Rally in Rice Park Saturday to support striking actors

September 25, 2023 by

The Minnesota AFL-CIO declared SAG-AFTRA Solidarity Day at the Labor Pavilion on Labor Day.

Minnesotans will rally in solidarity with striking film and TV actors this Saturday in St. Paul’s Rice Park, supporting their union’s fight for fair compensation and worker protections in the film industry.

The 1 p.m. rally is sponsored by the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local, which is keeping a close eye on contract negotiations the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), in anticipation of Minnesota luring more film production work with a newly expanded tax credit.

“We will not let them take us backwards,” SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local President Casey Lewis said of the contract campaign that covers roughly 160,000 performers nationwide.

Actors and performers began their strike against the large production companies July 13, joining members of the Writers Guild (WGA), who began their strike more than two months earlier. (The WGA reached a tentative agreement on new contracts with the AMPTP earlier this week.)

The two unions had not been on strike at the same time in over 60 years, but writers and performers are looking to address similar issues in contract negotiations this year. Their pay has failed to keep up with inflation, and residual payments are down as more viewers get their content through streaming services.

Lewis said film industry moguls are trying to “erase how the industry has run for decades, with actors and performers sharing in the success of movies and programs” that enjoy extended success with viewers.

“We fought hard for residual payments,” he added. “We rely on them and won’t give them up. You can’t take us backwards because the streaming model has moved our viewing habits forward.”

Artificial intelligence also poses a threat to film industry workers. Their unions are seeking protections that would prevent production companies from substituting computer-generated scripts and images for real writers and actors.

“A fair contract means you don’t get to capture our work and capture our likeness and then replicate performances without consent and compensation,” Lewis said. “AI may be moving forward, but you are not taking us back as if our union protections never existed.”

Members of the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local – (L to R) Matt Roy, Tammara Melloy, Matt Saxe and Laurie Flanigan Hegge – carried their union’s banner in the State Fair’s daily parade on Labor Day.

Polls show a strong majority of Americans want to see striking writers and actors make gains at the bargaining table. A Gallup survey in August found Americans sympathize more with the writers than production studios by a split of 72% to 19%. Support for actors and performers came in at 67% to 24%.

Bethany Winkels, executive director of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said Americans recognize that actors and writers are standing up to corporate greed.

“At the end of the day, every single union member knows that when we stand together, we can demand a fair return on our work, we can push back against exploitation and we can have an economy and a society where folks can live and work with dignity and respect,” she said. “And that is happening on the front lines, on every picket line that SAG-AFTRA has.

“They are going to keep fighting, and we are going to have their back.”

The strike has not halted production of any films in Minnesota, but local SAG-AFTRA members anticipate more work opportunities as production companies take advantage of the state’s newly expanded tax credit, supported by lawmakers in each of the past two legislative sessions.

“We fought so hard for these improvements, and these are the jobs Twin Cities Local members have been waiting for, for decades,” Lewis said.

– 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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Minnesota unions praise historic legislative session

May 24, 2023 by

Gov. Tim Walz spoke to supporters before signing 12 budget bills into law.

In a historically productive legislative session that ended on time Monday, labor-endorsed lawmakers delivered on nearly all their campaign promises, from investments in public infrastructure and schools to expansion of family-supporting benefits, union rights and workplace protections.

Union activists and leaders were among hundreds who celebrated the session’s accomplishments today on the Capitol grounds, as Gov. Tim Walz held a signing ceremony for 12 budget bills that will fund state government for the next two years.

Walz likened the newly approved budget to the “Minnesota Miracle” of 1971, when the state drew nationwide acclaim for investing in public education.

“If this is ‘Minnesota Miracle 2.0,’ the difference between then and now is … we’re leaving no one behind,” Walz said.

Labor leaders praised Walz and DFL legislators for rising to the occasion created by a projected budget surplus that swelled to $17.5 billion – thanks, in part, to one-time federal stimulus dollars that Republicans blocked the state from allocating one year ago.

After winning all three levers of power – with support from union volunteers – during the 2022 election, DFLers invested the surplus in infrastructure projects and jobs, schools, nursing homes and targeted tax relief for working families, including an expanded child tax credit that will return up to $1,750 per child to lower-income families.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, former director of the Minnesota Children’s Defense Fund, said the budget is “deeply rooted in equity and decades in the making.” She credited organizers and activists who have devoted years to fighting for policies that will soon become law, like earned sick and safe time and paid family leave.

“We have played the long game,” Flanagan said. “And we won.”

Children and families will also benefit from $2.26 billion in new funding for Minnesota’s public schools over the next biennium. The 10.5% increase will help school districts cover rising costs – and recruit and retain educators and other employees. And the budget allocates $600 million to hire and retain child care teachers.

Walz and DFL lawmakers focused on issues that matter to workers and families, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said, noting that their work stands in contrast to Republican-controlled chambers in other states that have sought to ban abortion, weaken child-labor laws and meddle in school curriculum.

“While other states are putting 14- and 15-year-olds to work on assembly lines, Minnesota is making sure parents have the time and resources to care for and sustain their families; while other states ban books in our schools and libraries, Minnesota is making sure no student goes hungry at school; and while other states make it harder to vote, Minnesota is expanding our Democracy to make sure every eligible voter has the freedom to make their voice heard,” Burnham said.

Public works, transportation and other infrastructure will see historic investments as a result of the session, putting members of unions like the Laborers to work for years to come.
Education Minnesota members praised a 10.5% increase in school funding.
SEIU Local 284 celebrated extension of unemployment benefits to hourly school employees.

Walz is also expected to sign a $2.3 billion infrastructure deal that contains a mix of borrowing – a so-called “bonding” bill – and cash investments. It would be the first bonding bill the state has passed since 2020.

Sen. Sandy Pappas, the lead author, said the measure “will create thousands of well-paying union jobs and ensure businesses have the infrastructure they need to build in Minnesota for years to come.”

On the Capitol grounds today, Walz gave a shout to people in hard hats throughout the crowd. “All of these good union jobs have built the middle class and built Minnesota,” he said. “It is going to continue that way.”

In addition to historic investments approved this session, Minnesota lawmakers took up several policy changes long sought by union members, including an extension of unemployment benefits to hourly school employees, a ban on private prisons and a new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board with the authority to set standards like pay and benefits.

Lawmakers expanded and strengthened union rights, enshrining public-sector workers’ ability to bargain on non-economic issues like safe staffing and class sizes, giving workers in the newly legalized recreational cannabis industry a path to collective bargaining and banning “captive audience meetings,” in which workers are forced to listen to their bosses’ religious, political or anti-union views.

Funds allocated this session will also bolster the state’s film industry tax credit, raise pay for home care and nursing home workers and strengthen public pensions.

A measure to address hospital staffing shortfalls, however, fell short of the Minnesota Nurses Association’s expectations. The bill established new safety protections and recruitment bonuses for health care workers, but it left out language that would have would have required hospitals to create labor-management committees to determine appropriate staffing in their wards.

Support for a safe staffing law dwindled after Mayo Clinic threatened to withhold investments in its Rochester campus if it passed.

“I hope Minnesotans know how hard nurses fought for your care and safety,” MNA President Mary Turner said. “And I hope corporate executives and our public officials know that our fight is not over to put patients before profits in our health care system.”

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Ban on captive audience meetings advances in Minnesota Legislature

May 3, 2023 by

Patrick Kennedy, a licensed social worker, recounted the chilling effect captive audience meetings had on a campaign to organize his workplace two years ago.

After the pandemic hit three years ago, Patrick Kennedy and his co-workers at a local community mental health center became concerned about abrupt and unilateral changes management began making at their workplace.

Talk of forming a union soon turned into a full-fledged organizing campaign with Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12. Sixteen months later workers were poised to vote in a union election, with public support from nearly 60% of the agency’s 130 workers.

That’s when the “mandatory information sessions” with their bosses began, Kennedy said.

“In one meeting we were told that wage increases were just about to roll out, but could be delayed another year if we were to unionize,” he said. “In another, the CEO assured us that a union would only harm our clients.”

The meetings, according to Kennedy, a licensed social worker, had a “shocking” impact on his co-workers’ organizing drive. By the time workers voted, support for unionizing had dropped to 42%, and the effort failed.

Testifying before a Minnesota House committee earlier this legislative session, Kennedy and other workers urged lawmakers to support legislation that would make it illegal for employers to compel their employees to attend meetings where bosses promote religious or political views, including views on collective bargaining.

“The person who signs your paycheck should not be allowed to force you, under threat of discipline or retaliation, to listen to their opinions about your legally protected right to choose whether to join a union,” Kennedy said.

The proposed legislation has since passed both the House and Senate as part of omnibus labor policy bills. It has been a top priority for unions this legislative session, along with paid family leave, the infrastructure jobs bill, earned sick and safe time and fully funded public services.

Captive audience meetings have come under scrutiny in recent years from policymakers and analysts looking to understand why union membership has remained flat despite polling that shows interest in forming unions at a near-record high.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham (L) testified in support of the captive audience meeting legislation, authored by Rep. Kaela Berg in the House.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, head of the state’s largest labor federation, said captive audience meetings have become even more common – employers use them in an estimated 90% of union elections, according to one study – during a recent surge in organizing activity both in Minnesota and across the U.S.

“These meetings have nothing to do with the actual jobs that workers do for an employer,” Burnham told legislators. “In fact, many workers describe them as raw intimidation.”

Minnesota lawmakers are not alone in seeking to protect workers’ right to not listen to unwanted political or religious speech. Connecticut passed a ban on captive audience meetings last year, and Oregon has had one on the books for over a decade.

The National Labor Relations Board may soon act, too. A recent memo issued by NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo urged members to reverse the board’s precedent of allowing employers to force their workers to listen to anti-union speech, calling it a “license to coerce” and a “fundamental misunderstanding of employers’ speech rights.”

The Minnesota bill’s lead House author, Rep. Kaela Berg (D-Burnsville), said employers would still be allowed to encourage workers to listen to their political or religious views if her bill becomes law. “If the employee wants to have that discussion with the employer, that’s great,” she said. “This just says it cannot be required, and you cannot be punished if you say that’s just not for me.”

That’s a right Kennedy and other workers who have experienced captive audience meetings can only wish they would have had.

Nate Krantz, who went through an organizing drive while working as a certified nursing assistant at a local health care facility, told lawmakers he “noticed that my heart-rate tracker on my Apple watch showed a spike in my heart rate each time I had to sit through one of those meetings.”

Jeff Schreiner, a member of Teamsters Local 120 who helped lead a 10-year organizing drive at Sysco in St. Cloud, said regular captive audience meetings created a “psychologically stressful” work environment, pitted workers against each other and spread misinformation.

“It’s almost like there’s a script that companies follow,” he said after listening to testimony from workers in other industries.

“Employers use mandatory meetings to unfairly influence workers,” Kennedy said. “If the meetings didn’t influence workers, they wouldn’t be happening.”

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

Union-backed coalition rallies to get paid leave across finish line

March 27, 2023 by

Supporters cheered Gov. Tim Walz, who spoke during a Capitol rally for paid family leave.

Union members, retirees, small business owners and faith-based organizations rallied with Gov. Tim Walz and other lawmakers at the Capitol March 21 in a bid to get paid family and medical leave legislation across the finish line this session.

“Paid family and medical leave is one of the best policies we can pursue to support Minnesota’s families and workers,” Walz said during the rally. “Let’s make it easier for Minnesota families to raise a child or care for a sick or aging relative without putting a paycheck at risk.”

Walz has pledged to sign legislation, advancing through committees in both the House and Senate, that would create a state-administered leave program. Minnesotans would be able to access the program and receive up to 12 weeks of partial wage replacement while recovering from a medical issue, caring for a family member or welcoming a new child.

The paid-leave fund would operate similar to the state’s unemployment insurance system. Employers and employees would share equally in the cost, each contributing 35 cents per $100 of earnings.

UNITE HERE member Leah Riley traveled from Rochester for the paid leave rally with her 8-year-old son, Riley Altom.

Sarah Piepenburg, co-owner of Vinaigrette in Minneapolis, was among small business owners who showed support for the bill, calling it an investment in small businesses.

“I have looked into plans available on the private market, and the best option would cost 50% more than this proposal, offer only 6 weeks off, exclude coverage for cancer and require a health screening,” she said. “In other words, the private market provides unaffordable, substandard options.”

Several labor organizations, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO, are part of a broad coalition of groups that has been fighting for statewide paid leave for nearly a decade, and union colors could be spotted throughout the rotunda during the rally.

Steve Miltich, a retired school custodian and member of the Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 Executive Board, said many union members are among the 83% of American workers who do not receive paid family leave as a benefit of employment.

“I saw the importance of this firsthand as a union steward,” Miltich said. “Custodians I worked with, for one reason or another, had medical issues with themselves or their families – or with newborn children – and could not afford to take the time they needed.”

Even some workers with access to paid family leave said the state should do better by all workers. Ashlie Kennedy, a state employee from St. Paul, shared a wrenching story of giving birth to a child with a fatal health condition, who died within hours.

Steve Miltich (R), a retired custodian in the Orono school district, said many unionized workers would benefit from the proposed paid family and medical leave law.

“Even though I was expressly told that I met all of the eligibility requirements for paid parental leave, the Judicial Branch denied my request for paid leave stating that the unwritten intent of the policy is for parents to bond with their baby,” she said. “HR confirmed that because my child died, I no longer qualified for paid parental leave.

“Minnesotans should not have to sacrifice their livelihood and financial security in order to care for themselves and the people they love. Minnesota can do better. Minnesotans deserve better.”

After the rally, advocates fanned out across the Capitol campus, meeting with lawmakers and delivering postcards signed by supporters from their districts.

Learn more about the Minnesotans for Paid Family Leave Coalition at paidleavemn.org.

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Workers warn ‘bigger does not mean better’ when it comes to hospital mergers

February 2, 2023 by

Rachel Hanneman, an intensive care nurse at Fairview Southdale, led a press conference before a Capitol hearing on legislation that would give the state Health Department power to block health system mergers. “Their right to do business ends where our right to accessible health care begins,” she said.

Since M Health Fairview and Sanford Health went public with plans to merge last November, workers have emerged as a leading voice of opposition, warning that further consolidation would not benefit Minnesota patients or workers, only the CEOs already profiting off the health care system.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association and SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa spoke out at recent public hearings held across the state by Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is investigating whether the proposed merger complies with state and federal laws.

Union members also joined together with family farmers and medical students at the Capitol earlier this week to support legislation that would give the Minnesota Department of Health authority to approve or to block hospital mergers after a review of their potential impacts.

Opponents of the merger point to data suggesting that a wave of corporate hospital mergers across the U.S. has resulted in higher costs for patients and reductions to the services offered in local communities, but no improvements in the quality of care offered.

“Studies show that health care mergers have caused a 41% increase in prices with no evidence of improved quality of care,” MNA Executive Director Rose Roach said during a press conference before Ellison’s hearing in St. Paul Jan. 10. “What we need is public stewardship and oversight, holding the hospitals accountable to us, the public, not these independent, profit-making entities that focus on generating revenue.”

As for stewardship, neither Sanford nor Fairview has a track record likely to inspire public trust.

M-Health Fairview closed two hospitals in the middle of the pandemic, including the state’s only dedicated COVID-19 hospital. At the same time, CEO James Hereford took a 90 percent raise to more than $3.5 million in annual compensation.

Sanford, meanwhile, paid a $49.5 million golden parachute to disgraced CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft, who spread medical disinformation during the pandemic.

“Our state government has an obligation to pursue lower health care costs, better outcomes for patients and better conditions for health care workers,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said. “This merger will do the exact opposite.

“As health care becomes more consolidated year after year, the only people benefiting are the CEOs. Now Minnesota’s regulators have a chance to draw a line in the sand and tell these regulators enough is enough.”

Rank-and-file union members, meanwhile, have raised concerns that the merger would threaten their collective bargaining rights and drive more health care workers out of the industry at a time when staffing shortfalls are at crisis levels.

Ericka Helling, an intensive care nurse at Fairview Southdale and a 25-year employee of the system, said she was “alarmed that a Minnesota institution could be bought and sold to an out-of-state entity.”

She noted that South Dakota is very different from Minnesota, where Helling’s union, the MNA, has a powerful seat at the table both in bargaining contracts and in oversight of the industry.

“Worrisome for me, as a union nurse, is what happens when an employer buys out a system,” she said. “Is our contract recognized? Do we need to fight all over again for the high standards and protections our contract provides the practice of nursing and patient care?”

M Health Fairview, Helling noted, refused to include language in its nurses’ most recent contract, settled in December, that would have extended the agreement’s terms through any merger.

Cliff Adams, an SEIU member who works at Fairview’s Masonic Children’s Hospital, echoed those concerns, and he called on Ellison and other leaders to focus on “the problems in our own backyard first and foremost,” including staff burnout, safety and racial equity.

“In the last four years we have seen our health care system strip away the caring aspect and monetize the health aspect,” Adams said. “We have seen failure from our employer. We are struggling to tackle these major issues with a large, home-based, Minnesota-oriented organization…

“Bigger does not always mean better.”

Union opposition helped tank a previous proposal to merge the two systems, forwarded in 2013.

Sanford and Fairview have said they hope to complete a merger by the end of this year.

The Attorney General’s office is also collecting public feedback on the merger online.

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Minnesota United video board techs win union election

September 21, 2022 by

IATSE Local 745 represents broadcast professionals who work sports and entertainment events in Minnesota and Iowa. (Local 745 photo)

After an organizing drive that drew support from Loons players and fans, elected officials and the labor community, Minnesota United FC’s video board technicians have won their union, voting to join Local 745 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

The National Labor Relations Board counted votes today after a three-week, mail-in election. Workers voted 18-9 in favor of unionizing.

The new bargaining unit covers part-time technicians employed by the soccer club to film and produce game-day content for the video board at Allianz Field in St. Paul.

The Minnesota United crew is the first group of in-house video technicians at a Minnesota sports franchise to win union representation, according to Local 745, which represents broadcast professionals who work sports and entertainment events in Minnesota and Iowa.

Technicians have said they look forward to bargaining together for better wages and safer working conditions. They also want the Minnesota United to contribute to health care and retirement plans, and provide them with parking spots near the stadium.

Frustration with the club’s lack of response to economic and safety concerns raised by technicians prompted the union drive.

“At the beginning of the season some of our camera operators got together and said we wanted a few things,” Josiah Wollan, a camera and replay operator, told delegates to the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s convention in St. Paul on Sunday. “They said no to everything. They didn’t relent in any of our requests, so we started talking to IATSE and gathering cards.”

Minnesota United agreed to a speedy union election after taking heat from fans and elected officials for denying technicians’ request for voluntary recognition in June, after an overwhelming majority of workers signed cards requesting IATSE representation.

In a press release announcing the election results, IATSE members thanked “fans, lawmakers and other trade unions” for their support during the organizing drive.

“We’ve gotten a lot of solidarity,” Wollen said Sunday. “The players have come out and supported us, and so have the officials, elected officials, the AFL-CIO. The solidarity is what got us to this point, and because of that, I think we have a really good shot on Wednesday when they count our votes.”

While the Loons’ in-house technicians are the first to win union recognition in Minnesota, they aren’t the first to try. Five years ago, members of the Timberwolves’ in-house video crew won a lengthy battle to reverse their status as independent contractors, but they later fell short of the votes to unionize.

Local 745 Business Representative Charlie Cushing said the union “isn’t going anywhere” and looks forward to continuing to fight for better wages, benefits and working conditions for its members, while “supporting anyone else in our industry who wants the same thing.”

“It’s rewarding to see this next generation of broadcast technicians see the value of having labor union representation on the job,” Cushing added.

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

State AFL-CIO convention spotlights worker power, political goals

September 20, 2022 by

A panel brings together worker-organizers from Planned Parenthood, MN United, Activision Blizzard and Trader Joe’s.

Labor leaders and activists from across the state gathered in St. Paul this week for the Minnesota AFL-CIO‘s 56th constitutional convention, looking to tap into the energy of a recent wave of union-organizing victories as they make a united political push this fall.

Several of the federation’s endorsed candidates, including Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, addressed the delegation of nearly 300 union members. Walz said labor backing was less “a pat on the back” and more of a “kick in the butt” to win a second term, strengthen Minesota’s labor laws and carry forward the state’s economic recovery.

“The one thing I want union members in Minnesota to know is, as long as I am governor, you do not have to spend one second worrying about a piece of anti-union legislation crossing my desk,” Walz told delegates Sept. 20 as the three-day convention came to a close. “We have to get re-elected to make sure workers’ rights are protected, to make sure women’s rights are protected, to make sure voting rights are protected.”

“This November, labor is on the ballot,” Flanagan added. “Our opponent has made it very clear that he will gut labor protections and turn Minnesota into a right-to-work state. That will not happen on our watch.”

MN AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham chairs her first state fed convention.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, chairing a constitutional convention for the first time, said Republican gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen would “take Minnesota backwards” if elected. Unions, she said, have begun a robust member-to-member outreach campaign to get out the labor vote for Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Dean Phillips and other endorsed candidates.

“While the opposition might be able to outspend us, they will never out-organize us,” Burnham said. “We’re going to deliver the union vote in November not only for the governor’s race but to increase the working families’ majority in the state House and flip the state Senate so we can continue building a more just and fair Minnesota.”

Burnham, sworn in Feb. 1 as president of the statewide federation of over 1,000 local unions, won re-election on the convention’s final day, running without opposition. Brad Lehto, secretary-treasurer since 2018, also won re-election, fending off a challenge from Southeast Area Labor Council President Pommella Wegmann.

Burnham and Lehto pledged to continue making progress on the state AFL-CIO’s strategic priorities, to welcome new affiliates into the fold and to build solidarity across the labor movement to support legislative, organizing and collective bargaining campaigns.

“We have only just begun,” Burnham said. “Your state federation is there to assist you as we expand our labor movement and build our power.”

Union membership has increased in Minnesota in each of the last three years, and it’s likely to do so again in 2022, as a wave of union organizing has brought workers in coffee shops, bookstores, craft breweries, nonprofits and health care facilities into the labor movement, both locally and across the U.S.

“We need Minnesota’s labor movement now more than ever,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Fred Redmond tells delegates. “So keep organizing, keep mobilizing, keep being a force for working people.”

Organizing took center stage on Day 1 of the convention, when a panel discussion brought together four young workers who have organized or are currently organizing unions: a quality assurance tester at a video game company, a video board technician with Minnesota United, a Planned Parenthood employee and a Trader Joe’s clerk.

“This wave of workplace organizing has been hugely inspirational to all of us,” said Josiah Wollan, a video-board technician organizing with IATSE. “We’ve realized what power workers have, and knowing that has really started this process. We knew there was nothing coming down the line for us – we weren’t going to get anything until we unionized.”

Organizing growth strengthens and diversifies the labor movement, Burnham said. She also credited Minnesota Building Trades unions for their intentional efforts “to recruit workers and young people from underserved communities into their apprenticeship programs.”

“It’s this work that shows the people of Minnesota, no matter where you come from or what you look like, we want you in the labor movement,” Burnham added.

Recent polling shows people want to be in the labor movement, too. Attorney General Ellison was among several convention speakers who pointed to a Gallup survey, taken in August, that found 71% of Americans approve of unions, the highest mark since 1965.

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson welcomes delegates to the capital city. “Workers are building power in new and innovative ways, and they’re calling on us to join them in solidarity in that fight,” she said.

“Americans would not know that a union would improve people’s lives unless they saw you improving people’s lives with a union,” Ellison said.

Ellison, Walz and other guests also thanked delegates from the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) for fighting to put patients over profits in their current contract campaign. Some 15,000 hospital nurses in Duluth and the Twin Cities staged a three-day strike last week, the largest private-sector nursing strike in U.S. history.

Fred Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the national AFL-CIO, said Minnesota nurses are turning heads across the labor movement.

“These are heroes, and they’re exhausted,” Redmond said. “They’re underappreciated, and yet corporations keep making cuts, keep squeezing, keep trying to get blood from a stone and keep putting profits before people. But those nurses here in Minnesota said enough is enough.”

MNA President Mary Turner said the strike was a lesson for many members of her union who had never been on a picket line that labor’s power stems from solidarity, which was, appropriately, the theme of the Minnesota AFL-CIO convention.

“We had community members, family and friends, elected officials and our labor allies on the line with us,” Turner said. “To see all the other unions there, this was a part of being a union a lot of younger nurses had no idea existed.

“We know the problems we are facing are not unique. We’re all fighting our own unique battles, but we’re all workers.”

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

Nurses’ picket lines swell with community, labor support

September 16, 2022 by

“The people of Minnesota stand with you,” Gov. Tim Walz tells striking United and Children’s hospital nurses.

The Minnesota Nurses Association’s trademark red radiated from picket lines outside Twin Cities hospitals during the union’s three-day strike Sept. 12-14, but nurses were far from alone.

Elected officials, union leaders and supporters from the community bolstered nurses’ ranks, honking horns, joining picket lines and dropping off coffee and treats for the health care heroes standing up to millionaire hospital CEOs to demand safer staffing and better patient care.

“The people of Minnesota stand with you,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told union nurses outside United Hospital on Day 2 of the strike. Walz thanked them for their compassion and service to the state during the pandemic, and he applauded them for using their collective bargaining rights to advocate for their patients and their profession.

“Your message has never been lost,” Walz said. “You walk here to protect patients and Minnesotans. You walk here today to make sure health care is delivered in the safest, most efficient manner. And you walk here today to make sure young people see this profession for what it is – caring, valuable and important to Minnesota.”

State Sen. Erin Murphy of St. Paul, herself a registered nurse, praised MNA members for following their “professional obligation to raise their voices” when they see something wrong, and she called on hospital executives to listen to those voices at the bargaining table.

“We need to heed (nurses’) warning that the understaffing that continues inside our hospitals is undermining their ability to do their jobs with care,” Murphy said.

Executive officers of Education Minnesota stand in solidarity with striking nurses in St. Paul.

Members of local unions brought their colors – and solidarity – to the strike line too.

SEIU members who work alongside nurses as technicians and support staff held rallies at Abbott Northwestern and M-Health Fairview hospitals in Minneapolis. The Teamsters Local 120 semi blared its horn while cruising past several picket lines. And dozens of St. Paul educators, whose union made history with a “strike for the schools St. Paul students deserve” in 2020, joined nurses at United and Children’s.

Denise Specht, president of the statewide educators’ union, said solidarity with nurses comes easily for Education Minnesota members, who take similar issues into their contract negotiations, like workplace safety and adequate staffing to meet students’ needs.

“These nurses are talking about many of the same things we’re hearing in our schools,” Specht said. “They are seeing people walking away from the profession. They are feeling stretched thin. They don’t have professional respect in the workplace. We see that all over in teaching, too.”

Executive officers of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said its affiliate unions, representing over 300,000 working people, stand in “full solidarity” with MNA nurses – during the strike and as long as it takes to get the contracts they deserve.

“Millionaire hospital executives … need to listen to nurses when they tell them patients need hospitals that are fully staffed with nurses who aren’t overworked,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and Secretary-Treasurer Brad Lehto said in a statement. “They should follow the nurses’ lead and put patients before profits.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

‘Sky’s the limit’ as women workers revive Minnesota’s CLUW chapter

August 25, 2022 by

Outrage over the Supreme Court decision rescinding women’s right to an abortion has sparked interest among a growing number of local union members in the Coalition of Labor Union Women.

CLUW is a constituency group affiliated with the AFL-CIO that offers space and support for women in the labor movement to advocate for shared issues. Minnesota’s CLUW chapter had been dormant for a decade.

That’s no longer the case. A first meeting earlier this summer drew 44 activists, who got to work drafting bylaws and applying for recognition of the re-emergent Minnesota CLUW chapter. After a second meeting in August, Co-chair LeiLani Hauge said they should have an officially recognized charter by Labor Day.

“We’re still in an infancy stage,” said Hauge, a representative with AFSCME Council 65 who lives in Fergus Falls. “But it’s beautiful to see as we move forward what our potential is.”

Minnesota CLUW intends to meet the first Thursday of each month from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Meetings will be hybrid, with some joining virtually and others gathering in a union hall. So far, the Minnesota AFL-CIO in St. Paul has been the in-person gathering spot, but organizers hope to move meetings across the state.

Participation is open to all union members in good standing.

“We have public-sector workers, private-sector workers, women of color,” said Co-chair Leah Midgarden, a field organizer with the Southeast Area Labor Council. “We’ve got some younger folks in their late 20s or early 30s, and we are very blessed to have some retirees who were around during the previous iteration of Minnesota CLUW.”

Union members founded CLUW in 1974 – a year after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision – around four core objectives, which “continue to be the cornerstone of CLUW’s activities,” according to the organization’s website. They are:

  • empowering women for greater participation at all levels in the labor movement.
  • organizing the unorganized.
  • promoting affirmative action, social and economic justice in the workplace.
  • increasing the participation of women in the political and legislative processes.

CLUW says its members “speak out for equal pay, child and elder care benefits, job security, safe workplaces, affordable health care, contraceptive equity, and protection from sexual harassment and violence at work.”

But the Supreme Court’s attack on reproductive freedom was the spark that led to CLUW’s awakening in Minnesota, and organizers said they hope to inform and advocate for abortion rights within the movement and beyond.

“Let’s be honest, there is still a sentiment in the public as well as organized labor broadly of not understanding why family planning is fundamentally a workers’ rights issue,” Midgarden, who lives in Red Wing, said. “There are social and economic impacts when childbearing people are not able to make the decision about when they will become parents.”

“Some of our folks are the ones who were actually picketing and marching when Roe v. Wade came onto the circuit in 1973,” Hauge said. “As a young union member and representative, I’m learning a lot from these folks.”

Hauge and Midgarden said union members or retirees who want to learn more about the Minnesota CLUW chapter should look for a table at upcoming union events, like the Minnesota AFL-CIO Convention this month. And they can also reach out by email at lmidgarden [at] semnalc [dot] org or lhauge [at] afscme65 [dot] org.

“I believe the sky’s the limit,” Hauge said. “We’ve got very passionate people, and because we all come from a labor-movement background, we know how to fight. We fight every day.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,
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