Bobby Kasper: Raising wages starts at home

February 5, 2018 by

Bobby Kasper

Unemployment is down. Corporate earnings are up. But for most hardworking Americans, wages aren’t going anywhere.

Congress and President Trump say their $1.5 trillion tax plan will shift wage growth out of neutral. Working people see the tax scam for what it is: a massive and deeply corrupt giveaway to millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations. With the gap between rich and poor as large as it’s been since the Great Depression, politicians in Washington are only rigging the game even more.

Here in St. Paul, we can cross our fingers and wait for corporate tax cuts to trickle down into our paychecks, or we can take matters into our own hands. We can cut through federal inaction by passing a $15 minimum wage that ensures no one working in our city lives in poverty.

The labor movement has a long history of backing legislation that improves working people’s lives, from the eight-hour day to child labor laws. Today, unions carry on the work of raising standards for all workers, whether they hold a union card or not. That’s why unions in St. Paul are leading the campaign for one fair minimum wage in our city, with no penalty for tipped workers.

Poverty wages are the biggest barrier to realizing our self-styled billing as the most livable city in America. St. Paul boasts an unemployment rate well below the national average, but an estimated 40 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty.

Too many jobs in our community aren’t paying wages that reflect the cost of living here. The state Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates people working full-time, year-round jobs must earn $15.31 per hour to meet their basic needs in Ramsey County. Anyone earning less is forced to make impossible choices. Do I pay the rent or buy groceries? Fill my prescription or my gas tank?

Too often, those choices fall on women and people of color. Poverty wages exacerbate our region’s yawning economic disparities along gender and racial lines. Poverty rates among workers of color are nearly four times higher than white workers in the metro area. Raising the wage to $15 is the single most effective way our elected officials can narrow the gap.

Working people in St. Paul deserve to see their wages keep pace with those in Minneapolis, where all workers are on track to make $15 by 2024. Expect low-wage employers and their front groups to trot out the same tired arguments and doomsday scenarios here as they did in Minneapolis. By now, you’ve heard them all – businesses will pick up and leave, employers will cut hours, the restaurant scene will wither.

Don’t buy it. Minnesota’s economy has thrived since Gov. Mark Dayton signed the statewide minimum-wage hike in 2014. Back then, the restaurant industry warned of layoffs and closings if the legislation passed. Today, business is booming in the restaurant industry, with job openings up 75 percent over the past year in the metro area. Cities and states across the country are raising the minimum wage gradually and prudently, without any signs of economic contraction. There’s no reason we can’t do the same in St. Paul.

Poverty wages are a real crisis in St. Paul, one that should be at the top of our city’s agenda in 2018. Mayor-elect Melvin Carter’s support for $15, both during the campaign and since his election, is encouraging. But working people have waited too long already for the gains of this economic recovery to trickle down into our paychecks. It’s time to turn promises into a concrete timeline for action. St. Paul needs a $15 minimum wage ordinance by next summer.

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, representing more than 100 affiliate unions with over 50,000 members in Ramsey, Washington, Dakota and Chisago counties.

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One Fair Wage or tip penalty? Debate splits St. Paul service industry

January 24, 2018 by

The minimum wage debate in St. Paul has only begun, and already tipped workers are at the forefront.

Two public events this month exposed a divide within the restaurant industry over whether employers should be allowed to pay less than minimum wage, as long as workers make up the difference in tip income.

Proponents call it a “tip credit.” Opponents call it a “tip penalty.”

Whatever it’s called, Minnesota is one of just seven states without one, and that won’t change as Minneapolis’ citywide minimum wage edges closer to $15 over the next six years.

But it’s not for the restaurant industry’s lack of trying. Employers lobbied fiercely for a tip penalty last year in Minneapolis. At the Capitol, they backed Republican lawmakers’ bill to block cities from passing minimum-wage ordinances.

So it’s unlikely the restaurant industry will sit on the sidelines as St. Paul’s newly elected mayor, Melvin Carter, looks to deliver on his campaign pledge to make $15 a reality in the capital city.

A push for ‘one fair wage’

Unions and worker advocacy groups like the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, which is organizing tipped workers in St. Paul, oppose a two-tier wage system. They argue it leaves behind the very workers a minimum-wage increase is supposed to benefit.

“If your business is on the verge of closing because your workers demand to be paid an equitable wage, then you need to think twice about your business model,” said Steven Lewer, a server who lives and works in St. Paul and a supporter of maintaining one fair wage in his industry.

Government data shows job growth in the restaurant industry is outpacing any other area of the economy, but average earnings in the industry – $22,350 per year for full-service waitstaff in Minnesota – are stuck at the poverty level.

That’s why lawmakers in New York, Michigan and elsewhere are moving to roll back tip penalties, ROC United President Saru Jayaraman told tipped workers gathered at the St. Paul Labor Center Jan. 17.

“You as a state have been a shining example for the rest of us,” Jayaraman said. “Why would we consider going backward in St. Paul when the rest of the country is going forward?”

ROC United’s Saru Jayaraman talked with tipped workers supporting one fair wage in St. Paul.

An imbalance of power

Jayaraman presented evidence that restaurant workers in states with a tip penalty experience sexual harassment at nearly double the rate of their counterparts in states like Minnesota. The connection between tipping and harassment isn’t hard to understand, St. Paul server Sarah Kopp-Reddy said.

“When tipped workers rely too heavily on tips, it becomes a lot easier for power dynamics to be thrown off,” Kopp-Reddy said. “When power dynamics are off, servers put up with a lot more. The customer can truly never be wrong.”

Restaurant workers in the U.S. already experience sexual harassment more frequently than workers in any other industry, according to a Buzzfeed analysis of complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A ROC United survey found 90 percent of women working in the restaurant industry have experienced sexual harassment.

Many employers in the industry, Lewer said, take advantage of workers’ reliance on tips to create a “toxic work environment.”

“Employers will say you’re not smiling enough, or you need to be able to take this harassment you’re getting at the table,” Lewer said. “You’re going to view those things as OK because you need the job, you need the tips. That’s not the way a working environment should exist.”

A split among servers

Lewer and Kopp-Reddy, both 28, see growing support among tipped workers in St. Paul for an ordinance establishing one fair wage, but they acknowledged support is far from universal.

Proponents of the tip penalty staged a public event Jan. 8 at a Cathedral Hill bar, where restaurant owners and staff made the case for paying tipped workers less. Several servers and bartenders expressed concern that their employers would not be able to absorb a higher minimum wage, or that patrons would no longer leave tips.

One shift manager from a bar on West 7th Street spoke on behalf of his wife, a server who, when it comes to higher wages, “doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it.” A bartender from Minneapolis said he’s looking for work in St. Paul now that his hourly wage is on track to increase annually. The owner of a Como Park eatery warned that iPads could replace waitstaff if their wages go up.

Doomsday predictions and scare tactics are a permanent fixture of the minimum wage debate, Jayaraman said, but they aren’t backed up by empirical evidence.

Look no further than Minnesota’s own restaurant industry. The state’s minimum wage has increased by 33 percent since 2014, when state lawmakers passed the first increase in decades. Despite dire warnings from industry lobbyists during the legislative process, employment in restaurants and bars has grown by over 16,000  since 2014, according to data compiled by the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development. On average, people working in restaurants are earning $57 more per week.

“Tipping isn’t going to go away” as the minimum wage goes up, Jayaraman said. “But no amount of evidence seems to overcome fear.

“What we’re trying to do is offer hope, to let people know that there’s a beautiful future on the horizon in which we, as tipped workers, are treated as the professionals we truly are.”

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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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Mayor’s race divides St. Paul unions

October 24, 2017 by

R to L: Melvin Carter, Pat Harris and Dai Thao.

It was no coincidence that Republican majorities in the Minnesota Legislature last session made stripping power from local governments one of their top priorities.

Frustrated by political gridlock at the state and federal levels, working people in Minnesota and beyond are building powerful coalitions to make their voices heard in local government, and their elected officials have been paying attention.

Municipalities across the country are taking action on issues where state and federal progress has stalled, like raising the minimum wage, expanding access to earned sick time and combating wage theft.

The momentum behind these local organizing efforts has prompted at least one Minnesota union to recalibrate its focus.

“We can’t count on federal lawmakers to help us with any of our issues, and the state is real iffy,” Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said. “So our interest has been turned onto city races.”

The MNA took a big step this year when it endorsed a candidate for mayor of St. Paul. It marks the first time in the union’s history that it has endorsed a candidate for office in the city.

Several other labor groups, including AFSCME Council 5, the Building and Construction Trades Council, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and Teamsters Local 120, have endorsed candidates in the Nov. 7 election to succeed outgoing Mayor Chris Coleman.

After taking office in 2006, Coleman enjoyed broad labor support in two re-election campaigns, including the endorsement of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, with over 100 affiliate unions. The federation has not endorsed a candidate for mayor this year, but it’s not for lack of good options, President Bobby Kasper said.

“Our federation hosted one of the city’s first mayoral debates last spring, and I was encouraged to see unanimous support among the candidates for a $15 minimum wage and other measures that will lift up working people,” Kasper said. “Labor may not be united behind one candidate this year, but whoever wins can be sure we will be united with our faith and community partners at City Hall next year.”

Candidates for mayor who have won union endorsements include:

Melvin Carter

A former member of the City Council representing Ward 1, Carter resigned to take a job advising Gov. Mark Dayton on education policy. That work was a big reason Carter won endorsement from the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, president Nick Faber said.

“The heart of what we’re pushing for is full funding for racial equity in our schools, and we can’t do that without a mayor who understands the issue,” Faber said. “Even if the mayor’s relationship to education is distant, having an ally in that office is going to mean a lot.”

For members of AFSCME Council 5, which represents people who work City of St. Paul’s parks, libraries, permitting offices and beyond, the mayor’s race has a much more direct impact. Denna Thurmond, a member of AFSCME Local 2829 who lives in St. Paul’s North End, said she supports Carter, in part, because he has been a “champion for workers and public employees.”

“His dad was a public worker,” she added. “I’ve been canvassing with his campaign, and Melvin is a very down-to-earth individual who relates to working people, who understands and sympathizes with people because he’s been there. His experiences make it easy for him to identify with people like us.”

Pat Harris

Another former council member, Pat Harris represented Ward 3 from 2000 to 2012. He currently serves on the Metropolitan Airports Commission and works as a vice president for BMO Harris Bank specializing in government banking.

Harris’ expertise in public finance – a critical part of urban development that puts union tradespeople to work – attracted support from the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council and its affiliate craft unions.

“What put Pat over the top for us was his ability and understanding of businesses and financing and getting projects done,” Brian Winkelaar, political director for Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said.

Winkelaar pointed to Harris’ push for project labor agreements that ensure labor peace on construction projects at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. “There’s a lot of building going on at the airport, and those agreements are extremely helpful for our members,” Winkelaar said.

In his role on the MAC, Harris also helped pass an airport-wide minimum wage $1 higher than the state’s, and he pushed for a labor-peace agreement with the airport’s concessionaires. That impressed Paul Slattery of Teamsters Local 120, which pushed in vain for a similar agreement governing organized trash collection in St. Paul.

“Organizing workers under a labor-peace agreement is a lot easier,” Slattery said. “And all the candidates say they’re behind $15 in St. Paul, but Pat actually did something at the airport.”

Dai Thao

Ward 1 Council Member Dai Thao picked up the nurses’ endorsement, MNA President Turner said, because of his leadership in passing the nation’s strongest earned sick and safe time ordinance last year.

Nurses also asked mayoral candidates to offer ways they could support efforts to improve staffing at hospitals and protect nurses from violence in the workplace – two of the union’s top legislative priorities.

“Dai Thao was the one who said even though the city can’t write new laws, as mayor he can bring together people and organizations that could be instrumental in helping educate the community on these issues,” Turner said. “He was the only one who came up with a plan rather than just checking the box saying, ‘Yes, I agree with you.’

“That made a difference.”

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Noel Nix is labor’s choice in St. Paul’s Ward 1 race

October 31, 2013 by
Members of Teamsters Local 120 volunteer to knock doors in St. Paul’s Ward 1 for labor-endorsed candidate Noel Nix. Pictured L to R: Ben Alvarado, Paul Slattery, Noel Nix, Will Hassard and Marty Brinkman. (submitted photo)

Members of Teamsters Local 120 volunteer for labor-endorsed candidate Noel Nix. Pictured L to R: Ben Alvarado, Paul Slattery, Noel Nix, Will Hassard and Marty Brinkman. (submitted photo)

Noel Nix is a familiar face to residents of St. Paul’s Ward 1, and he is the labor-endorsed candidate in a special election to fill the ward’s seat on the St. Paul City Council this year.

Nix worked as an aide to former Council Member Melvin Carter, who stepped down earlier this year, setting the stage for the special election Nov. 5. Nix believes the experience he gained working with Carter, who has taken an education-related position with the State of Minnesota, makes him the right choice for union voters.

“I’ve been working with community leaders, residents, business owners, non-profits and residents to tackle the challenges that are continuing to hold our neighborhoods back – and lead our neighborhoods to the places we want to take them over the next few years and over the next generation,” Nix said.

It’s a pivotal time for Ward 1, with the Central Corridor light-rail line opening soon. Nix sees an opportunity for economic development along the so-called “Green Line.”

He also has experience working with city staff. “I understand the ins and outs of the work they do to keep our city moving forward and running well,” he said.

He comes from a union background, having grown up in Flint, Mich. “My aunts, uncles, cousins and even my mom all worked for General Motors, and my mom was a labor attorney for much of her career, working with the United Auto Workers.

“For me, the fight for workers rights, the importance of ensuring that working families receive a good wage for an honest day’s work is just part and parcel of who I am.”

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