Push for paid family leave takes on new urgency in pandemic

February 22, 2022 by

A union-backed coalition of groups renewed its lobbying push for paid family and medical leave on Valentine’s Day – and not by accident.

Love is at the heart of the proposed legislation, advocates said, adding that its failure to gain traction in the Senate over the past six years has cornered too many Minnesota families into achingly difficult choices that no one should have to make.

“No family should have to choose between a paycheck and caring for their loved ones,” said Rev. Vanessa Bradby, pastor of New Spirit United Church of Christ in Savage. “If we are serious about loving our neighbor, we should be serious about passing paid family and medical leave.”

Bradby and other faith leaders are once again teaming with small business owners, unions and community groups to push paid family and medical leave legislation at the Capitol this year.

Their proposal, which has support from the House DFL majority and Gov. Tim Walz, would create a statewide insurance pool to cover the cost of replacement wages for workers who take time off for the birth or adoption of a child, or to be with an ailing family member.

It would operate like the state’s unemployment insurance system, with workers and employers paying into the proposed fund. Workers who access the benefit would be eligible for up to 12 weeks of leave, with benefits averaging two-thirds of their typical wages.

Republicans who control the Senate have been cool to the idea of a statewide family leave benefit in recent years, but advocates say the COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the need to give all workers – regardless of their race, class or zip code – the time they need to care for themselves and their families.

“The COVID pandemic has exposed the inadequate and inconsistent safety net available for families in this state,” the bill’s chief author, Rep. Ruth Richardson (D-Mendota Heights), said. Richardson noted that low-wage workers, workers of color and women are much less likely to have access to family leave than other workers, and she pointed to research showing the “stark disparities” in mental and physical health outcomes that result from lack of access to paid leave, including higher rates of infant mortality and pre-term births.

Advocates praised the DFL proposal to invest part of the state’s projected $7.7 billion budget surplus in pre-funding two years’ worth of benefits while the paid family leave program gets up and running.

“We cannot stand by and pretend we can’t do anything about” disparities in access to essential economic measures like paid family leave, said Gloria Perez, president of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.

The proposed legislation would also help level the playing field for small businesses in the hyper-competitive labor market, said Dan Swenson-Klatt, owner of a bakery and café in Minneapolis.

“As much as I would like to provide paid leave to all of my employees, I cannot do it alone,” he said.

The Minnesotans for Paid Family & Medical Leave coalition brings together over 30 organizations, and the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, is a co-chair.

“Essential workers have sacrificed their time and risked their safety like never before,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said. “But hopefully, we’ve all gained a greater appreciation of how precious time with our loved ones truly is – and how we need the freedom to care for them when they need us.”

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Essential workers tell lawmakers: Minnesotans support emergency leave

June 17, 2021 by

Bill Schwandt, an paraprofessional educator in the Bloomington schools, speaks at a press conference in support of emergency paid leave for essential workers.

Thousands of essential workers in Minnesota have lost hours or exhausted their paid time off after being exposed to the coronavirus over the past 15 months, while a measure that would make them whole remains caught up in Capitol gridlock.

That needs to change, according to more than 5,000 nurses, janitors, educators, child care workers and other Minnesotans who signed onto a petition in support of the Essential Workers Emergency Leave Act.

Union members delivered the petitions to Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders today after holding a press conference on the Capitol steps.

“We deserve more than nice words, pats on the back and hearty handshakes,” said Bill Schwandt, a paraprofessional in the Bloomington schools and member of Education Minnesota. “We deserve to be remembered, respected and, yes, compensated for the work that we did.”

Lawmakers are scrambling to negotiate the particulars of a $52 billion, two-year budget by the end of the month. The budget taps into federal relief funds that, as several workers pointed out, should prioritize support for essential workers, according to guidance from the Department of Treasury.

Emergency leave for time lost would help workers like Eva Lopez, a local janitor, regain their footing. Lopez is vice president of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26, which represents janitors and security guards in the Twin Cities, and she said over 1,000 members of her union have missed work to quarantine or wait for test results.

“Most don’t make enough to have big savings accounts, and we can never work from home,” Lopez said via a translator. “This year has been so hard.”

Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner, an intensive care nurse at North Memorial hospital in Robbinsdale, said members of her union have “dipped into their savings, their retirement, their 401(k)” plans to pay their bills while riding out quarantine.

The financial strain many health care workers are facing, Turner added, has only added to the stress of providing care through a crisis that has resulted in over 7,500 deaths statewide.

“We aren’t asking for a handout,” Turner said. “What we are asking for is justice.”

Turner and Troy Bowman, a Minneapolis custodian who had to quarantine twice in the last year, delivered copies of the petition to Walz, who has pledged support for the measure, and Sen. Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul), a lead author of the bill.

The DFL-controlled House included funding for emergency leave in its jobs bill last month, but Republicans in control of the Senate did not. Murphy, a registered nurse, promised to bring the petition to Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka’s attention, and thanked essential workers for their service to Minnesota during the pandemic.

“You went to work, you took care of us, you kept us alive, you kept us healthy and you kept our economy going,” she said.

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Working people plan big push for paid family leave next year

December 17, 2018 by

Miguel Lindgren, a state employee and member of MAPE, describe how valuable paid family leave – which state employees won in contract negotiations two years ago – in the process of adopting a child from Colombia last September.

Supporters of paid family and medical leave launched a lobbying push at the Capitol today, calling on state lawmakers to pass legislation next year expanding the benefit to all Minnesota workers.

“It’s simple, it’s popular and it’s the right thing to do,” Pastor Corinne Freedman Ellis of Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul said during a press conference at the Capitol, surrounded by fellow clergy, working people, retirees and business owners.

Ellis is a leader in the faith-based advocacy group ISAIAH, one of 25 local organizations leading the Minnesotans for Paid Family Leave campaign. Eight unions are on board, and the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, is a campaign co-chair.

The groups propose creating a statewide insurance pool that would cover the cost of replacement wages for workers who take time off for the birth or adoption of a child, or to be with an ailing family member. Workers would be eligible for up to 12 weeks of leave, with benefits ranging from 55 to 80 percent of their typical wages.

To build up the insurance pool, employees and employers would make mandatory contributions, similar to payroll deductions for health insurance or workers’ compensation. The median worker would pay an estimated $1.75 per week into the fund.

Similar policies are on the books in eight states, and two powerful lawmakers in Minnesota – Lt. Gov.-elect Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Melissa Hortman, the next Speaker of the House – have expressed support for making Minnesota the ninth.

The policy enjoys support among voters, too. A recent Pew poll found 84 percent of Americans back paid family and medical leave, but only 14 percent of U.S. employees have access to the benefit.

Jason Rathe, who owns a landscaping business in Minneapolis with over 20 employees, called the coalition’s proposal a win-win for working people and business owners.

“I really believe paid family leave is important to businesses because it creates a level playing field,” Rathe said. “It allows our employees and ourselves to do the things that are important.”

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Want a healthier Minnesota? Pass paid sick, family leave policies

March 17, 2015 by
Sen. Katie Sieben (DFL-Newport), a lead offer on legislation to expand access to paid family leave, speaks at a press conference at the Capitol.

Sen. Katie Sieben (DFL-Newport), a lead offer on paid family leave legislation, joins a coalition of workers, faith leaders and business owners working on the issue.

 

Workers shouldn’t have to choose between earning a paycheck and getting medical care, or caring for a newborn child. That’s the essence of labor’s support for legislation that would expand access to earned sick time and paid family leave among Minnesota workers.

But officials with the Minnesota Department of Health today offered another reason for expanding paid leave: a healthier Minnesota.

“Paid sick and family leave is an economic issue, but it is also a public health issue,” MDH Commissioner Edward Ehlinger said at a Capitol press conference, where the department issued a white paper touting the public health benefits of public policies that expand access to sick and family leave.

DFL lawmakers have included such measures in their proposed Working Parents Act, which would mandate the state’s employers offer workers, at minimum, one hour of sick time for every 30 hours on the clock. The bill would also create an insurance program to increase the availability of paid family leave.

Four of 10 workers in Minnesota do not have access to even one paid sick day, according to an analysis released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research last fall. Just 13 percent of Minnesotans enjoy paid family leave.

Earned sick time and family leave fall even more out of reach for Minnesota’s low-income and part-time workers. The MDH found “significant inequities” that create a “cascading effect on families and entire communities, including children, the elderly and people with disabilities.”

Peggy Flanagan, director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota, said the report shows communities of color and the state’s American Indian population are hardest hit.

Parents in these communities, already struggling with cyclical poverty, are less likely to take time off to care for a newborn and more likely to send a sick child to school. That creates “an even steeper ladder to success later in life,” Flanagan said.

MNA President Linda Hamilton urges common-sense legislation to guarantee access to earned sick and safe time.

MNA President Linda Hamilton urges common-sense legislation to guarantee access to earned sick and safe time.

It also makes other people sick – another point driven home by the MDH paper.

Minnesotans who lack sick-time benefits often work in jobs that require contact with the public, like food service and health care. The MDH linked at least 208 outbreaks of foodborne illness between 2004 and 2013 to people working while sick, and it attributed 579 disease outbreaks from 2004 to 2011 to “person-to-person transmission in public settings.”

“People who are sick belong home in bed, not in the workplace,” Linda Hamilton, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said.

What’s more, workers with access to paid sick leave are more likely to get preventative health care, recover from illnesses faster and reduce the spread of disease. That boosts workers’ productivity in the long-run, Eden Prairie small business owner Verne Severson said.

“I need my employees to be at their best, and employees are at their best when they stay home when sick and they take care of their families,” he said.

Unfortunately, not all employers take the long view, as Minneapolis resident Octancia Adams knows too well.

Commissioner Ehlinger, state lawmakers and others at the press conference listened as Adams recalled being pregnant with her second child eight years ago, when she was working at McDonald’s. The job did not offer paid-sick benefits or paid family leave, and Adams faced a difficult decision when told she would need four to six weeks of rest to recover from a cesarean-section delivery.

Octancia Adams, who returned to work at McDonald's 10 days after having a cesarean section, is now helping lobby for a bill that would expand access to paid family leave.

Octancia Adams, who returned to work at McDonald’s 10 days after having a cesarean section, is now helping lobby for a bill that would expand access to paid family leave.

“I had a choice between returning to work and losing my job,” she said.

Adams chose her job, returning after only 10 days. She’s been paying the price ever since. Adams continues to suffer from a herniated disc and scar tissue that could hemorrhage if she has another child.

“I feel pain every time I ovulate,” she said. “I go back to the doctor, and they tell me there’s nothing more they can do for me.”

Lawmakers can do something to create better options for working mothers, Adams said, so they don’t face the impossible choice she faced eight years ago.

“It shouldn’t be a ‘nice-to-have,’” Flanagan said of paid family leave and earned-sick time. “It should be a must-have.”

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Shar Knutson: 2015 legislative session presents challenges, opportunities

January 30, 2015 by
web.MNAFLCIO-Conv-knutson

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson

The 2015 legislative session is nearly one month old, and Minnesotans are presented with a very different situation than we were in 2013 and 2014. While Gov. Dayton was reelected and a DFL majority remains in the Senate, Republicans now control the Minnesota House.

With a DFL-controlled state government, Minnesota’s labor movement successfully advocated for a minimum wage increase, fair taxes, education investments and expanding collective bargaining rights. While the Republican House majority might not be interested in helping empower working people, that’s no reason for labor to sit on the sidelines.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO is going to continue being a strong advocate for working people this year. We are advocating for a Shared Prosperity and Job Creation agenda. These are issues that matter to all workers, regardless of whether or not they have a union card.

Ending wage theft. A shocking number of workers are denied the wages they are owed for the work they perform. Unscrupulous employers often pay less than what was agreed, force workers to perform duties off the clock, cheat state and local governments out of legally required taxes and insurance contributions and sometimes withhold pay altogether.

Workers deserve the wages they earn. The Legislature can fight wage theft by passing legislation that:

  • Establishes formal procedures to enable victims of wage theft to recover unpaid wages and damages.
  • Increases the penalties for those responsible for committing wage theft.
  • Provides greater protection for workers who stand up for their rights – protecting them from employer retaliation.
  • Makes it easier for wage-theft victims to get legal representation.

Paid family leave and earned sick days. We all get sick. But not all of us can stay home when we are contagious. In cities and states without earned sick days standards, two of every five workers don’t earn a single day of earned sick leave. Many of them work on the front lines of public health and food safety – in restaurants, retail and even health care.

We support the passage of two types of leave this session:

  • Earned sick and safe leave, usable by employees with little or no advance notice, to recuperate from illness, seek medical care, care for family members or deal with the consequences of domestic violence.
  • Longer-term leave such as paid family leave.

Fair scheduling. The retail, service and health care sectors are now the fastest growing industries in our state. The increase in the minimum wage has and continues to be a great boost for these workers, but it’s just one step in developing secure, family-wage jobs. Full-time positions with stable schedules are also vitally important. Minnesota workers need scheduling standards that support families and help make their lives predictable.

Reforms should include requiring employers to provide adequate notice of schedule changes, maintain consistent and agreed-upon hours and offer full-time opportunities.

Comprehensive, long-term multi-modal transportation funding. Minnesota cannot grow and attract good jobs when our infrastructure is wearing out and transit options are woefully inadequate. Too many of our roads and bridges have exceeded their lifespans and are in desperate need of repair.

Workers need safer roads and better public transportation to get to jobs. Our seniors and people with disabilities need options to live independently.

We are also working with our affiliates and allies on:

  • Investing in quality learning environments, engaging students and improving educational outcomes.
  • Keeping Minnesota on strong fiscal footing by protecting progressive revenue sources.
  • Funding Child Care Assistance Programs (CCAP).
  • Ensuring retirement security.
  • Strengthening long-term care funding.

In addition to this Shared Prosperity and Job Creation agenda, the Minnesota AFL-CIO will support a range of issues that address income inequality, economic opportunity and tax fairness, as well as legislation championed by our affiliated unions.

– Shar Knutson is president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest federation of labor unions.

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Airport workers win paid sick leave, continue fight to reinstate fired Delta worker

December 15, 2014 by
Members of the 15 Now coalition stand in support of Ahmed Ahmed, who testified at the Metropolitan Airports Commission meeting today in favor of a proposed paid leave policy, passed by commissioners later in the meeting

Members of the 15 Now coalition stand in support of Ahmed Ahmed, who testified at the Metropolitan Airports Commission meeting today in favor of a proposed paid leave policy, passed by commissioners later in the meeting

Airport workers’ campaign for better wages and conditions took a step forward today, as the Metropolitan Airports Commission unanimously approved a measure requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to all workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Supporters of 15 Now, a worker-led coalition seeking to raise the minimum wage at MSP to $15 per hour, cheered the MAC’s vote as a victory, but one that came at a steep cost for one of the campaign’s most vocal supporters.

Kip Hedges, a baggage handler and 26-year airline employee, was fired by Delta Air Lines recently for comments he made in support of the 15 Now campaign in an interview with the labor-news website Workday Minnesota. During the open forum portion of today’s meeting, Hedges and other airport workers urged MAC members to publicly denounce the firing.

“It’s important that MAC supports the rights of workers who are fighting for change,” AirServ worker Ahmed Ahmed said, “because we know there’s a lot that must change.”

Hedges praised MAC members for supporting paid sick leave, and he acknowledged they have no say over hiring and firing at Delta. “But what you do have is moral authority,” Hedges said. “I would like you to make it clear to Delta Air Lines that they stand alone on this.”

Fired Delta worker Kip Hedges speaks during the open forum portion of the MAC meeting. "I can assure everyone here that I, for sure, am not going to stop doing what I’m doing," he said.

Fired Delta worker Kip Hedges: “I can assure everyone here that I, for sure, am not going to stop doing what I’m doing.”

“Come out on my side,” he added. “Come out on Ahmed’s side, for the workers who make this the best airport in the country.”

[Add your name to a petition calling on Delta to reinstate Hedges.]

If the MAC fails to send a message, Delta and other employers will be emboldened to retaliate against other workers who, like Hedges, take a stand against low wages – or for collective bargaining.

Before being fired, Hedges was active in efforts to organize baggage handlers at Delta, a campaign supported by the Machinists union. He said a former co-worker reported being questioned last week by Delta management about his role in collecting signed cards in support of an organizing election.

“It was a shot across the bow,” Hedges said. “You can do something about that by using your moral authority to make sure that Delta and other employers understand that … workers have the right to raise their voice in the workplace and get a union.”

MAC members appeared receptive to workers’ concerns.

Carl Crimmins, a past president of the Minnesota Pipe Trades Association who serves on the MAC, said attempts by any employer to intimidate pro-union workers were unacceptable. He called for an ordinance to establish standards for labor relations at the airport.

“I think a good, healthy discussion on a labor peace ordinance is something this commission should take up,” Crimmins said.

Commissioner Erica Prosser said the work of drafting and implementing a paid leave policy, which will allow airport workers to accrue up to 72 hours of sick, family or emergency leave annually, would not fall on the MAC “if all the employees at the airport were allowed collective-bargaining rights.”

“We wouldn’t, as a commission, have to deal with these issues ourselves,” Prosser said.

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