Rally in Rice Park Saturday to support striking actors

September 25, 2023 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Organizing among Twin Cities nonprofit workers continues to bear fruit

April 22, 2021 by

Hastened by the pandemic, economic uncertainty and the uprising for racial justice last summer, unionization efforts have succeeded at more than a dozen Twin Cities nonprofits in the last year.

In the last two months, employees at four local nonprofit organizations – Beacon Housing Collaborative, FairVote Minnesota, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and MinnPost – won recognition of their unions after organizing campaigns sponsored by the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild-CWA.

And workers at another local nonprofit, Headway Emotional Health Services, went public with a union campaign backed by Local 12 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).

For many nonprofit employees, the appeal of forming a union isn’t just greater say over their terms and conditions of employment. Workers also want a meaningful voice in organizations’ decisions – and more power to hold them accountable to their own goals and values, like equity and inclusion.

In a press release announcing their union, Beacon workers said winning a collective voice is “the best and only path toward shifting the balance of power” at the organization and “creating opportunities for all Beacon staff to participate in organizational strategy and decision making.”

The press release also noted that turnover at the nonprofit has “particularly affected staff who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color in recent years, as well as staff in frontline service positions.” That runs counter to the organization’s principles, workers added.

Winning recognition – one way or another

Unlike employers in the private sector, where profit is the chief motivating force, nonprofit employers often hold themselves to a mission statement or set of stated values.

That means workers organizing unions in the nonprofit sector are, in theory, less likely to meet the well-documented resistance workers at places like Amazon have encountered. For many nonprofit employers, tactics in the anti-union playbook – threats, firings, captive-audience meetings and disinformation campaigns – would violate their own principles.

Appealing to their employers’ values has helped several local nonprofit unions win voluntary recognition, in which management agrees to bypass the lengthy election process governed by the National Labor Relations Board and allow workers to collect signed authorization cards instead.

That’s how FairVote Minnesota, an organization devoted to expanding ranked-choice voting, agreed to recognize its field organizers and regional organizing directors’ union. “As a model for democracy organizations across the country, FairVote MN must consider us, the staff, in its mission to leave a historical impact in our state and beyond,” workers said in their appeal to management.

MinnPost journalists and business and support staff won voluntary recognition, too. On Twitter, union members listed three goals in organizing a union: more competitive wages and benefits, greater say in the organization’s decisions and “making MinnPost a place that better reflects the community it serves.”

Beacon workers, meanwhile, reached a neutrality agreement with management that sped up the organizing process.

“The Beacon Union intends to bring transparent accountability to Beacon’s publicly stated value of race equity, especially by implementing collective decision making and advocating for equitable salary and benefit structures,” union members said.

In what workers called a disappointing waste of time and resources, the Minnesota Council of Non-profits denied workers’ request for voluntary recognition, hired an anti-union attorney and forced a NLRB election. Still, the union prevailed.

“We envision a workplace that sees staff as whole people with ideas, time, experiences and the multitudes we contain,” union members said in a statement after the vote. “We look forward to finally starting negotiations and bringing our vision of a truly equitable and inclusive workplace to fruition.”

Seeking more say at Headway

Workers at Headway announced their union campaign with OPEIU Local 12 in April. The union includes therapists, case managers and administrative staff at the nonprofit, which provides emotional health services in the metro area.

Although the campaign is public, union supporters have not yet approached Headway management about recognition, according to organizers, who say roughly 160 workers would be eligible for the bargaining unit. The union is hoping to drive public support for their campaign on social media. Organizers are asking allies to follow and amplify @HeadwayUnited on Facebook and Twitter.

“For years, we have been working hard to provide the best care to those seeking emotional wellness – often without meaningful recognition or material support from management,” the union tweeted. “We need to take care of us, too!

“A union at Headway means we get a say in ensuring our workplace reflects our worth and our values.”

A trend in the sector 

The nonprofit community has seen a burst of union activity across the U.S. in recent years. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track union density in the nonprofit sector as part of its annual report on union membership, several Minnesota unions have successfully organized workers from education, social-service, arts, advocacy and other organizations.

Since last summer, OPEIU Local 12 has organized workers at four local nonprofits: Jewish Community Action, Minnesota Voice, Minnesota Youth Collective and the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Members of Augsburg University’s staff voted in January to join Local 12, and the union also recently organized a new classification of workers at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts into an existing bargaining unit.

Workers at OutFront Minnesota and Hope Community have organized unions with the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild since 2019.

AFSCME Council 5 supported successful organizing drives at Minneapolis Crisis Nursery and the Walker Art Center in the last year.

And workers at Minnesota Public Radio’s classical and alternative stations voted to join SAG-AFTRA in December.

– Updated May 25, 2021.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

Film stimulus would position Minnesota to capitalize on pent-up demand for new TV, movie production

March 18, 2021 by

Casey Lewis is a Minnesota actor and member of the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local Board.

By Casey Lewis, SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities

Two things our country learned over the past devastating 12 months are that the American worker is the backbone of our economy, and we love to be told stories through movies and TV shows.

The pandemic forced this country to realize that day-to-day, week-to-week labor is what keeps our economy running strong. The success of our economy is not determined by what companies are being invested in or traded. It is determined by the labor that goes into the products and services those companies produce, but more importantly the health and safety of those doing the work. Take them out of the equation, and it all falls to pieces. Keep them healthy, safe and paid fairly, and they go out and keep the economy churning along by putting their hard-earned pay back into the system.

Americans have learned how to do some of our work remotely, but the strength of our success comes from people being able to come together safely to get the jobs done, be it in teaching, construction, transportation, food service or health care.

The other thing we all experienced together during our time apart was the joy and sense of normalcy we experienced watching movies and TV. Everyone’s got their preferences while they pass the time, escape reality, laugh or cry or feel everything in between, or learn about themselves or something new. The past year we’ve used these stories to help keep us sane, either watching them ourselves or plopping the little ones down in front of the box so we could get work or something else done. Entertainment has helped keep us going.

You wouldn’t be surprised to know making these products – movies and TV shows – also requires laborers to come together safely to get the job done. The entertainment industry, like so many others, took a massive hit during the pandemic. Writers are still churning out work. Producers are still able to line up deals. But with safety concerns it is logistically and financially difficult to bring workers together to produce content. It’s being done, but at a trickle. As you would expect there is a huge back up in the production line.

So, what does all this have to do with the lives and work of working people in Minnesota?

Two state lawmakers, Rep. Dave Lislegard and Sen. David J. Tomassoni, recently introduced tax credit production incentive bills in the Legislature, HF 1975 and SF 1986. Several union groups are supporting the measure, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Stagehands (IATSE) and SAG-AFTRA, which presents performers and broadcasters.

The film stimulus bill is designed to encourage out-of-state production companies to come here to make their content, employing Minnesotans, buying Minnesota goods and services, and paying Minnesota taxes, while building a foundation for that industry to thrive here. In return, after these production companies have paid 100% of the Minnesota payroll and sales taxes incurred during production, they can receive up to 25% tax credit on qualified expenses. These out of state production companies can then sell their full-value tax credits to Minnesota-based companies at a discount.

It is literally a win for the production company, a win for the Minnesota company getting the tax break, and a win for Minnesota, with the jobs and economic development created from the outside industry coming here to make their products – work that wouldn’t have come to Minnesota but for the incentive.

It’s important to note here that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) released a study in 2019 showing that movie and TV production created 2.6 million jobs in the U.S., paying $177 billion in wages. Of those 2.6 million jobs, two-thirds of the work was in “indirect industries,” like construction, transportation, retail, hospitality and others.

Bringing jobs and economic development to Minnesota under the proposed film stimulus bill would be an enormous boost to our economic recovery after the pandemic. Production companies have a backlog of content they are waiting to produce, and as demonstrated these past 12 months, there is a demand for it. But we need to act now.

To learn how you can support bringing these good, middle-class and blue-collar jobs to Minnesota, click here and act now. The legislative session is moving quickly, and we have a short window of opportunity.

– Casey Lewis is a Minnesota actor, member of the SAG-AFTRA Twin Cities Local Board and delegate to the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation.

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

Talking more than weather, ZeVan’s memoir recalls a career ‘among the giants’

April 8, 2016 by

81pezcc85ULBarry ZeVan – “the weatherman” to television viewers in Minnesota and across the country – has written a memoir that looks back on his career in broadcasting and show business, and he’s donating a share of proceeds from the book to two union charities.

The 78-year-old ZeVan self-published “My Life Among the Giants” earlier this year after a writing process that took 11 months. The book runs 284 pages long, includes 32 bonus pages of photos and is available for purchase now on Amazon.com.

The memoir recounts ZeVan’s many run-ins with celebrity actors, artists and politicians over the course of his career – relationships that stemmed mostly, he said, from “being in the right place at the right time.”

“I got to meet ambassadors and presidents and kings and queens and everything else,” he said. “Being in show business and broadcasting, you meet everyone eventually.”

ZeVan’s friend Jerry Stiller, the legendary actor and comedian, encouraged him to collect his stories in a book. “Some people have said my life should be a movie,” ZeVan said. “The problem is it would be a 17-hour movie.”

Locally, ZeVan is best known for his work delivering TV weather forecasts on KSTP and, later, KARE. His broadcasts on KSTP drew a 51-percent share of the Twin Cities audience in 1974, higher local ratings than anywhere else in the country, he says.

ZeVan also did the weather for TV stations in Detroit and Washington D.C., where he struck up friendships with high-profile ABC news anchors and reporters. Ted Koppel was his neighbor, ZeVan says, and Peter Jennings “was like a brother to me.”

Sam Donaldson wrote a review of ZeVan’s memoir that appears on the back of the book. “How can Barry ZeVan know so many famous people?” Donaldson asks. “Beats me, but he does and the stories he tells about them make fascinating reading.”

But ZeVan, who continues to work as a documentary producer and narrator, has done more than deliver weather forecasts over the course of his career.

He got his start in radio at the age of 5 doing spots for KDKA in Pittsburgh, and two years later – before the rest of the country had TV stations – ZeVan was acting on a New York TV station. As a high-schooler, he acted in “Mr. Peepers” and danced on the Philadelphia-based “Teen Club,” featuring Dick Clark as its announcer.

ZeVan signed his first union card at 16. In fact, he joined three unions – the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Actors Equity Association – in the span of a month.

“It meant I got more professional work,” ZeVan said. “If you’re not a member of those unions, you don’t get professional work – or professional pay.”

Not only is ZeVan a longtime union member, he’s a longtime union activist as well.

He serves as a vice president of SAG-AFTRA’s Twin Cities local and on the advisory board of the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO. Last summer he used his acting skills in an advocacy role, addressing a Democratic National Committee meeting on retiree issues in the character of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Barry ZeVan gave a speech while in character as his boyhood idol, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at a DNC meeting in Minneapolis last year.

Barry ZeVan gave a speech while in character as his boyhood idol, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at a DNC meeting in Minneapolis last year.

“We need unions today more than we ever did,” ZeVan said.

That’s why he’s donating 20 percent of proceeds from “My Life Among the Giants” to two union-sponsored charities, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation and The Actors Fund. Both help workers in the industry who are struggling to make ends meet.

“I’ve been there,” said ZeVan, who recalls picking up shifts as a taxi driver when work was scarce, just to make an extra $10 a week. “I know how it hurts to be struggling. It’s no fun.

“And thank God for that union pension. That helps a lot of us in the business keep bread on the table every month.”

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

Vote No Way: Union members rally against voter restriction, anti-marriage amendments

October 1, 2012 by

Members of AFSCME Council 5 join the “Vote No” rally in Rice Park.

More than 100 people joined a union-backed rally yesterday in Rice Park downtown St. Paul, voicing their support for statewide campaigns to vote “no” on constitutional amendments that would restrict Minnesotans’ freedoms and hurt their quality of life.

The state’s largest labor federation, the 300,000-member Minnesota AFL-CIO, opposes both constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot. One would limit the right to marry; the other would institute identification requirements limiting Minnesotans’ ability to vote.

Rally emcee Sue Scott, a member of SAG-AFTRA and a performer on public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” called the amendments a calculated attempt to drive a wedge between Minnesotans. She urged union members not just to vote “no,” but to “vote no way!”

Other speakers included St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide and SEIU Healthcare Minnesota Vice President Tee McClenty, who said defeating the amendments – particularly voter restriction – will not happen unless unions get the facts out to their members.

The voter restriction amendment, if passed, will require state and local government to implement a costly new system for conducting elections – at a cost to taxpayers of more than $50 million.

“It may seem like common sense,” McClenty said, “but it’s an extreme makeover of a successful voting system.”

Bill Moore, president of the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO, called the photo ID requirement an assault on voting rights that would move the state backwards.

“I have a right to be presumed to be the person I say I am,” he said, adding that photo ID requirements “presume I am guilty of voter impersonation until proven innocent. It’s backward.”

Although “Vote No!” was the slogan of the day, some in the Rice Park crowd added a caveat, asking St. Paul voters to vote “yes” on a levy referendum for the St. Paul Public Schools. The levy question will appear on the opposite side of the ballot as the constitutional amendments.

“We’re asking people to vote ‘no’ twice on the front, and vote ‘yes’ on the back,” said Sue Snyder, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

More Information:

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