A $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis? Backers look to Seattle for blueprint

February 16, 2015 by
Kip Hedges, a former baggage handler fired by Delta for publicly supporting 15 Now, addressed a meeting in Minneapolis Sunday night.

Kip Hedges, a baggage handler fired by Delta for publicly supporting 15 Now, spoke during the coalition’s meeting in Minneapolis Sunday night.

More than 100 activists gathered in a Minneapolis union hall last night to begin the work of raising the minimum wage within city limits to $15 per hour.

Lest anyone suggest tempering expectations, 15 Now organizers invited Kshama Sawant, the city council member who spearheaded Seattle’s successful fight for $15 just over a year ago, to recount how labor, faith and community activists there turned an improbable goal into a reality for working people.

“Minneapolis is one of the cities that is poised to win $15 this year,” Sawant told activists. “Let the fight for $15 in Seattle be your guide, that with only one member of the City Council (initially supportive), we were able to get this done.”

Indeed, Seattle’s minimum wage will jump from $9.47 an hour to $11 an hour April 1, and it’s slated to reach $15 by 2021 at the latest. Sawant, an economics professor who upset a four-term incumbent on the Council, said the minimum-wage hike could lift as many as 100,000 workers out of poverty.

“Ultimately, what we are talking about are real people,” she said. “These are the people who make this city run. Just imagine if all of them decided not to go to work on one day. The city would shut down.”

Seattle City Council Member Ksharma Sawant addressed 15 Now supporters in Minneapolis.

Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant addressed 15 Now supporters in Minneapolis.

How did Seattle do it?

Success in Minneapolis – as it did in Seattle – will depend on 15 Now’s ability to build a broad coalition of support, Sawant said. That means faith groups, community organizations and, of course, labor unions.

A delegate to Seattle’s central labor council, Sawant said local unions in her city supported 15 Now out of a shared belief that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Most union members in Seattle earn much more than $15 per hour, she said. “They have pensions, they have health care,” Sawant said. “But they were there in solidarity with their sisters and brothers anyway.”

Ubah Aden was among them. A member of the Service Employees International Union and a leader in her neighborhood, Aden wanted to “walk the walk” when it came to advocating for a higher minimum wage. So she quit a higher-paying job and took one in health care that paid $10.95 per hour.

With two children monthly rent of $1,200, Aden found it impossible to make ends meet. “I couldn’t do it,” she said, adding that she quit the lower-paying job and went back to her previous field.

Aden, who also traveled to Minneapolis last week, acknowledged she was lucky to have a career path to resume. “Many low-wage workers don’t have that opportunity,” she said. “It’s just sad that they don’t have enough money to meet their basic needs.”

Expect a fight

No matter how broad a coalition 15 Now builds in Minneapolis, opposition will be fierce and well-financed, Sawant warned.

In Seattle opponents lamented the impact of a $15 minimum wage on small businesses – a public-relations campaign underwritten, covertly and ironically, by the city’s biggest corporations. “Suddenly, you found Starbucks lamenting the fate of local coffee shops,” Sawant said.

In response, 15 Now tapped into popular frustration with a global economy and political structures that seem rigged in favor of corporations and the very wealthy. In that sense, Sawant said, 15 Now builds on the message of Occupy Wall Street and the resistance of fast-food and retail strikers, offering a plan of political action to combat the growth of income inequality.

“We have been on the retreat, on the defensive,” she said. “That’s the beautiful thing about 15 Now – it’s the beginning of an offense… When we organize collectively around concrete political demands, we can absolutely win.”

Guillermo Lindsey, a McDonald’s worker, member of CTUL, said he usually works 55 hours per week with just one day off to spend with his family.

Guillermo Lindsey, a McDonald’s worker, member of CTUL, said he usually works 55 hours per week with just one day off to spend with his family.

Moving the Council

If turnout for Sawant’s appearance is any indication, 15 Now already has a strong base of support from which to draw in Minneapolis.

Two members of the Minneapolis City Council who attended the rally said they supported raising the city’s minimum wage. Alondra Cano of Ward 9 pledged to support $15 per hour; Ward 3’s Jacob Frey said he would support an increase, but needed more time to research how much.

Several community organizations had a presence at the event as well, including the low-wage worker center CTUL and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, a grassroots organizing effort for racial and economic justice in Minneapolis.

“It’s time for us to stop settling for a minimum wage and start reaching for a living wage,” NOC Field Director Mike Griffin said.

Ty Moore, a national organizer for 15 Now, pointed to an already-successful 15 Now campaign at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport – where a worker-led rally briefly shut down traffic on a roadway to Terminal 1 in December – as helping “boost the credibility” of 15 Now locally.

“The debate is alive, and big campaigns are moving to help raise up working people’s wages and working conditions,” Moore said. “We need (Minneapolis) city leaders to play the kind of role of … Kshama Sawant, to stand steadfastly in the interest of working-class policies.”

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In Minneapolis, a picket line for striking Houston janitors

July 18, 2012 by

Yesenia Romero, a union janitor from Houston, addresses activists on the picket line outside U.S. Bancorp Center downtown Minneapolis.

The union representing more than 400 striking janitors in Houston is fanning out across the country this week, setting up solidarity picket lines outside buildings cleaned by contractors involved in their dispute back home.

In Minneapolis yesterday, about 40 union members and supporters picketed outside U.S. Bancorp Center, which secures its cleaning services through ABM, one of seven contractors involved in negotiations in Houston. Similar actions took place yesterday in Washington D.C., Seattle, Oakland and Boston. Unions in Los Angeles and Denver planned to follow suit today.

Activists in Minneapolis said it would take nationwide support for workers to win their dispute with a nationwide company like ABM.

“You may be asking yourselves, why does this matter to us here in Minnesota?” said Adam Robinson, an organizer with the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. “The answer is this: Many of the same cleaning companies and building owners in Houston do business here in Minnesota too, like ABM.”

If ABM is successful in squeezing janitors in Houston – who earn as little as $9,000 per year – the company may try to do the same to janitors in Minneapolis, Robinson added.

“It is a moral threat,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves, how long will we allow the richest 1 percent to dominate our politics, wreck our economy and keep our jobs so low-paying that so many of our brothers and sisters are in poverty?”

Wages are at the heart of the work stoppage in Houston, which began July 11, about six weeks after janitors’ previous contract with the cleaning contractors expired.

Local 1 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents striking workers, reports that janitors are seeking a gradual increase in their average hourly wage, from $8.35 to $10, to be phased in over four years.

Supporters join the picket line outside U.S. Bancorp Center.

The contractors responded by offering a raise of 50 cents over five years – an offer the union called “an almost certain promise that janitors will continue to live in poverty.”

Yesenia Romero, a Houston janitor who made the trip to Minneapolis for yesterday’s event, accused ABM and other contractors of trying to intimidate and harass janitors into accepting their offer. She suspects contractors are trying to break the janitors’ union.

“What’s happening in Houston right now is that they are actually trying to take the union away from us,” Romero said. “They are giving all sorts of false reports in the buildings.”

Romero said she and her co-workers felt compelled to seek wage increases in negotiations with the cleaning contractors, adding that “it’s just not possible to live” on the wages many janitors currently earn.

Ironically, Houston janitors clean the offices of some of the richest corporations in the world, including Chevron, Hines, Brookfield, Shell Oil and JP Morgan.

More, Houston’s commercial real estate market is among the top in the U.S. in terms of demand. Average commercial rental rates in Houston are higher than rates in Chicago, where janitors are paid more than three times as much as Houston janitors, according to Local 1, which represents union janitors in both cities.

Jolyn Vance, a Local 1 member who traveled from Chicago to Minneapolis for the event yesterday, said the onus is not only on cleaning contractors like ABM, but also on Houston’s profitable companies. Both bear responsibility for keeping the workers who clean Houston’s office buildings out of poverty.

“I think it’s kind of crazy that the companies in Texas, as rich as they are, would fight to keep brothers and sisters who are making $9,000 a year from getting a decent wage,” Vance said.

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UNITE HERE Local 17: Bottom line is Vikes stadium will create jobs

June 20, 2012 by

The Vikings Stadium deal is done, and the members of UNITE HERE Local 17 are happy about that. We are happy about the jobs that it will provide over the next few years while it’s being built and about the jobs it will provide over the next 30+ years for our members.

Local 17 represents workers in the hospitality industry, including sports arenas. When Target Field opened, there was no doubt what that did for the hospitality industry in downtown Minneapolis, with people eating at restaurants, shopping, and staying in hotels. Our union, which was hit hard in a bad economy, regained members, saw wages rise and people called back from layoff. Target Field employs as many as 800 of our members at each game, many of them coming from inner city neighborhoods where unemployment is high.

As we listened over several months to the endless debates, opinions, and commentary about the jobs that would be created once the new stadium was built, we also heard a lot of misconceptions and untruths about the type of jobs these would be. Some politicians and some labor people described them as “dead end, low wage jobs.”

We need to respect all workers and not allow politicians to look down their nose and create “jobism.” We should not be taking a position that working in a stadium or a hotel is somehow less important. Not everyone will be a teacher or a lawyer or a skilled professional, and some who are will continue to vend the beer, sell the hotdogs and work in the bars, restaurants and clubs that will be part of the new stadium.

The fact is, for each of the jobs created at the site, many more are truly created; it’s a ripple effect that could hardly be quantified. Think of it this way: for every hotdog sold, not only is the cook and the server of the hotdog working, but the person who delivered the hotdogs to the stadium. There’s a person that keeps that person’s truck running and in good tires and brakes, which someone else makes, and then there’s the farmer who raised the pigs or cows to make the hotdogs and the people who make and print the bags they come in and the makers of mustard, ketchup, pickles and onions. And let’s not forget the bakers of the buns. We could go on and on.

This is how the economy is built. One job relies on the job of another and then expands to create more jobs. It is shallow and shortsighted to claim that we are giving billionaires millions. We are giving ourselves millions in pride in our community that cannot be estimated in dollars.

– Nancy Goldman is president of Twin Cities-based UNITE HERE Local 17. Martin Goff is senior vice president of Local 17. For more information on their union and the workers it represents, go to www.uniteherelocal17.org.

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Nurses call for ‘Robin Hood Tax’ on Wall Street transactions

June 19, 2012 by

Registered nurses Elayne Best (left) and Carol Diemert join the call for a “Robin Hood Tax” outside J.P. Morgan’s Minneapolis offices.

Dressed as modern-day members of the band of Merry Men, union nurses fanned out across downtown Minneapolis today, doling out bottles of water and a prescription for healing what ails the American economy.

The nurses’ solution? A “Robin Hood Tax” on Wall Street transactions.

The plan would place a small sales tax – less than half of 1 percent – on trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and currencies. Revenues would help reverse declining public support for schools, health care and infrastructure repair and development – and put an estimated 9 million Americans back to work.

Linda Hamilton, president of the 20,000-member Minnesota Nurses Association, called it a “tax for the people, not on the people.”

Hamilton’s union organized the Robin Hood-themed demonstration – many nurses wore pointed, green hats and masks – to coincide with similar actions in 15 other U.S. cities.

The MNA and its parent union, National Nurses United, began calling on lawmakers to “take from Wall Street and give to Main Street” last year. Since then they have been joined by dozens of other public-health, civic and advocacy organizations, as well as prominent economists and celebrities.

The Robin Hood Tax is aimed at high-volume trading, which today makes up a majority of all trades. Experts say the tax will help place limits on the reckless short-term speculation that threatens financial stability.

“Wall Street’s reckless speculation and risky deals caused our economy’s most devastating crash since the Great Depression, forcing millions of Americans to lose their jobs, their homes and their pensions,” said Jean Ross, a MNA member and co-president of NNU. “Three years later, Americans on Main Street still struggle to recover from a crisis we didn’t create. This is the way to start to turn it around.”

In Minneapolis, nurses rallied outside the offices of J.P. Morgan Chase, the financial giant that recently announced it had lost more than $2 billion by gambling on credit derivatives.

MNA staff representative Linda Lange and registered nurse Bob Michaelson hand out water and fliers downtown Minneapolis.

It is that type of risky behavior, MNA member Bob Michaelson said, that a “Robin Hood Tax” would help curtail. A former accountant, Michaelson switched careers 10 years ago. He entered the medical field and has worked as a registered nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis for the last year.

When he saw his union’s plan for combating Wall Street greed, Michaelson, who calls himself a “recovering corporate tax accountant,” knew he had to get involved.

“The ‘Robin Hood Tax’ makes sense because of the volume of transactions that we have on Wall Street that do not generate income for the common good,” Michaelson said. “It’s the Wall Street banking firms that profit from all these trades.”

Nurses don’t need a background in economics to know the U.S. economy isn’t working for middle class families, Michaelson added. After all, Robin Hood didn’t have his MBA.

“Nurses are concerned about the daily lives of everybody,” Michaelson said. “People look to us for good judgment on things.”

MNA President Hamilton put it this way: “People are suffering, and nurses take care of people. Nurses are coming up with solutions.”

For more information on the “Robin Hood Tax,” go to www.robinhoodtax.org.

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Immigrant workers march on Wells Fargo, accuse bank of betraying their communities

May 14, 2012 by

People line the sidewalk outside Wells Fargo downtown Minneapolis, waiting to close their accounts with the bank.

Hundreds marched through the streets of downtown Minneapolis on May 11, protesting the recklessness and hypocrisy of Wells Fargo’s dealings with Minnesota’s immigrant community.

The march capped a weeklong string of “Occupy”-style protests across the Twin Cities. Organized by the Service Employees union (SEIU) in partnership with several progressive, faith-based and labor groups, the “99 Percent Week of Action” took aim at corporate tax dodgers and irresponsible Wall Street CEO’s with public demonstrations, civil disobedience and street theater.

Aztec dancers open the protest outside Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.

The May 11 event began on the sidewalk outside Wells Fargo’s Marquette Avenue branch, where colorfully dressed Aztec dancers twirled and danced to a lone drummer’s thunderous beat, entertaining dozens of people lined around the block, waiting to close their Wells Fargo accounts.

Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of SEIU Local 26, waved a withdrawal slip in the air as he addressed the crowd of protesters. The union, he said, had removed $72,000 in funds from Wells Fargo and had presented the bank with a petition signed by more than 1,000 people ready to do the same.

“We’ve been trying to get these big banks to listen to us, but they refuse to be good partners in our community,” Morillo-Alicea said. The union leader cited a long list of complaints about Wells Fargo, including the bank’s record of foreclosing on homes owned by immigrants and targeting immigrant communities with offers of “reckless subprime mortgages.”

Rank-and-file union members, meanwhile, said they felt betrayed by Wells Fargo, an institution that markets heavily to immigrant communities but, at the same time, bankrolls several organizations, businesses and politicians working contrary to most immigrant workers’ interests.

“Wells Fargo is the place where thousands of workers have deposited not just our money, but our trust,” said Gerardo Cajamarca, a member of Local 26. “Wells Fargo betrays that trust by financing anti-immigrant politicians. These are politicians that enact laws that hurt us, the 99 percent.

“In the last two years about 2,000 members of SEIU local 26 have lost their jobs because of our broken immigration system. We are here to protest the policies and politics of Wells Fargo and what they are doing to our communities.”

Fany Fonseca, a Local 26 steward, said more and more workers are beginning to connect the dots.

“As an immigrant and a customer of Wells Fargo, I was surprised to learn they are investing in private prison systems like Corrections Corporation of America,” Fonseca said, singling out a Wells Fargo-backed company that lobbied for – and profited from – Arizona’s extreme anti-immigrant law.

“We say enough of profiting off of immigrants,” Fonseca added. “The Latino community has had it. We will no longer work with banks that do not support our communities. Enough is enough!”

Many of the workers waiting to close their accounts at Wells Fargo were Somali immigrants, upset that the bank was refusing to conduct wire transfers necessary to send money to relatives in their native country.

Imam Hassan Mohamud said many families in Somalia depend on support from relatives living abroad. By blocking wire transfers from Somali immigrants to their families, he added, Wells Fargo “puts millions at risk” of starvation and death.

“We cannot let any institution, whether it is Wells Fargo or a government institution, let those people die,” Mohamud said. “My brothers and sisters, war and terror have nothing to do with this situation.”

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