Northwest Airlines museum gets parting gift from union retirees

May 5, 2021 by

Mary Sansom presents Bruce Kitt with a check for the airline retirees club’s remaining funds, made out to the Northwest Airlines History Center.

Local airline retirees placed their social club into retirement last month, but not before donating the organization’s remaining funds to a museum preserving of the history of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s longtime union carrier, Northwest Airlines.

Founded in 1976, the Machinists Airline Local 1833 Retired Members Social Club met for the final time April 15 in Bloomington. As the last order of business before gaveling into permanent adjournment, Club President Mary Sansom presented Bruce Kitt, executive director of the Northwest Airlines History Center, with a check made out to the Twin Cities museum.

“Recognizing the history that we’ve all shared and have all been a part of, literally, this is bittersweet,” Kitt told some 30 club members gathered for the final meeting. “But on behalf of the museum, I do thank each and every one of you because each and every one of you are represented in this museum – your history, your names, your faces and your accomplishments.”

The social club, affiliated with Machinists Local Lodge 1833, made the difficult decision to fold as a result of dwindling participation, Sansom said.

The local represents airline workers based at MSP, once a hub of operations for heavily unionized Northwest. But Northwest folded into non-union Delta Air Lines as part of a merger announced in 2008, and Local Lodge 1833’s membership cratered.

“Our ability and resources to enlist new members for the retiree club was gone,” Sansom said. “With our current members growing older, unable to move around as easily as they used to or moving out of state to a warmer climate or passing away, the membership has steadily been going down.

“The remaining members decided it was time to ‘retire’ the social club.”

Local Lodge 1833’s membership peaked at over 10,000 airline workers and retirees in 1988, two years after Northwest merged with Republic Airlines. Most members were Northwest employees, as the airline was headquartered in Eagan.

Local Lodge 1833 represented mechanics, stock clerks, cleaners, flight-kitchen workers, equipment-service and plant-protection workers, and the merger with Republic brought bus drivers, reservation and ticket agents and clerical and office workers into the fold. (Northwest mechanics voted to leave the Machinists union in 2000.)

After their final order of business – transferring their accounts to the museum – retirees took the opportunity to share memories of working at “the Red Tail,” as Northwest was familiarly known in the airline industry.

But it doesn’t have to be the last opportunity for reflection, Kitt said, noting that the Northwest Airlines History Center museum is open to visitors four days a week at the Crowne Plaza Aire MSP Hotel in Bloomington.

“I like to say it’s the only place you can still get a Red Tail fix that Delta can’t touch,” Kitt said.

About the history center 

The Northwest Airlines History Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history of all 12 airlines that are part of Northwest’s corporate legacy. Learn more at northwestairlineshistory.org.

The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday on the third floor of the Crone Plaza Aire MSP hotel, 3 Appletree Square, Bloomington. Admission is free.

The history center also maintains a vast archive of Northwest Airlines history at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie. Access is by appointment only.

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After leaving auto industry, retired Machinist preps others for entry-level work

March 4, 2021 by

Greg Kinne offers hands-on instruction in the basics of auto mechanics to students at the Twin Cities School. (submitted photo)

Greg Kinne isn’t letting the knowledge he gained over nearly five decades in the automotive industry go to waste in retirement. The former Machinist is sharing what he knows with a new generation of workers at the Twin Cities School.

Kinne, a longtime member of Local Lodge 737, has signed on as a volunteer at the school, housed in founder Jerry L. Griffis’ detailing shop in Columbia Heights. Together, Kinne and Griffis teach the basics of auto detailing and maintenance to young adults struggling to find their career paths.

The free, 12-week course includes opportunities for paid work in Griffis’ shop. The goal, Kinne said, is to give students enough training to land an entry-level job.

“They’re going to know enough about detailing that a shop could take them on and not have to explain everything to them,” he said. “They’re still going to have to learn some things. But I worked 50 years, and I was still learning things when I was done.”

In the classroom, students follow a curriculum developed by Griffis, a former service manager at the White Bear Lake Superstore dealership. He takes the lead teaching auto detailing, and Kinne takes the lead teaching basic mechanics, like changing the oil, rotating the tires and how parts of the car work together.

While detailing is the program’s focus, an introduction to “the other stuff,” Kinne said, makes students more attractive to potential employers, and may spark an interest in pursuing more training to climb the career ladder.

“You wouldn’t be hired out of our program as a technician, but it might give you the idea that you want to go to school and learn more about it,” Kinne said.

But Kinne and Griffis try to offer students more than just garage knowledge.

The Twin Cities School emphasizes so-called “soft skills” necessary for success on the job, and Griffis and Kinne have tapped into their connections in the local auto industry to help find interested students work. Those connections include Local Lodge 737 and union dealerships.

“Union shops, that’s what I push,” Kinne said. “Jerry was a manager – one of the few African American managers in our area, but he worked in a union shop. And I know he’s sat down with Local 737 and talked about the school with them, and they’ve been supportive.

“The union leads the way in this industry. The union contract prices go out, and if the other dealerships don’t pay similar to them, they don’t get people.”

That’s not to mention the union benefits, which include the defined-benefit pension that allowed Kinne to retire five years ago.

Kinne’s career in the automotive industry began in 1972, when he went to work behind the parts counter at Royal Datsun, a union shop on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. His father was the parts manager, and Kinne thought of the opportunity as a stopgap.

But when the business moved to Maplewood in 1981, Kinne moved with it. By 1989, he’d been promoted to parts manager. He left that job in 1997 and worked briefly for a Luther dealership in Minneapolis before taking a position at the White Bear Lake Superstore as a technician.

“I’d kind of burned out on the parts stuff by then,” Kinne said.

He began working as a Hyundai mechanic in 2000, and by the time he retired in 2016, Kinne was one of just a few certified platinum Hyundai technicians in the Buerkle organization, having completed weeks of trainings and passed several evaluations.

Willingness to put in the time and effort it takes to learn new skills is a big part of what made Kinne successful in his career, and he makes a point of emphasizing as much to students at the Twin Cities School, he said.

“I’m not a teacher but I can certainly share experiences – good and bad – with the young men,” Kinne said.

But Kinne added: “I try not to place my history upon their stuff because it’s different.”

Kinne had a father who steered him into a career field, while most students at the Twin Cities School struggled to complete high school or have had run-ins with law enforcement.

“It’s a short program designed to build an interest in working on cars, maybe a career working on cars and a path to livability,” Kinne said. “But it’s just one step. It’s a small niche in a bigger education outreach effort by the community.”

Others are taking notice of the school’s approach. Ramsey and Hennepin counties have referred students to Griffis’ program, which also includes an aviation module. And the school has developed a partnership with St. Paul’s Ujamaa Place, which offers programming to men 17 to 28 years old. (Twin Cities School is open to both men and women.)

Automotive work might not be for everyone who completes the program, but reaching the finish line comes with a sense of accomplishment, Kinne said, both for students and for their instructors.

“It’s a good challenge, and I do enjoy it,” he said. “There are a lot of hurdles to getting guys interested, but the best is having someone who’s been in the class and running into them.

“One guy came up and thanked me for teaching him how to solder. It’s a simple thing, but he came up and wanted to make a point of thanking me for teaching him that. I had to laugh.”

*****

Yes, auto technicians are union members! Machinists Local Lodge 737 represents over 900 mechanics, parts personnel, body workers and service technicians at dealerships in the east metro. Click here to find a list of union shops.

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President Trump is taking aim at Social Security

September 29, 2020 by

By Buddy Robinson, special to The Union Advocate

You wouldn’t know it from watching the news, but Social Security’s future is on the ballot in 2020. If President Trump is re-elected, it’s clear that he will try to greatly weaken and even eliminate Social Security. That’s despite his repeated – but hollow – claims to protect it.

This should not come as a surprise. When he first ran for president, as a Reform Party candidate in 2000, Trump said he wanted to privatize Social Security, calling it a “Ponzi scheme.” He wanted to eliminate guaranteed benefits and have people gamble on the stock market instead. He also promoted raising the age requirement for full benefits up to 70.

After starting to serve as president in 2017, Trump’s budget proposals each year have sought large cuts in funding for Social Security disability. His latest one, for fiscal year 2021, seeks to cut $75 billion over 10 years from programs that benefit people with disabilities (over half of whom are 55 or older). This includes $10 billion in Social Security Disability cuts, plus plans to reduce the number of people enrolled by about 5 percent. That would be accomplished with harsher work rules that determine who can qualify. Another cut is to lower the initial retroactive benefit that people get when they first go on Social Security Disability. It currently is 12 months retroactive, but Trump wants to reduce it to six months.

His budgets have also included cuts for Social Security’s administrative expenses. That translates into fewer offices, shorter hours, fewer staff and longer times to process applications to get on Social Security, or even to get answers to simple questions.

Don’t be fooled by Trump’s focus on Social Security just for people with disabilities. People on regular retirement Social Security better worry, too. Trump’s 2021 budget proposal talks about a need to “reduce the rate of increase” in Social Security payments. That sounds like code words for reducing the annual Cost Of Living Adjustment, increasing the age to start getting benefits, reducing the initial benefit formula – or maybe all of the above.

When you think about the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effect on families and workers, the importance of Social Security becomes all the more apparent. The recession that accompanies our pandemic in the U.S., worsened by Trump’s botched response, will depress future Social Security benefits for an estimated 4 million Americans who become eligible in 2022, because of the severe drop in average wages nationally. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, their benefits will be about $1,428 per year lower than if the pandemic had never happened.

Trump has done something with Social Security in light of the pandemic: He is allowing businesses to forego collecting their employees’ Social Security payroll taxes from September through December. After that, those missing taxes would have to be collected and paid. Not surprisingly, few businesses are choosing to follow this option. To get a four-month vacation from the payroll taxes, only to have to pay them back, doesn’t make any sense.

Trump has said that, if re-elected, he will consider doing away with the payroll tax altogether. If that were to occur, and no other revenue source were found to replace it, then we already know the result. Social Security’s chief actuary has testified that if this happens, all Social Security disability benefits will cease in mid-2021, and all Social Security retirement benefits will cease in mid-2023.

What was he thinking? Despite his coyness, we can see what Trump really wants: his long-held dream of destroying the current Social Security system and turning it into a privatized gamble. Andrew Biggs, who helped write President George W. Bush’s ill-fated privatization proposal, explained recently that Trump’s ideas can lead to changing Social Security into two parts: a small, income-tax-funded benefit for only the poorest, and private investment accounts for everyone else. So, Trump really looks at the pandemic as a way to further his goal of wrecking and privatizing Social Security. We all need to be seriously concerned – and vote accordingly this November.

– Buddy Robinson is former staff director of the Minnesota Citizens Federation Northeast. In recent years, he has worked with the Minnesota State Council of Retirees, AFL-CIO, on Social Security and other issues.

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

Retired Ironworker maintains steady presence in Local 512

January 8, 2019 by

Frank Sramek pauses for a photo with Local 512 Business Manager Barry Davies (R) and Duluth-area reps Keith Musolf and Darrell Godbout.

It’s been 33 years since Frank Sramek logged hours on a job site, but the retired member of Ironworkers Local 512 remains a fixture in his union. He attends meetings, speaks to graduating apprentices and stays active in the local labor movement.

And at 93 years old, Sramek has no plans to slow down.

“From time to time I meet someone who says he knows an Ironworker,” Sramek said. “I tell them, ‘Ask him if he knows Frank.’ And they always do.”

Local 512 Business Manager Barry Davies says there’s good reason so many people know Sramek.

“Frank is responsible for every Ironworker in northern Minnesota having a pension,” Davies said. “Frank was on the union’s executive board, and he pushed them to get into the pension fund. The business agent up there didn’t want to do it, but Frank stuck to his guns.”

It’s one of the many stories Sramek, who lives in the Duluth area with his wife, Jo-Ann, will gladly recount for fellow Ironworkers, union members or, in this case, a labor reporter with a recorder.

UA: When did you get into the Ironworkers union, and how?

FS: In those days you got a union book – not a union card – that you placed stamps in as you paid your dues. I got my book in 1955. There was no apprenticeship at that time. In fact, there was quite a bit of nepotism… I joined Local 563 in Duluth, which was smaller than the Twin Cities local. There was a pecking order, and we were lower on the totem pole than the guys in the Cities. But that all changed after the taconite plants began being built.

UA: What drew you to the trade?

FS: I grew up on a dairy farm near Meadow-lands. I’d never heard of an Ironworker, but my dad always talked about the need for unions. He was a very strong union supporter even though he was a farmer… My dad worked for the WPA during the Great Depression. I actually remember Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats. Just like nowadays Trump is on Twitter, in those days Roosevelt took advantage of the radio. My dad just admired him. He told me many times if it were not for Frank Roosevelt, we would’ve lost the farm.

UA: You kept farming the family’s land, even while you were working as an Ironworker?

FS: Yes, and I went around trying to organize other farmers in St. Louis County to join the National Farmers Organization. Let me tell you, farmers were impossible. They said, ‘I’m going to wait and see if it works first.’ What the hell? We don’t need you then… Eventually I thought to myself, ‘Why am I busting my ass when in the Ironworkers union, it was all set up?’ I made up my mind then and there to be a good union man.

UA: How did you learn your craft without an apprenticeship program?

FS: I remember my first job working on structural iron, I worked with a guy named Tom, and he was mad. ‘How in the hell,’ he said, ‘did I get teamed up with a dummy like this?’ I felt like just dropping everything and going home.

But you worked with some other guys who were good guys, and they’d show you some tricks here and there. And over the years, you got to be an experienced Ironworker.

UA: What was your role in getting the pension set up for Ironworkers on the Range?

FS: We had an influx of Ironworkers on the taconite mines. They came from all over the country, and they paid in work assessments and travel service dues. A lot of bucks came into our home local.

At the time, we had a participation agreement with Local 512, but our pension was only half of what those guys were getting. I was an observer to the pension fund at the time, and when it was my turn to speak I said, ‘Listen, we can use this money to double the pensions of our Ironworkers up here.’ And from that time on, we were on equal status with Local 512. (Eventually, the two locals merged.)

UA: What keeps you hanging around the union?

FS: I like the Ironworkers because I never had a brother Ironworker be an enemy of mine. I was OK with all the guys. I enjoyed the brotherhood. Now that I’m old, this is when it really matters. Even though there’s a big gap between me and these young guys, I can call a young guy to help me – and he’ll come and help me. Even after I’ve been retired longer than they’ve been a member!

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Retiree Council president: ‘You can’t just ride off into the sunset’

October 4, 2018 by

Ken McInnis

Ken McInnis has been going to union meetings since he was 5 years old. He helped organize a union when he was 15.

It’s no surprise, then, that his union activism has extended into retirement.

A former diesel mechanic and longtime member of Machinists Local Lodge 737, McInnis became president of the Minnesota State Retiree Council last month, when Bill Moore resigned after seven years in the position.

“My dad was a pulp and paper worker, and my mother used to send me with him to his union meetings when I was 5, 6 and 7 years old,” McInnis said. “When I was 15, I was working at a SuperValu store in Eau Claire, and we were lucky enough to organize a union.”

For McInnis, who now lives in Ham Lake, it was the start of a lifetime of support for the labor movement and progressive causes. In between jobs as a mechanic, he worked over 12 years as a business representative for Machinists District Lodge 77. He’s run for state and federal office, held several positions in the DFL Party and served alongside Paul Wellstone in Minnesota’s delegation to the Democratic National Committee.

His latest challenge? Providing direction for the Retiree Council, which provides Minnesota’s union retirees and their organizations with a voice in the state’s labor movement – and an opportunity to remain active in advocating for public policy and political representation that advances their interests.

UA: You took office at the start of a pivotal campaign season. Has it been a baptism by fire?

KM: It’s more work, obviously, in an election year, but it’s work I’m familiar with. I previously ran for state House and state Senate as a labor-endorsed DFLer here in Ham Lake. It’s a district that had about a 37 percent DFL index. I got 39 percent of the vote, so I figure I did alright.

So the election work is not a trial by fire. We’ve also got a lot of programs that we’re working with here, and we’re working to see that retirees have their say.

But for me, I’ve done this stuff for 40 years. It’s nothing new, just a different venue.

UA: What’s driven that interest in organizing and campaign work over four decades and counting?

KM: The old adage is, ‘The world is run by those that come to the meeting.’ I’ve always gone to the meetings.

Looking at the importance of the issues that are before us right now, those issues haven’t really changed a whole lot since I got involved back in 1973. We’re still fighting ‘right to work for less.’ We’re still fighting to make sure Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are going to be there for future retirees, like my three granddaughters. Those are the issues that drive me.

UA: You’re a self-starter when it comes to politics. How do you hope to inspire a similar interest among other retirees?

KM: I’ve always said if I’m lucky enough to engender an interest by one person per year, I’ll feel lucky. But it’s also about walking the walk. If I’m not going to do the work, other retirees are going to look at me and say, ‘He wants us to do it, but he won’t do it himself.’

UA: Where do you hope to see the Retiree Council go as an organization during your time in the president’s office?

KM: Right now we’re keyed in on making sure we win on Nov. 6. That’s the most important thing because if we don’t win, workers in general are going to lose their ability to better their lot.

Beyond that, my plan is to work on organizing the retiree networks out there. Not every union has a retiree chapter. Many have chapters that are more of a social club than an advocacy group. Hopefully we can engage some of them – and we have been – to participate in the council and in the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

It’s important for retirees to understand that you can’t just walk off into the sunset and think that everything’s going to be covered. Greedy people out there – including the party that controls Congress and the President himself – are trying to take everything away from us that they can, like pensions, Medicare, Social Security, our rights.

I’m issuing a call for retirees or organizations that have retirees to get active and put together a retiree organization if they don’t already have one. Join us; join our work. If everybody does a little bit, then a whole lot will get done.

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Smith hits the ground running in fight to save pensions

March 15, 2018 by

U.S. Senator Tina Smith met with retirees in St. Paul about her recent appointment to a congressional super-committee on pension reform.

When a Twin Cities-based trucking company abruptly closed three days before Thanksgiving 2016, Tina Smith, then Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, was among the first elected officials to respond.

Owners of Lakeville Motor Express, a union employer, had allegedly siphoned off the firm’s resources into a separate, non-union firm. LME drew public ire for failing to pay many of the 95 Teamsters left jobless.

But Smith also saw signs of what appeared to be a long game. Lakeville Motor Express’ “ability to go out of business on the one hand and start a new business on the other hand,” she said, “allowed it to evade its responsibilities around pensions.”

In fact, LME had followed “a roadmap for escaping pension liabilities,” Teamsters Local 120’s Paul Slattery said, that is “bankrupting” multi-employer pension funds nationwide.

Nearly 18 months later, Lakeville Motor Express’ owners face a state lawsuit alleging fraud, and Smith, who played a critical role in the Dayton administration’s LME investigation, is taking on the fight to protect working people’s hard-earned pension benefits in the U.S. Senate.

The newly appointed senator landed one of eight seats on a congressional “super-committee” formed last month to address the looming pension crisis, as underfunded multi-employer funds providing benefits to over 1 million retirees spiral further toward bankruptcy.

The newly formed committee has until Nov. 30 to agree on a plan to address the crisis. Any legislation that advances from the committee is guaranteed a vote on the Senate floor.

“This is like getting the rug pulled out from underneath you,” Local 120 retiree Chuck Justice (L) told Smith.

‘I’m terrified’

Before digging into the committee’s work, Smith met last week in St. Paul with some of the 22,000 Minnesota retirees covered by the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund. It’s the fund Lakeville Motor Express weaseled out of, and it’s on track to run out of money within 10 years.

Andrea Hovdestad of Andover attended the meeting with her father, Verlyn, who retired after 35 years as a Teamster driver. She listed the sacrifices her father made to keep contributing to his pension: missing birthday parties, working holidays, sometimes standing on picket lines in the freezing cold.

“This feels like an attack on labor, an attack on the working class,” Hovdestad told Smith, adding that her husband is vested the Central States fund as well. “I’m worried. I’m terrified.”

Smith stressed her opposition to cutting current retirees’ benefits as a part of a pension fix.

“These are people who did everything right,” Smith said. “They paid in, they sacrificed, they worked long hours and they worked many, many years for the promise that when they were done there was going to be a pension there so that they could take care of themselves.”

Smith’s preference: the Butch Lewis Act, legislation introduced last year and backed by the Teamsters. The bill would lend cash to Central States and other troubled funds, helping them meet their obligations to current retirees and regain the financial footing necessary to survive over the long haul.

Local retiree organization Save Our Pensions-Minnesota mobilized hundreds of people to rally in support of the Butch Lewis Act last December, and Smith’s support for the measure was met with a round of applause from retirees around the table in St. Paul.

“If we can figure out a way to bail out Wall Street when they need help, I just can’t believe that we can’t figure out a way to do this,” Smith said, adding that the Butch Lewis Act would be “way less expensive” than the bank bailout.

Too big to fail

The cost of federal inaction, retirees warned, would be far greater than the cost of shoring up their pension funds.

For starters, pension benefits are a major driver of consumer spending. A 2016 report by the nonpartisan National Institute on Retirement Security found that every dollar paid out in benefits supported $2.21 in total economic output nationwide.

Many retirees told Smith said they have no “Plan B” if their pension benefits disappear. Dave Erickson, a retired truck driver from Isanti, said 15 percent of his wages – sometimes more – went into the Central States fund, with little left over for individual retirement savings.

“I stayed in a job I didn’t always like because I had that carrot,” he said. “I wanted my pension… That was a promise.”

Without their pensions, many retirees would be left to rely on Social Security retirement benefits, which currently average $1,362 per month – or just over $16,300 annually. Not only would it severely undercut retirees’ standard of living, Central States pensioner Chuck Justice said, it would force many to access public assistance for food, housing and other needs.

“I take pride in the fact I am able to take care of myself,” Justice, a retired truck driver from Woodbury, told Smith. “This is like someone pulling the rug out from underneath you. It’s just not right.”

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

Retirees back bill to get troubled pension funds on track

December 4, 2017 by

Retirees packed the UFCW Local 1189 union hall for a rally with U.S. Reps. Tim Walz and Rick Nolan.

Federal legislation introduced last month would lend cash to ailing pension funds so they can meet their obligations to current retirees and grow enough to serve people still working toward retirement.

The Butch Lewis Act, authored by Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, received a full-throated endorsement from retirees, union leaders and lawmakers at a rally organized by Save Our Pensions-Minnesota on Saturday.

Over 100 people, mostly retired and active Teamsters in the beleaguered Central States Pension Fund, packed the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 hall in South St. Paul to learn more about the new bill, which has bipartisan support.

“This is not a bailout,” Save Our Pensions co-chair Jeff Brooks told fellow retirees. “This is essentially a refinancing plan.”

The bill is named after the deceased Central States pensioner who led efforts to stop the fund from cutting benefits for 273,000 retirees. The Treasury Department rejected that so-called “rescue strategy” in May 2016, after Save Our Pensions-Minnesota and other grassroots organizations mobilized retirees in opposition to the plan.

Still, the fund claims it will run out of money sometime in the next 10 years, and it’s not the only U.S. multi-employer pension fund in trouble. An analysis by two actuarial consulting firms released earlier this year found 114  funds – covering nearly 1.5 million workers – in critical condition or worse.

The Butch Lewis Act would create a new federal office, funded by the sale of U.S. Treasury bonds, empowered to lend troubled pensions the money they need to remain solvent.

Funds would pay back the low-interest loans over 30 years. In exchange, they would be barred from making risky investments and required to deliver regular progress reports to federal administrators showing their progress in getting back on track.

For those plans needing additional help, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation would be available to make up the difference.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, in a previously recorded video address to Saturday’s rally, called the bill a “win-win” for retirees and pension plans alike. “No more stalling,” she said. “No more false promises. We need to act now.”

DFL Reps. Rick Nolan and Tim Walz attended the rally and pledged their support as well.

“If this country can’t provide a decent retirement to its people, then what do we stand for?” Walz asked.

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

Retirees plan action-oriented conference to build power, resist attacks

April 25, 2017 by

The Minnesota State Retiree Council and allied organizations will hold a conference May 6 entitled “Family Security and Retiree Power in a Time of Crisis,” from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Minnesota Nurses Association, 345 Randolph Ave., St. Paul.

Organizers plan an “action-oriented discussion about resisting attacks on affordable health care, our pensions and social safety net, and how we can organize for power to make them better.”

Robert Roach Jr., president of the Alliance for Retired Americans and former general secretary-treasurer of the Machinists union, will speak at the conference. [Read an interview with Roach about the ARA’s work and his participation in the May 6 conference here.]

The event includes lunch. Register at aflcio.mn/retirees17 or by calling 651-227-7647, ext. 121.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,

‘We are being distracted by a showman who throws these tweets out’

April 20, 2017 by

Robert Roach Jr.’s career as a labor leader began shortly after he went to work for Trans World Airlines in 1975, when he joined a fight to improve the conditions of new employees at the now-defunct airline. He hasn’t stopped fighting since.

After rising through the ranks of the International Association of Machinists, Roach retired as the union’s general secretary‐treasurer in July 2015. Now he’s president of the 3 million-member Alliance for Retired Americans, which works to mobilize retired union members, seniors and activists into a nationwide grassroots movement.

Roach will travel to St. Paul May 6 for a conference planned by local retirees fighting back against attacks on health care, pensions and the social safety net. Click here for registration information.

We reached out to Roach for a preview of what conference-goers can expect from his keynote speech, and to learn more about the issues retirees are organizing around nationally. His answers have been edited for length.

UA: You’re continuing your work as a labor leader in retirement. Isn’t that the opposite of how retirement is supposed to work?

RR: “In the Machinists union we have a rule – a good rule – that we retire at age 65 from executive office. It allows new people and new ideas to come up through the ranks. But it doesn’t mean that we’re off going fishing. I think those of us who’ve had the opportunity to serve and were able to retire should certainly stay involved.”

UA: You accepted an invitation to address a conference in St. Paul entitled “Family Security and Retiree Power in a Time of Crisis.” Do you agree we’re in a time of crisis?

RR: “Absolutely. I’m 66 years old, and this is as bad as I’ve seen it. The reforms they talk about – and ‘reform’ actually is code for taking something from somebody – are a vicious attack on senior citizens, which translates into an attack on the whole family structure. People now are either having to move in with mom or dad because they can’t get decent jobs, or they have to take mom or dad home because they’ve lost some of their benefits or don’t have the proper health care. People can’t move up.”

UA: How are retirees joining the resistance?

RR: “We want to talk about unity. As Secretary Clinton, a good friend of mine, said, we are stronger together. We must come together and align ourselves with like-minded people to ensure that we have strength.

“But I am very concerned. In all this talk about Russia, a lot of things are not being looked at. You turn on some of these cable-news channels, and it’s 24 hours of Russia, Russia, Russia – which is a very important issue. But what about Planned Parenthood? What about Medicaid? What about protection for senior citizens? What about protections for working men and women?

“When I was in elementary school, I used to have to get under my desk because the Russians were coming and they were going to drop a bomb on us or something. It was a drill. Let me tell you something, the Russians have been coming for 60 years.”

UA: How do we organize like-minded people when the opponent is as good at driving a wedge between us as this president has proven to be?

RR: “It all starts locally, with sitting down and talking with people, educating them and asking them, how is this affecting you? We have to take those issues that are important to working families and make people aware of what’s at stake. Because we are being distracted by a showman who throws these tweets out, and we spend hours and hours talking about a tweet. But it distracts us from the real issues.”

UA: Many of the issues ARA organizes around – trade, for example – go beyond what might be considered “senior issues.” What’s the connection?

RR: “All these things that affect working people, at the end of the day, affect seniors. We’re all a family. If there are no new people coming into a retirement program, that jeopardizes existing seniors. When employers subcontract work out or ship it to Mexico, it affects seniors who are already retired. And ultimately, if we fight for them, they will fight for us.”

UA: What would you say to young workers who might scoff at the notion they’re ever going to see Social Security or pension benefits?

RR: “That’s a myth. This is more of the propaganda they’ve put together to keep people from fighting for a defined-benefit pension plan. They’ll tell you a 401(k) is going to make you a millionaire. At one point in time, I sat where they sit. Now I’m fortunate enough to have had a pension I could retire from. And I was in the thick of the fights during the airline bankruptcy. There are people in Minnesota today at those airports, whether they realize it or not, who continue to enjoy a defined-benefit pension because we, as a union, fought for them. But if there is no fight, you will not have a benefit.”

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

Retiree council plans annual fundraising bash

March 8, 2017 by

Gopher Retiree Sept-Oct 2012.pubGood times will roll at the Minnesota State Retiree Council’s fundraiser April 29, and people of any age are welcome to join in the fun.

The 14th Annual State Retiree Council Fun(d)raiser will extend from 3 to 7 p.m. at a new venue, the St. Paul Labor Center, 353 W. 7th St., near the Smith Avenue intersection. Parking is available in two lots north of the building.

Admission and parking are free, and the event will feature free food, music, hourly raffles for valuable prizes and a silent auction. Funds raised will help the state council inform retired workers about issues that affect them and organize action by retirees to assure a secure and dignified retirement for all.

“With mounting threats to pensions and our Social Safety Net, organizing the growing ranks of retirees and our families is more necessary than ever,” organizers said in a press release announcing the event.

A drawing for major cash prizes will conclude the event. Winners need not be present. Three tickets cost $5 and can be purchased from retiree council board members or by calling the council office: 651-227-7647, ext. 121.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,
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