the COVID unit during the pandemic, chooses a picket sign. “I am disappointed – very – by these negotiations,” she said.

Earlier this month, essential workers at United Hospital and seven other Allina Health facilities were ready to strike for a fair contract that respects their service on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, the 4,000 members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota struck a last-minute agreement with Allina and overwhelmingly ratified the new contract.

“We fought hard to win a contract that respects, protects and pays the workers who provide the best patient care in the world,” said Lynn Carlson, a licensed practical nurse and member of the union’s bargaining team.

“The debt we owe to the frontline, essential workers who kept Minnesota safe and healthy over this last year is immense, and we still have work to do. But I’m proud that our members fought for and won this contract.”

Key gains won by Allina workers include a 5% pay increase over the course of the three-year agreement, including 3% in the first year, with back pay. Workers also will see a 9% pension increase over the next three years.

Hospital talks wrap

Earlier this spring, another group of 4,000 SEIU Healthcare members, after negotiations separate from the Allina table, approved new contracts with their hospital employers, including M Health Fairview and Children’s hospitals, North Memorial and Park Nicollet Methodist.

The three-year contracts include pay and pension increases of 7.5% over the course of the agreement, according to SEIU.

In addition, new contract language will address racial justice, equity and inclusion in the workplace, and seek to improve workplace safety. And a new action plan will provide union members an opportunity to address concerns around safe staffing.

“We’ve worked hard this last year to keep our patients safe, and that is why it was so critical to win the best contract we could,” Hope Dahn, a nursing assistant and Park Nicollet, said. “If you work in health care – no matter what your job is – you are part of the patient’s care. I think the unity shown by our members helped us get this great contract.”

Mayor Melvin Carter speaks during a rally outside United Hospital in St. Paul.

‘You’ve been through a war for us’

Allina workers appeared headed for an unfair-labor-practice (ULP) strike in early May, as talks broke down over the provider’s refusal to budge from a 0% wage increase in the first year of the contract.

Union members staged informational picketing outside several of Allina’s facilities, including United Hospital in downtown St. Paul April 21. Supporters from the labor community, including union nurses at the hospital, walked alongside SEIU members, as did several elected officials.

“You have been through a war for us through this pandemic,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told union members during a brief rally. “I see the trauma in your eyes. I see the hard work that you have given us, facing down this pandemic every single day.

“We know that we are in such a better place because you have stood between us and this crisis, and we’ve got to stand with you too.”

“You are essential workers, and you are essential to patient care with nurses,” United nurse Emily Sippola, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, told SEIU members. “We can’t do it without all of you, and we will have your back because we know we’re all stronger together for patient care.”

The Allina contract also covers workers at Abbott Northwestern, St. Francis, Mercy, Buffalo, Unity and Owatonna hospitals, as well as Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis.

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

Wage hike shows what’s possible when workers join together, think big

December 19, 2018 by

Working people celebrated at City Hall as Mayor Melvin Carter signed St. Paul’s new $15 minimum wage ordinance Nov. 14.

Six years ago, when fast food workers in New York and, later, cities across the country began striking and rallying in the streets for a $15 minimum wage, the idea was dismissed as too radical.

Today, it’s written into the City of St. Paul’s legislative code.

Members of the City Council voted unanimously Nov. 14 to phase in $15 for all workers – indexed to inflation – over the next nine years. Within minutes of the vote, Mayor Melvin Carter, who made $15 a rallying cry in his bid for office one year ago, had put his signature on the ordinance.

That set off a celebration like few others at City Hall, where many of the working people who led the fight for $15 had gathered to witness the historic moment.

Shalantra Taylor, who works at a McDonald’s in St. Paul and is looking for a second job to make ends meet, was among them. She thanked Carter and council members for “listening to workers, for standing with us.”

“I am homeless, and I’m not the only one,” Taylor said. “Many working people have to work multiple jobs and are still living paycheck to paycheck… This minimum wage law is going to lift up working people and address racial inequalities in our city.”

During a signing ceremony at City Hall, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter showed off the city’s new $15 minimum wage ordinance, which drew unanimous backing from members of the City Council.

Making history

Taylor and other workers never wavered in their demands, and they resisted efforts to divide them along the lines of age, experience or industry.

When the restaurant lobby pushed a subminimum wage for tipped workers, a coalition of worker, faith and community organizations pushed back – both in the streets and in formal meetings with elected officials. As a result, the so-called “tip adjustment” never even came up for a vote before the council, and it is not included in the new ordinance.

By the time the ordinance was introduced this fall, the 15 Now Coalition had gained the influence necessary to go toe-to-toe with powerful lobbying interests like the Minnesota Restaurant Association and big-box retailers. And it did so by fusing the energy of community members fighting entrenched poverty and racial disparities with the power of organized labor.

When those groups share a bold, progressive policy vision, labor historian Peter Rachleff said, it’s a recipe for making history.

“I think the fight for $15 nationally looks more like the fight for the eight-hour day and the fight against child labor than it looks like anything else in American history,” Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library, said.

All three movements were initially derided as too ambitious.

“People said it’s too much too fast, but it’s that kind of evocative vision” that inspired the fight for child labor laws and the eight-hour day, Rachleff said. And it’s a similarly bold vision inspiring workers to fight for $15 today.

“We’re not talking about 2 percent a year or a $2 raise,” Rachleff said. “By putting $15 up the flagpole, people felt it was worth fighting for. People could imagine their lives being changed by making that kind of money.”

In 2017, fast food workers went on a Labor Day strike to launch the campaign for $15 in St. Paul.

Labor support ‘essential’

From the earliest stages of the Fight for $15, unions in the Twin Cities have recognized the importance of fighting alongside workers, whether union or non-union, pushing for a higher minimum wage.

Union members marched alongside striking fast food workers in the early days of the campaign, and many labor organizations, including the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, helped make $15 a litmus test for candidates running for mayor in 2017.

“Raising the minimum wage, without a tip adjustment, was a fight our affiliate unions and delegates realized was essential to who we are,” St. Paul RLF President Bobby Kasper said. “The labor movement won’t remain relevant unless we’re fighting for all working people.”

After Carter announced plans to take on the issue in his first year in office, the St. Paul RLF began hosting weekly meetings with activists and organizers from the 15 Now coalition. Several union members sat on the study group whose recommendations formed the basis of the minimum wage ordinance.

Now that the ordinance has passed, the 15 Now coalition will focus on education and enforcement in St. Paul, with an eye on taking the movement statewide.

“It’s a really ambitious idea,” Rachleff said. “But the beauty of it is it will force people to do the kind of metro-outstate organizing we need so desperately, not just in Minnesota but also in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest.

“Those conversations don’t happen if there isn’t a focal point.”

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To stop cycle of cuts, St. Paul educators back levy referendum

October 25, 2018 by

spps-levy-logoJust months after emerging from a fractious round of contract negotiations, St. Paul educators, board members and administrators are pulling in the same direction this fall, urging voters to approve an operating levy worth an additional $18.6 million in annual school funding for the district.

The new funds would help the St. Paul Public Schools address revenue shortfalls that have forced over $50 million in programming, staff and other budget cuts over the last three years. This school year, the district shaved an additional $17.2 million from its budget.

A number of factors outside the district’s control have contributed to the budget woes, but the biggest factor, district leaders say, is the state government’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t kept pace with rising education costs. Mandated special education services, for example, cost the district $42 million more annually than the funding it receives to provide those services.

With so much uncertainty, SPPS Superintendent Joe Gothard said the levy increase would provide the district with greater budget stability, freeing schools and educators to focus less on where to cut and more on the students they serve.

“We have great work happening every day in our schools, but it is a challenge to sustain our efforts,” Gothard said. “We see this levy as a investment in making sure St. Paul continues to be a great place to live, work and learn.”

Members of the St. Paul educators’ union began mobilizing in support of the levy as the new school year began, pursuing an ambitious plan to knock the door of every educator living in the district. Beth Swanberg, a music teacher at Highland Park Middle School, said her conversations at the doors have been positive.

“People in St. Paul are supportive of public schools,” Swanberg said. “There is a history of quality education here, and people have told me they want to continue that.”

A game of ‘what if?’

Indeed, the stakes are high for students, parents and educators. Long gone are the days when districts like St. Paul went to voters with levy requests to fund the extras that might enrich their schools’ programming.

“Now we’re trying to do a levy referendum to make up for the cuts that have come down from our state Legislature,” union president Nick Faber said.

Last month the North Star Policy Institute unveiled a new report, “Minnesota Backslide,” that charts the decline in state funding to local school districts. Researchers found 93 percent of school districts statewide are receiving less aid today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than in 2003, when state lawmakers overhauled the school funding system. In half of districts statewide, state funding has dropped by more than 10 percent.

The state’s failure to keep school funding steady has forced most school districts to seek property-tax levies to bridge the gap.

St. Paul is no exception. If state funding had kept up with inflation over the past 15 years, SPPS would have received nearly $620 more per student this year. That’s a total of $21.6 million in lost funds – a number that leaves a lot of educators wondering “what if?”

“If we could actually start to recoup the funding that we’ve lost over the last 20 years and have that referendum on top of it, imagine the things that we could do,” Faber said. “With the knowledge that our educators have here in St. Paul, with their willingness to tackle racial equity head on, we could accomplish so much with that kind of funding.”

“I often wonder what I would request for my students if we had more funds, and it’s hard to even imagine because I’m so used to not having any extras,” Highland Park Middle School teacher Leah VanDassor said. “It’s been so many years of cuts, cuts, cuts at every level.”

VanDassor, Swanberg and other St. Paul educators aren’t just talking with voters about the levy. They are also trying to paint the bigger picture, urging support for labor-endorsed candidates at the top of the ballot who will reinvest in public schools. That includes Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor.

But VanDassor acknowledged “any fundamental change will not be fast,” and the immediate needs of her students are great.

Trusting the voters

The levy campaign has broad support from the community. The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation has endorsed it, and so has St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who called SPPS the “lifeblood” of his community.

Only a year removed from campaigning citywide for the mayor’s office, Carter said he has faith people living in the school district will join him in voting “yes.” The investment, Carter added, goes hand in hand with his administration’s work to realign city programming to meet the needs of St. Paul’s changing population – and include more voices.

“We’re not just going to say we can do more for our children,” he said. “We’re actually going to do more for our children.

“I’m confident the city will step forward.”

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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.”

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

Women workers take on MN restaurant lobby over tip penalty

June 28, 2018 by

St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman joins a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul.

Women workers delivered a message to the state’s powerful restaurant lobby yesterday that an attack on tipped workers’ wages is an attack on women.

Tipped workers joined union members and other supporters in a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul, where the women staged a rally and delivered a letter demanding the organization end its campaign to carve out a subminimum “tipped wage” in St. Paul.

“I want to keep one fair wage in my industry,” St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman told other activists at the rally. “I want the MRA out of the way, and to stop putting profits over people.”

Mayor Melvin Carter, who made a $15 citywide minimum wage the centerpiece of his 2017 election campaign, wants an ordinance on the books by the end of the year. Among the biggest questions he and City Council members face in drafting the ordinance is whether to include a tipped wage.

MRA is lobbying hard for a carve-out, as the organization does any time elected officials consider raising the minimum wage. (The MRA also supports a statewide law stripping cities like St. Paul of the power to raise labor standards in their communities.)

Minnesota is one of seven states without a “tip penalty,” which allows restaurants and bars to pay workers a lower wage as long as they make up the difference in tips. Not only is the arrangement highly susceptible to wage theft, but it also puts servers and bartenders – 70 percent of whom are women – at a greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment and abusive behavior.

Zuckerman, who has five years of experience in the industry, said she’s been hit on by customers and harassed by managers.

“Skewed power dynamics,” she said, are a big part of restaurant culture. The more reliant workers are on tips, the less likely they are to push back.

“Men who are already feel entitled treat female workers even worse knowing that they hold so much over us, as the minimum wage now is not enough and we need tips to survive,” she said. “The Minnesota Restaurant Association knows that making us rely on tips means workers are disempowered, and they just don’t care.”

A restaurant owner from Seattle, where the minimum wage is on track to reach $15, also spoke at the rally. Shirley Henderson urged St. Paul servers not to buy into the MRA’s warnings that service jobs will disappear or customers will stop tipping if servers’ wages increase.

“In Seattle, groups like the MRA use the same fear-mongering about $15,” Henderson said. “The sky is not falling in Seattle. Small business is thriving.”

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

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

March 23, 2018 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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