Bobby Kasper: New year offers promise, but only if we stay engaged

January 7, 2019 by

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper fired up volunteers during a Labor 2018 door knock in October.

Results of the 2018 midterm election provided plenty of cause for celebration – unless, that is, you’re a CEO or Wall Street banker.

Loud and clear, voters across the country delivered a message that we are tired of corporate control over our government. We are fed up with politicians who hand tax cuts to their wealthy donors while attacking our health care. And we are ready for an agenda that puts working people first.

It’s the message we heard in Dakota, Washington and other counties in the 2nd Congressional District, where labor-endorsed Angie Craig unseated extreme GOP Rep. Jason Lewis. It’s the message we heard statewide, as Minnesota voters overwhelmingly backed Tina Smith and Tim Walz – rejecting divisive, anti-immigrant messages offered up by their opponents – and flipped the state House of Representatives into labor-friendly control.

And it’s the message we heard from our neighbors to the east, as Wisconsin voters finally kicked their union busting governor, Scott Walker, to the curb.

We saw a tidal wave of support last year for pro-worker candidates, many of them union members, women and people of color. But it didn’t happen by accident.

We know the political pendulum doesn’t swing our way unless working people get out there and push it. That’s why at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, we led an ambitious Labor 2018 campaign to win the political ground game one door at a time in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago counties.

The results were historic. Our labor volunteers knocked on more doors and had more conversations than any other labor federation in the state – and nearly three times as many doors as we knocked two years ago, in a presidential cycle! By working together, with support from our affiliate unions, our volunteers helped ensure the labor movement made its presence felt on Election Day. As federation president and a proud LIUNA member, I am grateful to everyone who contributed his or her time to participate in a door knock, phone bank or any other Labor 2018 event.

But the work of building political power for working people did not end Nov. 6. We helped a lot of friends win new House seats in Washington and in St. Paul. Now it’s on us to make sure they remember who their friends are.

For politicians-turned-elected officials, it’s easier to forget than you might think.

Consider the orientation event for freshmen members of Congress hosted on Harvard’s campus last month. A tradition that dates back to the 1970s, it’s billed as an opportunity for newly elected lawmakers to build bipartisanship and ease into their work on Capitol Hill. But here’s the catch: Harvard’s panels and seminars were stacked with CEOs of corporations like General Motors, Boeing and Johnson & Johnson. And the former lawmakers on hand to provide advice? Most now work as lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street and other industry groups.

Several freshman Democrats took offense – and took to social media to pull back the curtain on their so-called orientation. “Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here,” Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted. “Where’s labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?”

As a labor movement, we’re never going to outspend corporate America and the wealthy elites. They will always have more highly paid lobbyists, bigger political action funds and more campaign ads on TV. But here’s what they can’t buy: an engaged, active and powerful movement of people committed to building an economy that works for everyone.

CEOs can whisper into politicians’ ears all they want. It won’t matter if we build and maintain relationships with our allies in the Legislature and in Congress by calling and emailing about issues that matter. The AFL-CIO makes it easy to make our voices heard by signing up for legislative alerts by text message. Or visit our website, http://www.stpaulunions.org, to sign up to get e-activists alerts in your inbox.

Again, I want to thank all the union affiliates that helped us during Labor 2018. Here’s wishing all union members a happy and prosperous new year!

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, representing over 100 affiliate unions with members in Ramsey, Washington, Dakota and Chisago counties.

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

On right to work and prevailing wage, it’s Walz … or Wisconsin

October 24, 2018 by

Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor, is pictured speaking at a union rally in 2016.

When Tim Walz addressed delegates to the Minnesota Building Trades’ annual convention in Duluth over the summer, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor did not mince words, giving the labor leaders and union stewards a message to take back to their union halls.

“People will tell you, ‘I’m not into politics,’” Walz said. “You tell them too damn bad because politics is into you.

“The choice is Walz or Wisconsin when it comes to organized labor. It’s that simple.”

Walz was referencing the string of attacks Wisconsin union members saw on their wages, benefits and freedom to join together after Republicans, led by Gov. Scott Walker, seized total control of the state’s government eight years ago.

It began with Act 10, which gutted the collective bargaining power of teachers and other public-sector workers in 2011. Four years later Walker signed a right-to-work bill, weakening the bargaining power of all unions.

And last year, Wisconsin Republicans unleashed a pair of attacks on union tradespeople and their quality of life. One law banned local governments from entering into project labor agreements, which establish fair wage and benefit standards on construction projects. Another repealed the state’s prevailing-wage law, which builds fair wages into the public construction bidding process.

But it hasn’t just happened in Wisconsin.

“We’ve got to keep Minnesota from going the way of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico – all states that since 2012 have gone right to work, have banned project labor agreements and have eliminated prevailing wage,” said Tony McGarvey, government affairs liaison for District 82 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

Already, the effects of Wisconsin’s anti-worker agenda are noticeable even here in Minnesota.

In Rochester, where construction of a Destination Medical Center has helped create a booming job market for tradespeople, Painters Local 681 rep Scott Parker said he sees an “influx of union workers coming over from Wisconsin,” where they would earn less for doing the same work.

“If we go right to work, where do we go? North Dakota? South Dakota? Wisconsin? Iowa?” Parker said. “We are an island surrounded by right to work. Where will I go to make the money I’m making now?”

Prevailing wage: A case study

No issue better represents what’s at stake for construction workers in this election than prevailing wage.

Minnesota’s prevailing wage laws establish wage floors in regions across the state that contractors must agree to meet in order to win bids on publicly funded construction projects. The principle behind the law is that workers should be able to afford to live in the area where they find work.

Opponents argue that repealing the law would save taxpayers money, and as a former state legislator, it’s an argument Carly Melin, now executive director of the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council, has heard plenty of times.

“We know repealing prevailing wage doesn’t save the public any money,” Melin said. “The contractor still makes the money, it’s just the workers who see less of it in their paychecks.”

The vast majority of peer-reviewed academic studies on prevailing wage support Melin’s claim, according to a report issued earlier this year by researchers at the nonpartisan Midwest Economic Policy Institute and Colorado State University-Pueblo.

The report concludes that if Minnesota joins its neighbors in repealing prevailing wage, tradespeople stand to lose their wage advantage and more. “Minnesota’s prevailing wage law supports self-sufficient construction workers,” the report’s authors, Frank Manzo and Dr. Kevin Duncan, concluded.

By comparing data from seven Upper Midwest states, the report found Minnesota tradespeople are doing better than their counterparts in Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin – states without strong (or any) prevailing wage laws. Because Minnesota still has prevailing wage on the books, construction workers here see 5.2 percent higher incomes, are more likely to have health and pension benefits, and are less likely to rely on food stamps.

Threat to apprenticeship

In fact, rather than driving up public construction costs, the researchers found Minnesota’s prevailing wage law actually delivers significant value to the state in terms of workforce development.

By setting a higher wage floor, the law guarantees local union contractors a fair shake at publicly bid construction projects. And when Building Trades union members are working, a portion of their wages are deducted to help fund their unions’ apprenticeship training programs, which provide world-class training opportunities to thousands of Minnesotans without any government funding.

Without prevailing wage, the authors conclude, Minnesota contractors who participate in apprenticeship training programs would lose more bids to “fly-by-night contractors from neighboring states with low wages, resulting in fewer training opportunities (not to mention shoddier infrastructure).

That’s the reality Building Trades union members are now facing in states like Wisconsin and Michigan – labor strongholds where “we never would have thought they would repeal prevailing wage,” Melin said. And it’s a threat Minnesota’s Building Trades unions are hoping to keep at bay by electing Tim Walz governor Nov. 6.

“If it can happen in Wisconsin and it can happen in Michigan, then it can happen in Minnesota,” Melin said. “We have a lot at stake.”

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

Labor unites behind Walz for governor

August 16, 2018 by

Tim Walz talks with union members at a Helmets to Hardhats event in Duluth last month.

After emerging as the Minnesota DFL’s nominee for governor on primary-election night, Tim Walz today won the endorsement of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

With the endorsement, Minnesota’s unions join forces to elect one of their own to the state’s highest office. Walz worked as a classroom teacher and coach for 20 years before winning a seat in Congress, and he was a member of Education Minnesota, the statewide educators union.

Because of his experience as a teacher and union member, Walz “understands first-hand the importance of protecting working people’s freedom to join together in union to negotiate a fair return on their work,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy said.

Keeping an ally in the governor’s office is the top election-year priority for the federation and its 1,000-plus affiliate unions, which represent more than 300,000 working people statewide.

Union members have much at stake. Since the 2010 election, Minnesota and Gov. Mark Dayton have charted a very different course than most other Midwestern states, where Republican governors have pursued a steady erosion of working people’s freedoms.

Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin passed “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions’ bargaining power. The same three states recently repealed prevailing-wage laws that build fair wages into the bidding process for public construction projects – a direct attack on union tradespeople’s quality of life.

And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker remains infamous for Act 10, a blunt attack on public workers’ wages, benefits and union rights that served as a model for GOP lawmakers in other Midwest states – and aspiring lawmakers, too. Walz’s opponent in the Nov. 6 election, Jeff Johnson, promised during his failed campaign for governor four years ago that he would “go all Scott Walker on Minnesota” if elected.

Dayton, meanwhile, signed legislation expanding collective bargaining rights to more than 20,000 home care workers, and he used his veto pen to fend off Walker-inspired style attacks on public workers and prevailing wage.

Unions trust Walz to govern similarly.

“Working people can count on Minnesota AFL-CIO endorsed candidates to share our values,” Secretary-Treasurer Brad Lehto said. “We can count on Tim and Peggy because they value our freedom to negotiate a fair return on our work, so we can provide for our families; workplaces where we are safe and respected; and the freedom to retire with dignity.”

At a union-sponsored debate in February, Walz told activists he would be an “organizer-in-chief” as governor. “This is about us taking a message beyond the four walls that we’re in,” he said.

He also said he would recruit teachers and high-road businesses from Wisconsin, where Walker’s anti-union agenda has driven educators away from the profession and left wages stagnant.

Prior to representing the 1st Congressional District in southern Minnesota, Walz taught and coached football at Mankato West High School for 12 years. He was named Mankato Teacher of the Year and a Minnesota Teacher of Excellence in 2003.

Walz also served 24 years in the Army National Guard, including a deployment overseas in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He retired in 2005 as a command sergeant major, the highest-ranking enlisted National Guard soldier in southern Minnesota.

Flanagan is a state lawmaker from St. Louis Park and former director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota. She is a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe.

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Walker’s anti-union Act 10 dealing major blow to WI public schools, report finds

November 20, 2017 by

Working people from Wisconsin and Minnesota came together in Hudson, Wis., to protest Act 10 in February 2011. (file photo)

A new analysis of Wisconsin’s public schools reveals several alarming trends since the state adopted legislation stripping teachers and other public service workers of most collective bargaining rights in 2011.

“Gov. Scott Walker and Republican elected leaders in Wisconsin said that Act 10 would benefit schools and families alike,” said David Madlan, co-author of the report. “They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Instead of improving public schools, Act 10 has led to a sharp decline in teachers’ wages and benefits and a troubling uptick in teacher turnover, according to the report.

Madlan and his co-author, Alex Rowell, found that by the 2015-16 school year, the average Wisconsin teacher was earning nearly $11,000 less than before Act 10 passed, when adjusted for inflation.

Unsurprisingly, teachers have been leaving the profession – or finding jobs in other states – at a higher rate since Act 10, and data collected by the state’s Department of Public Instruction shows an influx of less experienced teachers into Wisconsin’s public schools.

“We have seen turnover like we’ve never seen before,” Shelly Moore Krajacic, an English and drama teacher in Ellsworth, Wis., told reporters on a conference call unveiling the report’s findings last week. “It’s difficult for the students and for the teachers to develop teamwork and process.”

Academic research into teacher longevity backs up Moore Krajacic’s experience. “The research is pretty clear that experience and stability of teachers is an important factor in the quality of education a school can provide,” Madlan said.

Commissioned by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress Action Fund, the report serves as a warning to lawmakers in neighboring states considering similar measures.

Last year the Minnesota Legislature moved to weaken teachers’ tenure rights and loosen the licensure process, making it easier for “under-qualified instructors to remain in the classroom for several years in a row,” Rep. Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul) said.

With the Supreme Court expected to deal a major blow to public-sector unions in a decision on Janus v. AFSCME next year, advocates for public schools worry that what’s happening in Wisconsin could spread to states like Minnesota – and spread quickly – if teachers’ collective voice is weakened.

“Our general approach in Minnesota has been to work with public-sector unions in order to create services that work well for the public, and we think over time that’s paid off,” Mariani said. “We watch with a lot of concern what’s happening in our neighbor state.”

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AFSCME Council 5’s founding director to step down – but keep fighting

October 27, 2017 by

Eliot Seide

Eliot Seide was even more fired up than usual when he sat down for a Thursday-morning interview at AFSCME Council 5’s South St. Paul offices last month. News had just broken that the U.S. Supreme Court would hear a case with the potential to weaken public-sector workers’ collective bargaining power, and it had Seide and his staff scrambling to craft a public response.

The interview, scheduled weeks in advance, was timed to coincide with Seide’s retirement as executive director of the state’s largest union of public-service workers. (Assistant Director John Westmoreland will assume the top post Nov. 1, with Seide staying on to assist with the transition until sometime in December.)

A 39-year veteran of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Seide is the only executive director Council 5 has ever known. After organizing and political stints for the union in Florida, Minnesota, New York and elsewhere, Seide moved back to guide the merger of three Minnesota councils into one, finalized in October 2004.

As the council’s founding director, Seide has been a fierce advocate for public workers – and a vocal critic of any attempt to cut, privatize or diminish their work. That includes court cases like Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, and Seide didn’t hold back on that or any other topic in this interview, which has been edited for length.

UA: What drew you to a career in the labor movement?

ES: I don’t really think I had much of a choice… My father learned the printing trade from my grandfather, and he became a chief steward, a business agent and eventually president of Local 51, the Commercial Printers Union in New York City. My mother is a retired AFSCME member. Table talk in our house was about the union… I didn’t get to go to the dentist until the Printers negotiated dental benefits.

UA: How did Minnesota become home?

ES: After (Tim) Pawlenty won the governor’s race and the 2002 elections didn’t go so well for us, the AFSCME councils here asked the international president if I could come back. We started a program called Take Back Minnesota, which I ran for about 9 months. Then I became the director of Council 14, and we started discussions about merging the councils together.

UA: How has that merger paid off?

ES: What we wanted to do was not just consolidate and get larger, but to change. We needed a full-time organizing program and a full-time communications program to project a bold, proud image of what our members do and who we are. And we wanted to do political action in a more thorough way. To use an agricultural metaphor, we were harvesting, but we weren’t seeding, planting and fertilizing.

We went through two shutdowns and difficult contract negotiations with the state. We had to fight back furloughs from the Pawlenty administration. There have been attempts to take away our bargaining rights as early as the 2003 legislative session. But because of our unification, workers have a stronger voice in the workplace. And as a result of the capacity that workers built in this union, Mark Dayton got elected governor. That was the difference between us being Wisconsin or us being Minnesota.

UA: For politicians on the right like Scott Walker, public employees and their unions have become popular targets. Is it an intentional decision at Council 5 never to duck that fight?

ES: Absolutely. My grandmother would say you can tell the quality of a civilization by the state of its libraries. It’s no lift to defend and project a bold, proud image of public workers. Without public workers our roads don’t get maintained, our bridges will be unsafe, the roads don’t get plowed. It’s public workers who stock the lakes with walleye, who make sure we have the most pristine, beautiful parks in the country. The vulnerable folks in our society … are all served by public workers at the state and local level. Without public workers, Minnesota has no quality of life.

UA: We’ve known for a while that, as a result of cases like Janus, right-to-work conditions are on the horizon for public employees nationwide. Will Council 5 be able to continue building power for public workers in that environment?

ES: First, you have to ask this: Why do they want to rob the voice of workers in the workplace? They won Citizens United, and now they want total control of the political process in the U.S. This is about a grab for power by the wealthy, and it’s an abomination. It shouldn’t be happening. We have to confront this, and that’s what the union movement is about.

Council 5 has been about bringing workers together and strengthening the voice of workers in the workplace. The council first has to service its members. But we feel very strongly that we can only serve our members by advocating for all workers. That’s why we’ve allied ourselves with coalitions to raise the wage in the Twin Cities and Duluth. That’s why we fought for parental leave, much to the chagrin of the Legislature. It’s why we’re working in Duluth on earned sick and safe time.

UA: What might things look like for Council 5 if the Janus challenge succeeds?

ES: We’ve had attacks going back to the Pawlenty administration. That’s why we merged. But look, you’ve got to do a fearless self-examination. You’ve got to say to yourself, there are things I’m doing well and there are things I’m not. And we realized, as an organization, we have got to do a better job of having day-to-day communication, one on one with workers. And since January of last year we have had those conversations with over 31,000 members – and we’re not satisfied yet until we get to 40,000. We’ve signed up thousands of new members.

We are building networks in the workplace to make sure folks know that in order to continue to have that voice in the workplace, we have to answer this fundamental question: Do we want to have a union? And the resounding answer from AFSCME Council 5 members has been, damn right we do.

UA: As you look back on your time here, are their particular things you’re proud of? Any regrets?

ES: It’s very satisfying when workers come and tell you the work we’ve done made a difference in their lives. I was at Hennepin County Medical Center, and a cafeteria worker I’ve known for a very long time came up and said she wanted to give me a hug. I asked her why, and she said, ‘Because without the work that Council 14 did and you did when you were our rep, they would have privatized the food service by now – and I wouldn’t be getting a pension.’ That’s a very satisfying thing to hear.”

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Friedrichs is history (maybe), but Minnesota workers aren’t letting their guard down

May 3, 2016 by
Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a panel discussion with public-sector union leaders, including (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

Workday Minnesota Editor Barb Kucera (L) moderated a discussion with public-sector union leaders (L to R) Debbie Prokopf of MAPE, Tee McClenty of MSEA and Denise Specht of Education MN.

 

Labor History Month kicked off in St. Paul last night with a discussion of history in the making, as panelists offered insight into public-sector workers’ recent push to breath new life into their unions and defend their right to a voice on the job.

The public forum, titled “The Friedrichs Case and the Future of the Labor Movement,” opened Untold Stories, the labor-history series staged annually in May by The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, with support from a number of unions.

[Programming continues tomorrow with an author talk at the Merriam Park Library. Click here to view details and a full lineup of events.]

At last night’s forum, held at the new St. Paul Labor Center, leaders of three Minnesota unions that represent public-sector workers reviewed recent legal and legislative challenges to their organizing rights – and talked about the ways their organizations are responding.

Debbie Prokopf, attorney and business agent for the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, said corporate-backed politicians and anti-worker legal funds seemingly come up with new ways to “chip away” at public-service workers’ rights every day.

“They’re trying all these wacky, right-wing theories to see what sticks,” Prokopf said, pointing to measures that would require unions to hold recertification votes every year and to negotiate in public, or would severely limit the scope of their contract talks.

Such attacks never gained traction in Minnesota, and that allowed many public-sector unions to “become very complacent,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht acknowledged. “With our state’s strong labor laws, we’ve taken a lot for granted.”

Two developments woke Minnesota’s public-sector unions out of that slumber.

First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, after making scapegoats of teachers and other public workers on the campaign trail, signed legislation designed to cripple their collective bargaining power. And working people in this neighboring state took notice.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

The first Untold Stories event of 2016 took place in the new St. Paul Labor Center, at 353 W. 7th St.

“When unions aren’t able to do their work, then we get Wisconsin,” Specht said. “They’re kind of the poster child now – but not in a good way – and that’s helped us in getting our members to realize what’s at stake.”

The U.S. Supreme Court raised those stakes even higher last year when it agreed to hear Friedrichs v. CTA. The case challenged public-sector unions’ ability to collect fair-share fees from workers they represent, and during oral arguments in January, the court’s conservative majority appeared poised to issue a ruling that would make “Right to Work” the law of the land in the public sector.

‘Don’t wast a good crisis’

The writing, it seemed, was on the wall, and public-sector unions last year began scrambling to convert as many “fair-share fee-payers” into full union members as they could before the court issued its ruling.

The Minnesota School Employees Association, which represents 6,000 workers in more than 60 school districts statewide, set a course for signing up 5 percent of its fee-payers.

Executive Director Tee McClenty said the union surveyed fair-share fee-payers and found many had no idea they weren’t paying full dues. MSEA trained stewards, rank-and-file members and staff for one-on-one conversations about fee-payers’ issues and concerns. And within 11 months, the union had reached its goal.

MAPE and Education Minnesota, as well as unions like AFSCME and SEIU, rolled out similar internal-organizing initiatives, with similarly successful results.

“They say don’t waste a good crisis,” Prokopf said. “And I think Friedrichs was a very good crisis for us in that it shook us out of our complacency.”

Bullet or boomerang?

Ironically, the doomsday ruling anticipated in the Friedrichs case never came. After conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, the court issued a 4-4 decision upholding the status quo.

Will public-sector unions in Minnesota let down their guard again? Not likely, panelists said.

“We didn’t dodge a bullet; we dodged a boomerang,” Prokopf said of Friedrichs, noting that plaintiffs in the case already have filed for a second hearing before the court. “It’s coming back.”

McClenty said MSEA’s annual delegate assembly last month included a training session on Friedrichs.

“People were like, ‘What? We’re done with this now,’” McClenty said. “But we can’t get too comfortable. We feel like there’s momentum happening at MSEA, and we want to keep it going.”

Even if a pro-worker justice replaces Scalia, attacks on public-sector workers at the legislative level – including a “poison pill” attachment to the bill approving state workers’ contracts this session – aren’t likely to stop anytime soon.

“We’re not going to let up,” Specht said. “This is the labor movement at stake. We’re all depending on each other to be strong. We’re going all in, and we’re not stopping.”

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

Drazkowski threatens to derail state contracts with Right to Work ‘poison pill’

April 1, 2016 by
Union members packed the room during a House committee hearing on Right to Work for state employees.

Union members packed the room during a House committee hearing on Right to Work for state employees.

 

It’s fair to say state Rep. Steve Drazkowski has a reputation for advancing extreme ideas. He’s supported logging in Minnesota’s state parks and eliminating the Pay Equity Act, even floated the idea of replacing health care workers with baby monitors.

The Mazeppa Republican is at it again this session, inserting Wisconsin-style Right to Work language into a routine bill to approve new union contracts covering about 30,000 state workers.

The bill, House File 3585, received a hearing before a House committee on government operations yesterday. Union members from both the public and private sector packed the room, showing lawmakers a united front against any attempt to roll back workers’ rights.

“Rep. Drazkowski, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is attempting to tear down working people and their aspirations for a better life,” Eliot Seide, director of AFSCME Council 5, warned lawmakers in testimony before the committee.

Drazkowski’s bill threatens to derail approval of collective bargaining agreements negotiated last year with four state-employee groups: AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Middle Management Association.

Taken on their own, the contracts are not particularly controversial. Most workers will see annual wage increases of 2.5 percent while taking on a greater share of their health insurance costs.

But Drazkowski has attached several “poison pills” to the contacts, including language that would bar unions from charging “fair share fees” to cover the cost of representing state workers who choose not to become members. Such fees were ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court Monday.

Drazkowski also would require the state to negotiate union contracts in public, make it illegal for state employees to bargain for retroactive wage increases and restrict union members who work for the state from participating in political activities during unpaid time off.

As Seide and others pointed out to lawmakers, the bill mirrors many of the so-called “reforms” Walker took up in his first days as governor of Wisconsin six years ago. Since then, Wisconsin has struggled with state budget deficits, a sluggish economy, teacher shortages and corruption charges – issues that undermined the governor’s short-lived presidential campaign.

In addition to being bad public policy, Drazkowski’s poison-pill proposals are offensive to the people who work in public service, Leanne Kunze, assistant director of AFSCME Council 65, said.

“This unfair, unsafe and unnecessary legislation hurts workers, their families and our communities,” Kunze said. “Just look at our neighbors to the east to see the devastating ripple effect of unnecessary and unwarranted changes to longstanding collective bargaining history.”

DFL lawmakers on the committee, including Rep. Laurie Halverson of Eagan, worried that drastic changes in the state’s approach to dealing with its employees – especially changes designed to weaken their voice on the job – might disrupt labor peace.

“Anyone around this table who’s an employer knows they’re going to do better if their employees are happy and doing well,” Halverson said.

“I don’t understand what problem is looking for the solution that Rep. Drazkowski is trying to impose here,” Seide added. “Public-service workers work 24 hours a day, seven days a week for their state. They never quit. They ought not be constantly under attack and denigrated … as if they’re some kind of foreign enemy.”

Lawmakers took no action on Drazkowski’s bill yesterday, but it will be back on the agenda when the committee meets again next week.

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

In Minnesota, public-sector workers building power from the inside out

February 19, 2016 by
web.Friedrichs-panel

MAPE Local 801 member Victoria Hopwood speaks at a forum at the East Side Freedom Library about threats to public-sector unions.

They may no longer be on the brink of a Supreme Court-imposed Right-to-Work rule, but Minnesota’s public-sector union members aren’t celebrating. They’re organizing.

“What we got was a reprieve, not clemency – and surely not a pardon,” Education Minnesota attorney Meg Luger-Nikolai warned a standing-room-only audience of activists last night at the East Side Freedom Library, site of a forum on Friedrichs v. CTA .

In oral arguments last month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared in agreement on the case. Most observers predicted a 5-4 decision to overturn the 40-year precedent allowing public-sector unions to collect fair-share fees from workers who benefit from a contract but choose not to join the union.

While Justice Antonin Scalia’s death Feb. 13 may have changed Friedrichs’ short-term fate, the legal attacks on working people – bankrolled by big-moneyed, right-wing special interests – will only keep coming.

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

“Some people are breathing a sigh of relief, thinking we’re all set,” Maryland-based labor educator Bill Barry said. “We’re not all set.”

That message already seemed to have registered with the public-sector union members who spilled out from the library’s stacks last night.

The forum, planned before Scalia’s death, was billed as an opportunity to share strategies for maintaining strong unions if fair-share fees become illegal – a likelihood public-sector unions here have been anticipating since Scott Walker’s assault on collective bargaining in Wisconsin six years ago.

As members discussed how their unions might adapt to survive, there was no talk of letting up just because the Supreme Court’s makeup is in flux. Some even appeared to welcome the challenge.

“I think we can survive and thrive with a new membership-driven union,” said Carol Nieters, whose union, SEIU Local 284, represents 9,000 school support workers. “I think we can turn on its head what others think they can pull apart.”

Barry, who taught at the Community College of Baltimore County, preaches a similarly proactive approach in his latest book, “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.” It offers up case studies from around the country in how workers have overcome Right-to-Work laws to build powerful unions.

“We’ve got to revive ourselves,” he said. “It’s no good talking about a problem without talking about solutions. We’ve got to go forward, and if we do it now, it’s going to make a stronger, better, more aggressive union.”

Barry advocated training and empowering stewards to do work often handled by union staff, engaging new members on Day 1 of employment and moving more of the union’s processes – like grievance filings and contract negotiations – into the open.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

After Barry’s presentation, a panel of activists offered glimpses into their own unions’ internal organizing efforts.

John Westmoreland, a former prison guard who’s now assistant director of AFSCME Council 5, acknowledged that fair-share fees “made us lazy” in the past, but he said Friedrichs has sparked a new campaign to sign up 94 percent of the workers Council 5 represents.

“We’re engaging them where they work, everybody coming in the door,” Westmoreland said. “Once we complete this campaign, I won’t have to worry about the Supreme Court justices anymore.”

It’s a lofty goal, but one public-sector union members – and, likely, all union members at some point – will need to meet to keep a strong voice on the job.

“We should make a commitment,” East Side Freedom Library director Peter Rachleff said at the close of the forum. “We’re all going to come back here in six months and see how it’s going.”

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Holding steady in Minnesota, union density plunges in Right-to-Work Wisconsin

January 28, 2016 by

BLS LogoUnion members made up 14.2 percent of Minnesota’s wage-earning and salaried workforce last year, a membership rate unchanged from 2014, according to an annual report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A similar trend played out nationwide, as the union membership rate held steady at 11.1 percent of the U.S. workforce.

But the story was much different in Wisconsin, where total union membership dropped to 223,000 last year, down 83,000 from 2014. Union members made up just 8.3 percent of the workforce in 2015, down from 11.7 percent in 2014.

In 2009, the year before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took office, Wisconsin had 385,000 union members, accounting for 15.2 percent of the state’s workforce.

Since taking office, Walker has teamed up with Republican majorities in the Legislature to pass a Right to Work law and Act 10, which included draconian restrictions on public-sector workers’ union rights, including a provision that requires local unions to hold annual recertification elections.

Both measures substantially weakened unions’ bargaining power and likely contributed to a 45-percent drop in union density statewide over the last six years.

“It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Minnesota has … a higher unionization rate, higher median income and a better workplace safety record than any of our neighbors,” said Bill McCarthy, president of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO. “Higher union density means a higher standard of living for all working people.”

Meanwhile, the wage advantage enjoyed by union members nationwide remained strong in 2015. Median weekly earnings among union members who worked full time last year were $980, compared to $776 for non-union workers.

The advantage was even greater among some minority groups. Black union members, for example, earned 30 percent more than black non-union workers. And Hispanic women union members earned 44 percent more than their non-union peers.

Union membership continued to pay off in certain industries as well, most notably in construction, where union members’ median weekly earnings were $356 more than non-union workers.

The BLS reported Minnesota had a total of 363,000 union members in 2015, but unions represented an additional 22,000 workers. This group includes so-called “fee payers,” who elect not to pay union dues but are covered by the benefits of a union contract.

In Minnesota, fee-payers account for 5.7 percent of workers who benefit from collective bargaining agreements. In Right-to-Work Wisconsin, where unions are barred from charging fair-share fees, that ratio jumps to 11.9 percent.

Public-sector unions’ ability to collect fair-share fees is under scrutiny by the Supreme Court in Friedrichs v. CTA. Many experts expect the court’s ruling, expected before the end of June, to establish Right to Work across the public sector in all 50 states.

The BLS generates its annual report on union membership using results of the Current Population Survey, a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households nationwide. BLS data was released the same day that Gallup ranked Minnesota with the highest job creation index in the nation.

“As we continue to lead the nation in job creation, Minnesota’s labor movement is committed to ensuring these new jobs are family-sustaining jobs,” McCarthy said.

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Bernie Hesse: Politicians, bad laws can’t stop workers from organizing

March 26, 2015 by
Bernie Hesse

Bernie Hesse

Our union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, organized a new group of workers in Luck, Wis., the day Gov. Scott Walker signed a Right to Work for Less bill. The workers at Pioneer Care Center, a nursing home in Luck, voted overwhelmingly for a union. The worker win was the bright spot on a day when the labor haters, with the swipe of a pen, further suppressed worker rights in Wisconsin.

In Luck, a group of workers decided that they needed a voice at work and built a strong committee. They fought back against management’s attempts to derail the organizing drive. The union election wasn’t about money, but rather respect on the job, along with working conditions, including better care for the nursing home’s residents.

The UFCW isn’t going to be stopped by RTW or any other attempts to suppress workers’ rights. We have organized the first group of medical cannabis workers in Minnesota, and we are ready to organize the second facility when the opportunity arises. We believe the emerging medical cannabis industry will provide a safe, secure source for patients along with jobs for thousands of workers in the industry. We intend to support the industry with training and legislative advocacy, in addition to ensuring workers’ ability to have a voice at work.

UFCW Local 1189 is part of a coalition working to advance an industrial hemp bill at the Legislature this year, and we see a real opportunity from the Federal Farm Bill of 2014 to set the table for hemp as a new agricultural commodity that can be used as food, fiber or fuel. Minnesota led the nation during World War II in industrial hemp production, and we intend to support the research necessary for the industry to thrive. Currently, hemp is imported from Canada and China. We believe we could create a vertical system of production and processing, perhaps creating a co-op system, which would be worker owned and organized. We also believe that worker-owned systems should be explored as an alternative to the usual owner-driven model. We live in an economic system that could be called the Golden Rules – if you have the gold, you get to make the rules. We will explore how to change that game.

The Twin Cities has many grocery options for consumers. Many grocery stores are union-organized, and we are proud of what we have built up over the years. But we need to put together programs to expand. We are currently meeting with groups of co-op workers at the Wedge, and hope to get to a point where we can achieve recognition. We believe that we can create a co-op worker movement which will allow the co-ops to grow and set standards for several thousand workers in the area.

Finally, it is the mission of our union to organize internally each day. Building solidarity in a worksite is a slow process. Building solidarity is about relationships. It isn’t transactional, but based on human values of support, respect and fairness. We know that solidarity, especially in tough times, works.

– Bernie Hesse is director of special projects, legislative and political action for UFCW Local 1189, based in St. Paul and Duluth. He is also a delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

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