Health care workers put MN Epilepsy Group on notice of intent to strike

March 3, 2022 by

Seeking wages and retirement benefits in line with the “world-class care” they provide, union members who work at Minnesota Epilepsy Group announced plans today for a five-day strike that could bring picket lines to clinics and hospitals across the Twin Cities.

Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota delivered the legally required 10-day notice of their intent to go on an unfair labor practice strike after contract negotiations, which began last October, dragged on well past the previous agreement’s expiration.

The union of about 60 health care workers voted to authorize the strike last month, accusing their employer of refusing to compromise at the bargaining table. Since then, Minnesota Epilepsy Group has not budged from its offer of 0.6% annual wage increases, according to the union.

“Offering 0.6% wage increase in today’s economy after what we’ve experienced is insulting,” SEIU member Renee David said. “We’re asking for fair and reasonable compromise where both sides can feel good. Their current offer will increase the burnout health care workers are facing, which could cause us to lose workers who provide the world-class care our patients deserve.”

Barring a last-ditch agreement, SEIU members said they plan to begin their strike March 14, with picketing both at the employer’s headquarters in Roseville and at hospitals where union members work.

Workers in the bargaining unit are electroencephalogram (EEG) technologists, who provide essential brain-wave testing services for patients at hospitals and clinics across the Twin Cities.

“It is frustrating that we’ve tried so hard to reach a deal and aren’t seeing that same effort from those in charge,” EEG technologist Leah Olsen said. “We’re filing our 10-day notice to potentially strike on March 14th if they continue to refuse to bargain with us. While we’ve filed this notice, we remain ready to bargain on a moment’s notice if management will come back to the table.”

Staff at Minnesota Epilepsy Group already are “stretched so thin,” said Olsen, who worries that the employer’s contract proposal will do nothing to recruit and retain employees.

“When we’re so short-staffed it’s hard to give the level of care we want to give with work and patients piling up,” she said. “Most days we have to rush to get everything done. The fact that management is offering basically no raises is disrespectful and insulting for the work we do helping our patients.”

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

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.

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

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: , , , , ,

Bobby Kasper: The strength of our union family is solidarity

December 19, 2019 by

At his retirement party, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper (L) received a U.S. flag flown over the nation’s capitol from Rep. Betty McCollum, presented by her district director, Josh Straka.

It’s the time of year when families gather together to celebrate the holidays. Those gatherings take many different forms. Sometimes we gather as a nuclear family, just parents and their children. Other times we gather with our extended family, bringing together the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or in-laws.

The ties that bind us together as family are many, and in that sense, our union movement is like family. Our local unions and bargaining units bring together working people who have the most in common, like a nuclear family. And our international unions and regional councils are like extended family, gathering union members of different stripes under one big umbrella.

In my career in the labor movement, I’ve been fortunate to serve at almost every level of the labor family, from business agent with my LIUNA local and member of Laborers Local 563 to, most recently, president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. I’ve seen how important every branch of the labor family tree is.

Our local unions give us power on the job and a voice at work. The old saying is true: If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu. By joining together and supporting each other, union members negotiate higher wages and better benefits, and we have a say in our conditions of employment.

But everything that we need to thrive can’t be gained at the bargaining table with our employers. That’s where our extended labor family comes into the picture. Labor councils and federations organize on behalf of all union members – all working people, really – for public goods like quality schools, accessible child care, a robust safety net and fair trade.

Like a family, unity is our labor movement’s strength. The stronger our solidarity, the better the contracts we negotiate. The same goes for our work in the community. When we focus on what we have in common as union members, when we focus on improving people’s lives and when we commit to doing the work it takes to make change, that’s when we win.

St. Paul RLF Sargent at Arms Jen Guertin and Executive Vice President Perry Schmidt present Kasper with a resolution recognizing his service to the city, signed by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and members of the City Council.

As union members, we stand on the shoulders of those who made great sacrifices – sometimes with their lives – to secure the rights and advantages we take for granted today. And we risk losing those rights if we do not stay in the fight. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re in Wisconsin, ask a union member there how Scott Walker’s two terms as governor turned out.

It falls on us, as union members, to take on the work of protecting our union heritage. That means committing to volunteer with your union, particularly during election season, when organizations like the Regional Labor Federation lead the push to elect leaders who share our values.

I pledge to continue giving my time even as I make the transition into retirement this winter. My last day as president of the St. Paul RLF will be Dec. 31, but I promise I’ll be back to help out when the time comes.

I may be leaving my union job, but I am definitely not leaving my union family. I moved to Minnesota to make a positive life change in 1992, but I had no idea just how much it would improve my life – and that’s because I was a union member. The relationships I have developed in the local labor movement mean everything to me.

I want to thank everyone who has befriended and supported me over the years, and all the unions that have contributed to our work at the Regional Labor Federation. I want to especially thank Laborers Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler and IBEW Local 110 Business Manager Jamie McNamara for putting together my retirement party.

I’m lucky to have moved here and lucky to have found a home in this union family, and I will never forget it.

Happy holidays!

– Bobby Kasper was elected president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, in October 2009 and will retire at the end of December 2019. The St. Paul RLF unites over 100 affiliate unions representing nearly 60,000 people who live or work in Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties.

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

Magler retires from St. Paul Pipefitters’ top office

December 21, 2018 by
web.Magler-retirement

Tony Poole (L) will succeed Rick Magler as business manager of Pipefitters Local 455. Magler shows off a box-elder bowl carved by a neighbor to celebrate his retirement.

Rick Magler, business manager of St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455 for the last six years, celebrated his retirement yesterday with family, friends and fellow Pipefitters.

The celebration took place at the local’s state-of-the-art apprenticeship center and union hall, which opened its doors on L’Oreint Street three years ago. Magler played a leading role in building the Pipefitters’ new, permanent home in St. Paul, but you wouldn’t know it by asking him.

“I was just lucky to have been in charge when that happened, and I had a lot of help,” the always humble Magler said. “It wasn’t just me, it was our whole membership.”

Assistant Business Manager Tony Poole will step into the top job at Local 455 after Magler’s retirement is official.

Magler gained initiation into Local 455 in February 1981. Before going to work as a business agent nine years ago, he worked as a welder, mostly in power plants.

Magler credits his father for talking him into going through with his apprenticeship interview 38 years ago, during a surprise visit as Magler was on his way to work at a nonunion job.

“I liked my job, and they treated me good,” Magler remembered. “But this one day I got up and was getting ready for work, and somebody was knocking on my door. I thought, ‘Who the heck is here?’

“So I went to the door, and it was my dad. He said, ‘Don’t you have an interview today?’ He said he had a chance to get into the union when he was younger, and he didn’t do it. And he said I should at least go to the interview. Two weeks later I was starting day school.

“That was the smartest thing I ever did.”

Magler’s interest in politics drove him to get more involved with the union. He served in several elected offices within Local 455: sergeant at arms, vice president, president and Executive Board member. He also held office in several labor councils, including as a trustee for the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Bobby Kasper, president of the St. Paul RLF, presented Magler with an award at his final federation meeting last week for lifetime service to the labor movement.

“Congratulations to Rick on his well-deserved retirement,” Kasper said. “We will miss his steady leadership and reliable presence at Regional Labor Federation events.”

The celebration Thursday was as down-to-earth as Magler, who made a batch of booya for the occasion.

Magler and his wife, Karen, live in Connorsville, Wis. He has four daughters and one son, who is a second-year apprentice with Local 455. One of Magler’s sons-in-law is on track to become a journey-level Pipefitter next year, too.

Magler has no plans to give up the craft in retirement, either.

“I miss welding, I love to weld,” he laughed. “I’m going to do some of that in retirement.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Bernie Hesse: ‘Don’t do something out of charity, do it out of solidarity’

July 7, 2017 by

Bernie Hesse

He is gruff and often combative, principled and usually blunt. But above all else, Bernie Hesse is a trade unionist.

From his days as a grocery clerk to his current work as director of special projects for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, Hesse has made himself ubiquitous in St. Paul’s labor community. If you’ve walked a picket line or joined a get-out-the-vote effort sometime in the last two decades, chances are you’ve crossed his path.

Hesse worked the night shift at Lunds before taking a full-time job with his union in 2001, and he draws from a seemingly endless store of energy and dogged optimism about what working people can accomplish by coming together. It’s why news of his retirement, effective July 7, caught some – including this reporter – by surprise.

Hesse explained that decision and more in this interview, which has been edited for length.

UA: How did you end up working for your union?

BH: Bill Pearson (then president of UFCW Local 789) said he’d like me to start running some program around Walmart, around immigration and around organizing we were doing. Later, we took more of an active role in political and legislative action. Now, low and behold, it’s 2017, and there are some things we’ve been good at and some we need to be better at.

UA: Can you elaborate?

BH: I think we’ve raised awareness that you can work in retail and have a living wage. I think we’ve demonstrated that when we work with other groups we can raise the minimum wage, we can make sure people have a net to fall on or fall into when it comes to health insurance, and we’ve raised the bar for labor standards in Minnesota, for not just retail workers but a lot of service-sector jobs.

We also decided that if we were going to survive and thrive, we were going to organize cannabis, co-ops and canneries (food processing). We’ve got active campaigns going with all three now. But we haven’t figured out yet how to make that connection with Walmart workers or Target workers. We haven’t figured out how we can organize big-box retailers.

UA: Seems like that’s been the white whale for some time. Is it possible in this organizing climate?

BH: I don’t think there’s ever a good or a bad time to organize. When things are good, people are happy, so that’s not the right time. But when things are bad, people are afraid of losing their jobs. We just haven’t been able to build enough connections with workers for them to see us as a real option.

UA: That work of trying to make connections – whether in politics or union organizing – makes a lot of people uncomfortable. What’s your approach?

BH: When we talk about values, we have success. We’re in crisis, and I think people really will value the work we’ve done, whether it’s in making health care affordable or making sure kids have decent schools. That’s why even though we don’t represent workers in school districts, (Local 1189) still supports campaigns to fund these schools. We don’t represent people in transportation, but we support light rail and bus lines. We’re all in this together.

My disappointment with the movement of late is there’s too many groups going back into their silos. There has to be a rediscovery of what solidarity is. To me, it means making that sacrifice for another worker, even though that may not be your issue. Don’t do something out of charity, do it out of solidarity.

In this July 1997 file photo, Hesse, pictured second from left, dons a strawberry costume as a show of support for field workers’ organizing drive. He traveled to California that year as part of a Twin Cities delegation that joined a massive rally in support of strawberry workers.

UA: Is that something that’s changed since you began your union activism?

BH: People used to dive into campaigns more, even though it may not have been their sector. Some of the strikes we had in the 1980s, you had electricians standing with meatpackers standing with postal workers standing with retail clerks. As things have become more challenging, I see more of the bunker mentality. I challenge people on that.

UA: Is this as challenging a time for labor as you’ve lived through?

BH: We’re entering into a new reality, and it’s going to redefine what being a union member is. It’s no longer going to be just about paying your dues, it’s going to be about owning your local. We operate in Wisconsin, a Right to Work state, and we see it. People take ownership of their local when they’re challenged, and leaders emerge.

UA: For many local labor activists, you’re kind of the model for walking the talk. Who’s inspired you?

BH: Dale Johnson, one of our retired reps, taught me the importance of organizing. I always looked at Tom Laney back when he was at the Ford plant – he was a wild man – and all the guys down at P-9 for what they did. On a national level, I had the honor of meeting Tony Mazzocchi from the OCAW and Delores Huerta many, many years ago.

What always inspired me was when you had some organizing or other campaign going on because that just created this positive energy.

UA: Golf? Fish? What’s retired Bernie going to do?

BH: Certainly I’ll be wetting a line and wetting some other stuff. But I don’t have a lake cabin and I don’t golf, so I guess I’ll just have to stick around. There will be other causes or crusades I’ll be in on. And I look forward to the 2018 governor’s race…

I haven’t given up. I think this is the movement that lifts people up.

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

UFCW local honors Seaquist during last meeting as president

May 19, 2016 by
Don Seaquist oversees his last meeting as UFCW Local 1189 president, as Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Christensen and Recording Secretary Jim Gleb look on.

Don Seaquist oversees his last meeting as UFCW Local 1189 president, as Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Christensen and Recording Secretary Jim Gleb look on.

Don Seaquist presided over his last meeting as United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189’s top officer last night. But Seaquist, who’s served as president of the local since 2003, did not go quietly into retirement.

After thanking Local 1189’s members and staff, as well as his family members in attendance, Seaquist led his favorite chant one last time: “Tell me what democracy looks like? This is what democracy looks like!”

“It’s one I learned outside the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, with 300,000 of my closest friends,” Seaquist said.

Seaquist worked 23 years as a meat-cutter before going to work for St. Paul-based UFCW Local 789 as a union representative in 1994. Elected secretary-treasurer in 2001, Seaquist succeeded Bill Pearson as president two years later.

In 2010, Seaquist helped guide a merger with the Duluth-based UFCW local, out of which Local 1189 was born.

Members, staff and even a representative of Supervalu, one of Local 1189’s employers, offered thanks and well-wishes to Seaquist during his final meeting. They praised his fairness, candor and willingness to embrace change, from using new technology like social media to identifying the growth potential of medical cannabis, an industry in which workers are represented locally by the UFCW.

“We tried to dare to be different,” Seaquist said. “You can’t be afraid of change.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Dunn retires after nearly three decades of leadership at Teamsters Service Bureau

July 25, 2014 by
Jean Dunn

Jean Dunn

Over the last 28 years, the Minnesota Teamsters Service Bureau has progressed from an idea on paper to a fully realized human-services agency that serves both Teamsters families and non-Teamster dislocated workers statewide.

The woman who served as executive director of the Service Bureau for all 28 of those years, Jean Dunn, retired June 27, leaving behind a legacy of service, creativity and commitment to working families.

Ironically, when Dunn accepted the job in February 1986, she never intended to work more than five years with the Teamsters Service Bureau. But Dunn stayed, she said, because she never ran out of new challenges.

“It was such a wonderful opportunity,” Dunn said. “It was a brand new concept. The Teamsters had a vision, and they wanted somebody to implement it. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.”

The vision that intrigued Dunn so much was this: a service agency that would assist union members with any problems not covered under their collective bargaining agreement. It remains the model for the Teamsters Service Bureau and other union Community Services agencies today.

“We called it a broad-brush human services program,” Dunn recalled. “It meant members could bring anything.”

And the members did just that. Dunn remembers providing assistance to a retiree having trouble balancing his checkbook one day, and to a union member who’s house was going into foreclosure the next.

“It was a very exciting place,” Dunn said. “We could treat the Teamster members with the respect an dignity they deserve, promise them confidentiality and be as creative as we possibly could with their problem solving. It was fabulous.”

Over the course of her 28 years heading the Service Bureau, Dunn never tired of the job, something she attributes to the sky’s-the-limit attitude approach Teamsters leadership encouraged the Service Bureau to adopt. The agency gradually expanded its mission and its reach, creating new challenges and opportunities for Dunn and her co-workers.

Under Dunn’s leadership the Service Bureau began seeking resources for new and innovative programming that would benefit Teamsters on the job, from workplace literacy initiatives to “career laddering” programs.

“I remember one bargaining unit that had gone through a great deal of growth, and the employer had brought in a lot of people from different cultures all at one time,” Dunn said. “It was very difficult for the workforce to know how to work with each other, but we were able to get some funds put together to help these workers understand each other.

“It was a vital and dynamic place to work because the Teamsters were willing to let us do whatever we thought would help the membership.”

At times, Dunn’s work meant she was helping workers outside the Teamsters’ membership as well.

In the 1990s the Service Bureau partnered with the Minnesota Business Partnership – an unlikely alliance, to be sure – to back a charter school, the Skills for Tomorrow High School. It focused on teaching children “what it means to go to work,” Dunn said, and the skills necessary to keep any job across all sectors of the economy.

Dunn also led the Service Bureau’s effort to become an independent grantee of the State of Minnesota’s Dislocated Worker Program, empowering the agency to provide retraining and job-seeking assistance to any worker – Teamster or not – who loses a job through no fault of her own.

“The state came to us and said, ‘We like what you’re doing, would you consider doing this program for non-union members?’” Dunn recalled. “We said sure, why not? If it’s going to help working people and we have the skills to do it, then OK.”

She won’t miss the stress of the job, but Dunn said she will miss working with the Service Bureau staff, the union’s leadership and its members.

“It was always a wonderful opportunity to interact with rank-and-file members and hear what they wanted, what their vision was and how well the Service Bureau was working for them,” Dunn said. “And the Teamsters leadership was a real resource to me on procedure and clarifying their vision to make sure the Service Bureau was always fulfilling their dreams.”

Dunn will be missed, according to people who worked with her, like Don Gerdesmeier of Teamsters Joint Council 32, who was the Service Bureau’s top administrator.

“This was the a perfect job for Jean Dunn,” Gerdesmeier said. “How many people sit across the desk from us and talk to us only because it’s their job? Jean Dunn, she did it because she really cared.

“She had a nice, long run. It was good for her, good for the Teamsters and good for dislocated workers and the families she touched along the way.”

“I congratulate Jean on a successful career,” said Bobby Kasper, president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. “The Teamsters Service Bureau is her legacy, and it’s one that will last a long time.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Rebuffed by Medtronic, striking Cretex workers take message to marathon course

October 3, 2013 by

1382194_584318081615458_361069045_nOne of Cretex’s key business partners won’t meet with workers on strike at the company’s Shakopee plant. So on Sunday those workers will take their message to Medtronic’s highest-profile event of the year: the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon.

Thousands of marathon runners and spectators will find a billboard placed prominently along the route at Hennepin and 7th Street downtown Minneapolis, calling out the title sponsor for failing to listen to Minnesota workers.

More than 40 members of Laborers Local 563 have been in a marathon struggle of their own for the last 15 weeks. They went on strike June 19 after Cretex refused to budge from its demand they give up retirement benefits many workers had been self-funding for years.

[Click here to show your support for Local 563 workers on strike at Cretex.]

How does Medtronic fit into the dispute? The Minneapolis-based company buys a wide range of medical products manufactured by Cretex. If Medtronic talks, Local 563 Business Manager Tim Mackey said, Cretex will listen.

That’s why workers, rebuffed in previous attempts to meet with Medtronic executives about how they could help resolve the dispute, will use Sunday’s marathon to try again.

“An event like this gives us the chance to make another appeal to Medtronic and get them at the very least sit down with us and hear our side of the story,” Mackey said in a press release earlier this week.

Leaders across the state are echoing Mackey’s request. In a letter to Medtronic, Shar Knutson, president of the 300,000-member Minnesota AFL-CIO, said the company’s response shows “profound disrespect for those employees, for organized labor and for working people.”

Striking workers met with Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton about the dispute – and its possible effect on the state’s construction projects – last week.

The billboard features a parody of Cavity Sam, the character from the classic board game “Operation,” telling Medtronic it’s time to step in and help bring the strike to a conclusion.

“We support all the runners who are participating in the 32nd Annual Twin Cities Marathon, and we hope they will support our members whose endurance has been tested as they fight for their retirement security,” Mackey said.

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

UPDATED: Drivers end strike at Minneapolis metal manufacturer

September 19, 2013 by
Teamsters walk the picket line outside Metal-Matic in Minneapolis.

Teamsters walk the picket line outside Metal-Matic in Minneapolis. (submitted photo)

After voting unanimously to reject management’s final contract offer, seven members of Teamsters Local 120 who work at Minneapolis-based Metal-Matic, Inc. went on strike Tuesday morning. They remained on the picket line this afternoon.

The workers, drivers for the steel-tubing manufacturer, rejected what Local 120 representative Bill Wedebrand called “extreme concessions” regarding their pension benefits. Not only does Metal-Matic want to get out of the workers’ pension plan, it wants workers to foot the bill – at a cost of $10,000 to $12,000 per employee, Wedebrand said.

“They have to cover the unfunded liability to get out of the pension, and they want to do it on the backs of the employees,” Wedebrand said. “There was a 100 percent vote to reject that proposal. People wanted something in return.”

What Metal-Matic offered, according to the union, was a small 401(k) match and annual raises of less than 2 percent.

The two sides have not met since the strike began. Negotiations opened last spring, and members of Local 120 had been working under the terms of a temporary extension to their previous contract.

Metal-Matic has two facilities in Minneapolis, but Local 120 has focused on establishing a 24-hour picket line at the company’s headquarters, 629 2nd St. SE.

Maintaining a round-the-clock presence is a challenge for a bargaining unit of seven employees. To volunteer your support for striking Metal-Matic workers, drop by the picket line or call Wedebrand at 651-343-1719.

“Fortunately, a lot of our members from other bargaining units have stepped up to the plate, and they’re helping picket,” Wedebrand said. “We’ll take any help we can get.”

UPDATE 9/20/13 – Teamsters Local 120 announced on its Facebook page this afternoon that the Metal-Matic strike ended earlier in the day.

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
Next Page»