Essential workers deserve a good contract, Cottage Grove Steelworkers tell 3M

August 19, 2020 by

Members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 hold informational picketing outside 3M’s plant in Cottage Grove.

Steelworkers at 3M’s Cottage Grove plant agreed this week to a two-month extension of their previous union contract, but members are putting the company on notice today that the fight for a contract that rewards their essential work has just begun.

Informational picketing outside the plant, where some 370 members of United Steelworkers Local 11-00418 work, drew a large crowd during a shift change early this morning, and union members plan to be back outside for another info-picket this afternoon. 

“Everyone’s together on this,” John Helkamp, the local’s financial secretary, said. “We’re essential workers. We’d like a fair contract.” 

Talks between the two sides got off to a bitter start.  

First, Helkamp said, management took a combative stance over supplying workers with masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. While non-union workers at the plant received free masks, 3M pushed local union leaders to sign a memorandum of understanding before issuing masks to union members – a stance 3M, a global supplier of masks, later walked back, Helkamp said. 

Around the same time, union leaders approached management about an accommodation for workers whose premium pay on weekends was scheduled to disappear abruptly.  

A provision in the previous union contract included premium pay rates for workers who clock 12-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, but it also included a sunset clause phasing out the provision when the contract expired. That happened this week, and some union members soon will lose as much as 18 hours’ worth of wages from their paychecks.  

“We asked about some kind of an accommodation,” Helkamp said “The company first said it had to be done in negotiations. Then we got to negotiations, and they said it’s not something they’re going to negotiate.” 

Now, Steelworkers are resisting several of 3M’s contract demands, Helkamp said. Management wants the power to change start times and shift lengths at will, which could move all workers into 12-hour shifts. And 3M wants the power to eliminate job classifications unilaterally, an issue that bogged down negotiations four years ago, when management sought to kick custodians out of the bargaining unit.  

In all, 3M brought 100 stipulations to the bargaining table, according to the union. The two sides have reached agreement on roughly 30, with 30 others being set aside for economic talks.  

Those have yet to begin, but local leaders say their talks in Cottage Grove are progressing at about the same pace as negotiations at comparable facilities across the U.S. have taken.  

The two sides have scheduled 11 bargaining sessions during the contract extension, which runs through Oct. 16. 

The Cottage Grove facility produces chemicals, tape, film, abrasives and other products. 

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McCollum focused on keeping workers, families safe during crisis

May 6, 2020 by

The global pandemic has elected officials spending less time shaking hands and more time taking calls – so much time, in fact, that Congresswoman Betty McCollum recently treated herself to a pair of Apple AirPods. 

“I am on the phone from about 8:30 in the morning to about 6:30 at night, then on and off a little bit on the weekends,” she laughed. “It’s not the most efficient way for us to legislate, but we’re figuring out how to do it.” 

After being endorsed by the Minnesota AFL-CIO last month, the 10-term DFLer from the state’s 4th Congressional District carved out 30 minutes of phone time for this interview with The Union Advocate, featured in our May 2020 edition.

The interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, took place before April 24, when Congress passed a $484 billion relief package with funds for small business loans, hospitals and testing. 

UA: Federal lawmakers have so far passed three sweeping measures to address the public health and economic crises caused by COVID-19. Where have you directed your focus during this process? 

BM: My focus first and foremost has been on working people and their families, and on making sure we have health care facilities that are open and able to run. That meant having the personal protection for frontline workers in our hospitals, as well as in our community clinics. 

And then we needed to make sure that we have testing, which the president has failed miserably at. In order to open up our economy, in order to lift some of these stay-at-home orders, we have to have tests. People need to be able to be diagnosed quickly and effectively … so that we can work on the next phase, which is coming up with treatment and coming up with a vaccine.  

So my focus has been on what we need to do to keep our families safe… 

UA: We’re still hearing alarming accounts from health care and other frontline workers about lack of PPE and medical equipment. Is there more Congress should do, or is it now a supply-chain issue that falls more on the executive branch and states? 

BM: This is a supply-chain issue that I have been concerned about since we had our last epidemic, with H1N1 and SARS. When I was in the Minnesota statehouse, I had the opportunity to work with (former state epidemiologist) Dr. Michael Osterholm. He has been a mentor to me on this. When we were going through the anthrax situation in Washington, D.C., I learned we don’t keep enough of a stockpile or manufacture enough of the things we need… Masks, gowns, syringes, the cotton swabs they need to do the tests – there are so many things we don’t manufacture in this country. When trade shuts down because of war, trade shuts down because of disruption or trade shuts down because of pandemic, we as a country make ourselves vulnerable.  

It’s something a lot of us in Congress have been talking about for years. Then the crisis goes away, and everybody doesn’t want to deal with it. We have to deal with it this time. I hope we’ve learned our lesson. 

UA: Congress has allocated a lot of money to make sure workers remain employed during the crisis, with access to paid leave if they need it. Are you confident that’s happening as the bills are being implemented? And is there proper oversight to ensure corporations benefiting from the stimulus are using that money to pay their workers? 

BM: Two great points that you bring up… With the CARES Act, we knew there were going to be a lot of people who would not be able to go to work. You look at the restaurants right now, they had to close down because of all the contact. We put in place unemployment insurance, and the State of Minnesota … had money in hand to get the money out the door even faster. Sure there’s been hiccups with that, but I feel confident a lot of these issues will get smoothed out and money will get out to families… 

But you also asked about oversight. And for the president of the United States to say (Congress) didn’t need any oversight, with the way he’s been firing people who have been in place for years to work with Congress on oversight of taxpayers’ dollars? Just because he doesn’t agree with them, he’s firing them. That’s wrong. Democrats in the House are going to do our very, very best to make sure these funds are spent the way they were meant to be: to save lives, to keep families from suffering more than they already have and to get our economy back up and running. 

UA: The Postal Service says it’s likely to run out of cash by September. Cities and other local governments are looking at historic shortfalls. Is there a chance Congress would act to address some of these things in a second stimulus? 

BM: I’m on the Appropriations Committee, and we were working with our authorizers on a major infrastructure bill, which, on and off, the president has been interested in working with us on. We could get people back to work, we could get people off the bench, building roads, bridges, broadband, energy efficiency in our schools. But we found out Mitch McConnell was not interested in doing that. 

We still know that our hospitals need money, and we need money for vaccine work. And we know social distancing works; we need to figure out a way to get the economy moving safely. So while these businesses lay in wait for that moment when it’s safe for workers to go back, we have to keep those small community businesses – the hair salons, the restaurants, the plumbing and electric companies – able to keep their employees on hold in a way that provides them some stability and security. 

UA: I know you’ve been a strong supporter of our postal unions here in St. Paul. What does Congress need to do to keep the post office open? 

BM: Well there are bills out there the postal unions have been talking about for years, we just need to pass them. Just think, in a presidential election year, as we’re slowly starting to recover from a pandemic, if we don’t have letter carriers out there delivering ballots. We know what the weather can be like here in November, to ask people to social distance and stand in line outside to vote like they did in Wisconsin? That would just be wrong. 

UA: You will once again be the labor-endorsed candidate on the ballot in the 4th district this year. Has the COVID-19 crisis heightened the stakes of our choice this November, not just locally, but nationally? 

BM:  I think it really has. When I saw what was happening in China in January, it took my breath away. That’s a communist government. We don’t hear about those things as fast as if it had happened in Canada or Australia. So when we hear about it, you know it’s been going on a long time. COVID-19 is an invisible enemy – that’s that only thing the president has said that I’ll agree with him on. His job was to work with world leaders, to work with the WHO to collect the information, to start gearing up and buy ventilators and PPE, to get what we need to keep America safe – and he just failed to do it.  

His comments speak for themselves. It’s just like the flu, or it will all be gone this spring. None of them were based on science; they were all based on wishful thinking. When the health and safety of the people that look to you for leadership is on the line, that’s not the time for wishful thinking. That’s the time for hard thinking. And he failed us miserably. 

UA:  The labor endorsement came despite positions you’ve taken on mining in northern Minnesota that are at odds with some Building Trades unions. What do you say to tradespeople who want an opportunity to work those jobs? 

BM:  First off, I’m not opposed to mining in northern Minnesota, the way it’s often stated generally. I’m a member of the Steel Caucus. I’m on the Defense Committee. I know how important it is to our national security that we have the ability to make it in America. And I’ve carried a lot of language in the interior bill so that steel for taxpayer-funded projects, we make it in America. 

In the early days of taconite mining we learned that it caused some great harm to our waterways, and we’ve been cleaning that up since then. We’ve learned how to be respectful of our environment and not damaging our water quality anymore when taconite mining. The sulfide-ore copper mining in northern Minnesota is a different type of mining than taconite. The waste product kills everything in the water. There is no second chance, no do-over. 

The Superior National Forest has 20 percent of the fresh water in our U.S. Forestry system. All the water adjacent to the Great Lakes on the Minnesota side is in the Boundary Waters area. We are known for fresh water. We are known for clean water. You need fresh, clean water in order to survive… We have a moral responsibility to protect clean, fresh drinking water for our children and future generations. 

I think jobs are important. I think jobs in northern Minnesota are extraordinarily important. The only thing I asked is … prove it to me scientifically that we can do this safely. And 20 months into a 24-month study, the Trump administration stopped the study. They will not show me one piece of paper from it, not one scrap. I’ve repeatedly asked for it. It was paid for with taxpayer money. And before the study was completed, they started removing the moratorium on the leases. I think a reasonable person could say, why did you stop the study? It should bring great concerns to all of us, including my brothers and sisters in northern Minnesota, why we can’t see the study. What don’t they want us to know?  

UA: Finally, how has COVID-19 impacted your office’s work? 

BM: We are here to serve you. Our office is open for business, and we are really anxious to help people navigate their way through COVID-19. 

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

On Workers Memorial Day, unions still pleading for enforceable federal protections from deadly COVID-19

April 28, 2020 by

Every year on April 28, local unions hold Workers Memorial Day ceremonies to honor their members who died in the last 12 months as a result of work-related injury or illness – and to renew the call for safer workplaces.

This year, with Minnesota under a statewide stay-at-home order, on-site observances were canceled. (The Minnesota AFL-CIO will livestream a ceremony on Facebook tonight at 6 p.m.)

That meant no black scarves draped over crosses bearing the names of the fallen, no mourners standing shoulder to shoulder, offering prayers and observing moments of silence to mark the solemn day.

But with many union members on the front lines of efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 – often without the necessary protective gear – unions nationwide planned to mark Workers Memorial Day 2020 with an urgent call, as the rallying cry goes, to “mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

“As the virus continues to spread, many employers are woefully unprepared,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, wrote in a letter to affiliate unions. “Guidance from federal authorities has been inconsistent at best and dangerous at worst…

“Working people are doing our part in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Now our government must do the same by issuing strong enforceable protections for all workers at risk during this pandemic.”

Letting bosses off the hook

So far, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia has resisted union demands to establish emergency temporary standards for workplaces during the pandemic. Instead, the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ health and safety, OSHA, has distributed “guidance” to employers, none of which is enforceable.

A report published in the Washington Post revealed OSHA received more than 3,000 complaints related to the coronavirus from January through early April. The total number of worker complaints, though, is likely much higher, as some states, including Minnesota, collect and investigate OSHA complaints on their own.

Making matters worse, the Trump administration has over the last three years steadily chipped away at the number of federal OSHA investigators, which stands at its lowest point in the agency’s history. And despite the public health crisis, the agency’s director chair sits unfilled.

Meanwhile, unions warn that Trump’s Centers for Disease Control put communities at risk when it loosened guidelines covering essential workers exposed to COVID-19 earlier this month.

Previously, the CDC urged workers to self-quarantine for 14 days before returning to work. But the new guidelines permit essential workers to make an immediate return, as long as they remain asymptomatic, take their temperature prior to work, wear a mask and practice social distancing “as work duties permit.”

“The loosened guidelines are dangerous, and risk exposing other workers and the public to infection, with supposed mitigation measures that are far less effective in reducing the threat of spreading the virus,” National Nurses United Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said.

Where’s the PPE?

In March, as Minnesota hospitals scrambled to prepare for an influx of COVID-19 patients, union nurses began collecting N-95 masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE) at the Minnesota Nurses Association’s St. Paul offices.

It was a chilling indication that hospitals and nursing homes here were anticipating the same shortages – PPE, ventilators, testing kits – reported by facilities in other parts of the county.

Unions, including AFSCME, SEIU and the Nurses, called on President Trump to use the power of the Defense Production Act to speed up production of PPE and needed medical supplies. But Trump has so far used the DPA sparingly, pitting hospitals and state governments against each other for access to a limited supply of lifesaving equipment.

A report issued April 16 by the Public Accountability Initiative found Trump bowed to pressure from corporate lobbyists with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who urged him not to deploy the DPA.

Many of the most powerful corporations in the Chamber, the report found, have direct financial interests in how the COVID-19 response plays out. That includes medical manufacturers like 3M and Honeywell, major employers of frontline workers and big banks.

“The largest, wealthiest, and most powerful corporations and industries have to show leadership by looking past their bottom lines,” SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry said. “Unfortunately their response so far has been nothing short of appalling.”

Death toll climbing

It’s a cruel irony that Workers Memorial Day observances had to be canceled at a time when so many working people – essential workers providing care to the sick, delivering food to families, stocking shelves with the supplies we need – are putting themselves at risk just by reporting to their jobs.

The AFL-CIO created an online memorial to American union members who died after contracting COVID-19.

As this edition of The Advocate went to press, the number of deaths listed on the page stood at 124. So far, none of the fallen was from Minnesota.

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