As driver shortage hampers start of school, unions point to low pay, benefits

September 22, 2021 by

A shortage of school bus drivers hampered the start of school in St. Paul and districts across the state this fall, but it came as no surprise to local union leaders, who have long pushed officials to head off the crisis with better wages and benefits, including unemployment insurance.

“We can fix this problem, but first we have to understand what caused the shortage,” said Teresa Jakubowski, a driver in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district. “If we want to get out of this mess, it has to be done with higher wages, better benefits and access to unemployment benefits.”

A steward with Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union, Jakubowski spoke with reporters during a virtual press conference arranged by her union as school districts scrambled to address the driver shortage.

In the St. Paul Public Schools, administrators abruptly changed start times the week before school was to begin. Families in several districts reported finding out they would temporarily need to arrange transportation to and from school for their children.

Teamsters Local 320, which represents transportation workers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, said the bargaining unit, which typically includes about 170 workers, was down to 90.

“This is not a bus driver shortage; this is a bus driver crisis,” Local 320 Communications Director Gus Froemke said. “People are on the edge.”

Split shifts, limited hours

Typical wages for drivers are $17 to $20 per hour, according to Local 284 President Kelly Gibbons, who drove bus for 18 years in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools.

But driving bus is part-time work, and the split between morning and afternoon shifts makes it hard for bus drivers to supplement their income with a second job. Drivers often must build up seniority to bid for additional duties, like field trips and extracurricular routes, Gibbons added.

“Sometimes a beginning bus driver can’t get more than four hours a day,” she said. “Who can live on four hours a day?

“You come in the morning, and you come in the afternoon. It’s split up, there’s down time in between and sometimes there’s not enough time even to go home. Some drivers are just sitting in the transportation center, not getting paid.”

In the Rosemount district, Jakubowski said, drivers see just four full paychecks per year, with scheduled school breaks, cancelations and holidays cutting into the rest. Drivers able to work in the summer see their hours cut in half, she said.

Long fight for UI

Access to unemployment insurance would help retain drivers through the lean times, advocates said.

While construction workers, landscapers, resort workers and other seasonal employees are eligible for unemployment, hourly school employees are not, according to the state’s unemployment statute, because they have a “reasonable assurance” of returning to work.

Earlier this year, the DFL-controlled House included language reversing that policy in its jobs bill, but a lobbying group for school districts succeeded in keeping it out of the Senate bill. The measure never made it to Gov. Tim Walz’s desk.

Gibbons did not mince words in pinning partial responsibility for the transportation crisis facing local districts on the administrators and lawmakers who blocked the unemployment measure.

“This is a discriminatory law, and it’s time to make real positive change for the workers, for the kids and for the school districts we represent,” Gibbons said. “Our members were on the front line every single day since this pandemic started. Our members have gotten sick. They’ve had long-term effects of COVID. Some have died.

“We need to make sure they are respected, valued and paid.”

Pandemic makes things worse

Bus driver shortages plagued school districts before the pandemic, but COVID-19 exacerbated the problem everywhere. In a survey of school transportation providers conducted earlier this year by three industry groups, 78% of respondents indicated the shortage is getting worse.

Jakubowski said many drivers who left her district were people who previously retired from a different career and had taken jobs as drivers to keep busy and serve their community. But when the pandemic hit, the risks of continuing to drive outweighed the benefits.

“We’ve been relying on (previously retired workers) for a long time, and we shouldn’t be,” Jakubowski said. “We need to bring in new workers who are younger, who will be there for a lot longer.”

That means anteing up for higher wages and better benefits.

“The people who safely drive your children to and from school should be valued, full-time employees with a livable wage,” Jakubowski said. “That would allow us to draw new employees from all age groups.”

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

As special session nears, unions push lawmakers to prioritize working people

May 25, 2021 by

Kellen Sundet, 11, and Payton Del Rosario, 4, make signs at a rally May 15 calling on lawmakers to fund public education and other critical needs.

Minnesota legislators adjourned their regular session last week with the framework of a two-year budget in place, but the agreement merely sets the stage for another round of negotiations over spending and policy details.

That gives the state’s unions one last opportunity to push their legislative priorities – like crisis relief, paid leave and protections for working people – as lawmakers prepare for a special session beginning June 14.

Several labor groups joined the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, in a joint letter to Gov. Tim Walz and lawmakers yesterday as they began meeting in post-session working groups. The letter outlines measures – many of which have already passed in the DFL-controlled House – that unions want to see included in the final jobs bill.

“Working Minnesotans are hurting,” the letter says. “More than a year of pandemic-induced economic hardship, risks and sacrifice on the job, and civil unrest has exhausted workers and made existing racial and economic inequities even worse. Working people need their lawmakers’ help.”

[Individual supporters can sign onto the letter here.]

Unions want to see lawmakers create or extend benefits for workers who have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, like enhanced unemployment insurance, pandemic pay for frontline workers and a “right-to-return” guarantee for former employees as the hard-hit hospitality industry continues to recover.

Hourly school employees have been fighting for years to change a state law barring them from access to unemployment insurance. But the fight took on new urgency when schools shut down in-person learning last year, leaving thousands out of work.

“The path is not closed yet, but the road is narrowing,” SEIU Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said, noting that the statewide association of school boards is fighting the measure.

“These are usually jobs where it’s women and people of color working with the children, working day in and day out, and they have no work in the summer and can’t get unemployment,” said Gibbons, whose union represents 7,000 school support staff statewide. “This is just so discriminatory.”

Making essential workers whole

Workers who could not stay home during the pandemic, meanwhile, aren’t giving up their fight to secure emergency paid leave, including retroactive benefits, for hours lost due to the pandemic.

Many health care workers, janitors, educators, warehouse and other workers burned through their paid time off – and often took unpaid leave – after being exposed to the coronavirus, or to provide care for family members.

In a roundtable discussion with Walz, Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner, a nurse in North Memorial Hospital’s COVID ward, said members of her union have lost 23 hours, on average, during the pandemic.

“Nurses didn’t bat an eye. We walked into the unknown – a horrible unknown,” she said. “We’ve had to face going to our job unprotected because we did not have the PPE we needed. We’ve had to put ourselves and our families at risk for over a year, and many have died.

“We’ve been there from the beginning, and we’re not leaving the front line. But we need justice.”

Building back safely

Other priorities unions will push in advance of the special session include jobs-creating investments in infrastructure and recovery from civil unrest in St. Paul and Minneapolis last summer.

Although the Legislature typically takes up so-called bonding bills in even-numbered years, House DFLers have advanced a $1 billion proposal to take advantage of historically low interest rates and ease uncertainty in the construction industry.

Minnesota’s Building Trades unions have backed the measure, and they are also pushing a new law that would require contractors at oil refineries – like the Marathon facility in St. Paul Park, where workers are sounding the alarm about safety concerns – to hire workers who have completed registered apprenticeships.

“More than 1,000 Minnesotans have called legislators to pass the refinery bill,” said Joel Smith, president of the Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota. “It is critical that lawmakers use this time to take action to keep refinery workers and nearby communities safe by requiring the use of a skilled workforce.” 

Unions and partners in the We Make Minnesota coalition staged a rally last month near the Capitol calling on lawmakers to “fund our futures.”

School funding set

Although much of the Legislature’s work remains unfinished, the budget deal reached last month does offer certainty to public school districts and their employees, who had been bracing for layoffs this spring.

The $52 billion biennial budget would increase K-12 education funding by 2% in each year. While that’s enough to prevent the layoffs many educators feared, Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said, it falls short of the sustainable investment public schools need and deserve.

“Minnesota schools should be a place where every student can succeed, no exceptions,” she said. “This budget should stem the tide of harmful local budget cuts, but educators throughout the state want to be able to promise their students and parents that their local school will have the resources to meet the needs of all students for years to come. We can’t do that today.”

The statewide educators’ union delivered a petition with over 20,000 signatures to lawmakers, calling on them to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Minnesotans to make up for investment gaps over the last decade-plus that have left schools underfunded.

Walz initially included the tax hike in his budget, but it was left out of the final agreement, which, instead, would tap into flexible funding from federal pandemic aid to cover proposed spending increases.

“While we’re disappointed the education spending in the final budget deal wasn’t closer to earlier budget proposals from the governor and the House, we are hopeful the final budget will limit layoffs and allow some schools to rehire educators who have already been pink slipped,” Specht said.

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

Budget axe falls on School District 197’s frontline workers

February 16, 2021 by

Despite putting their health at risk while providing essential care during the pandemic, paraprofessionals in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools learned tonight that the district will lay off up to 12 full-time workers from their ranks and replace them with temporary hires.

Members of ISD 197’s school board signed off on the cost-cutting measure tonight over pleas from teachers, parents and paraprofessionals to reconsider.

Protesters greeted school board members as they arrived at the district’s meeting space in Thompson Park. During a public-comment session, several speakers said special-ed students and their families deserve better than the abrupt layoffs, and so do paraprofessionals.

Lauren Kress, a site supervisor with the district’s School Age Care program, called paraprofessionals the “backbone of our children’s education,” and she urged board members to do better by the workers who “have been risking their own health and the health of their families.”

Marilee Erickson, a special-ed paraprofessional who works with early learners, said the cuts couldn’t come at a worse time for students, many of whom are returning to school after distance learning.

“The timing is troublesome,” she said. “Paraprofessionals know students throughout their buildings, and they know their needs. A temporary worker will not.”

Congress authorized $54.3 billion in emergency funding for public school districts across the country in the last round of COVID-19 relief.

But some lawmakers say more federal aid is necessary to prevent widespread layoffs in school districts, municipalities and other local governments. President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion recovery plan includes $600 billion to protect public services – and jobs for people who provide them.

At the meeting in West St. Paul tonight, Alex Barba-Cook told board members she expects to be among the paraprofessionals laid off as a result of the cuts. She has been on the job for just a year, but already, she said, “my heart is in this school.”

“The foundation of my job is having a good personal relationship with the kids,” Barbra-Cook said. “It takes a lot to build that trust over time. Now, I worry a lot of things are going to fall through the cracks.”

Paraprofessionals in West St. Paul are members of Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

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

Excluded from unemployment benefits, hourly school workers speak out: ‘It is insulting’

July 16, 2020 by

School employees on the video press conference (clockwise from top-left): Teresa Jakubowski, Ronnie Sprigler, Rochelle Stoffel, Sieara Washington and Kelly Gibbons.

For decades, hourly school employees in Minnesota have been fighting to change a state law that restricts their access to unemployment insurance benefits, but to no avail.

Now, school bus drivers, paraprofessionals, teaching assistants and support staff across the state are being left behind as unemployment benefits, bolstered by $600 per week through the federal CARES Act, keep many Americans from slipping into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is insulting we aren’t treated the same as other workers when it comes to unemployment,” Sieara Washington, an education support professional in the Osseo school district, said. “It’s really telling us how they feel about ESPs. I guess we aren’t valuable enough.”

Washington spoke out during a virtual press conference hosted today by four Minnesota unions that represent hourly school employees: Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union, Education Minnesota, AFSCME Council 5 and Teamsters Local 320.

Union members called on state lawmakers, who began a special legislative session Monday, to take emergency action providing relief for hourly school employees, who are simultaneously dealing with the uncertainty of what their jobs will look like – assuming they exist at all – in the fall semester.

Kelly Gibbons, president of SEIU Local 284, said hourly school employees want both “short term solutions and long-term structural change.”

While construction workers, landscapers, resort workers and other seasonal employees are eligible for unemployment, school employees are not, according to the state’s unemployment statute, provided they have a “reasonable assurance” of returning to work in the fall.

“I think it’s discriminatory,” Gibbons said, noting that hourly positions in school districts are “more female-dominated” than other seasonal jobs like construction. “We’re being excluded from the law, so I think it’s not equitable. I don’t think it’s fair.”

Meanwhile, union stewards on the press call described the mounting financial pressures facing hourly workers, some of whom have been out of work since March.

Local 320 steward Ronnie Sprigler, a teaching assistant in the St. Paul Public Schools, said the sudden loss of income has been “catastrophic” for many of her fellow Teamsters, particularly single parents. Sprigler, herself a widow who cares for a disabled son, has incurred “serious debt and quality-of-life issues” as a result of the pandemic.

“But I also know that I am far from alone,” Sprigler said, noting that calls have been streaming in from distressed co-workers. “There’s a level of mental and emotional damage happening to people I hear from every week.”

Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan bus driver Teresa Jakubowski, a steward with Local 284, said that while she’s able to weather the storm by taking on debt, others without access to credit have faced heartbreaking decisions. One member of her bargaining unit recently sold her mother’s engagement ring for cash, Jakubowski said, and another couldn’t afford to replace her broken-down car.

“Food and rent are the biggest worries,” Jakubowski said. “We are frustrated, and we are fearful.”

AFSCME steward Rochelle Stoffel, a middle-school office clerk in St. Paul, said she gets “calls and emails constantly” from members in a panic about their unemployment status.

“They thought because programming was cancelled and they lost their position, they would receive unemployment, only to find out they’re in a pending status, with no help or estimation from the unemployment office when or if they will see a benefit at all,” Stoffel said. “It’s a terrible feeling.”

As painful as the last three months have been for hourly school employees and their families, union members on the press call said they were hopeful the crisis would finally lead to action, which workers like Gibbons have been pressing lawmakers to take for decades.

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this law applies to jobs that are traditionally done by women and people of color,” Gibbons said. “But this work is way too important to be treated this way. We need action from our state leaders.”

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

Unions push pandemic response leaving no worker behind

March 19, 2020 by

(CDC image)

State and local officials are taking unprecedented steps to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading in Minnesota. While the effectiveness of those measures remains to be seen, it’s already clear the COVID-19 pandemic is not just a public health crisis, but an economic one as well. 

The state’s highest-ranking labor leaders today sent Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders a to-do list of policy changes necessary, they say, to protect working people on the front lines of the pandemic response and those likely to suffer most from its impact on Minnesota’s economy. 

In the letter, the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s executive officers, President Bill McCarthy and Secretary-Treasurer Brad Lehto, back higher standards to ensure hospitals and fire departments provide adequate personal-protective equipment to nurses and first responders. They urge an extension of unemployment-insurance benefits and paid time off. And they call on lawmakers to pass bills guaranteeing school districts’ hourly employees get paid during closures and putting tradespeople to work. 

The letter also includes a warning: “Emergencies shouldn’t be an excuse to relax labor standards. Do not allow rollback of any labor rights or protections.” 

The dizzying number of demands included in the letter reflects the all-encompassing nature of the pandemic and efforts to combat it. Unions from all industries, from the public and private sectors, were bracing for the fallout – and scrambling to address members’ economic and health concerns. 

Kelly Gibbons, president of Service Employees International Union Local 284, called the last week “quite the nightmare.” 

Local 284 represents about 10,000 workers in 140 school districts statewide. Although Walz has ordered all schools to close through March 27, some Local 284 members are still reporting to work, helping provide care for elementary-age children of health care workers and first responders. Other members are furloughed with pay – for the time being. 

“There’s been a lot of confusion, but we’ll get through this,” Gibbons said. “We know this will pass.” 

In the days after he declared a statewide emergency last week, Walz ordered schools, restaurants, museums and other public spaces to close, hoping to limit community spread of the virus and prevent a surge of hospital visits due to COVID-19. But the governor also moved to ease the financial strain on working people impacted by those measures. 

In an executive order Monday, Walz made the state’s unemployment insurance program more robust, waiving certain restrictions and waiting periods so that anyone whose paycheck takes a hit from the pandemic – from layoffs, furloughs or schedule cuts – has swift access to relief. 

Walz also called on businesses that remain open during the pandemic to do their part to prevent its spread by making it easier for employees to work from home and, critically, stay home with pay when feeling sick. Leading by example, Walz granted emergency paid leave to any state employee impacted by the pandemic, and he suspended the waiting period typically required of new hires before they can enroll in health insurance coverage. 

That’s good news for many members of AFSCME Council 5, which counts state employees among its 43,000 members statewide. But Executive Director Julie Bleyhl said all Minnesota employees deserve the same guarantees. 

“AFSCME Council 5 is demanding that all employers in the state of Minnesota pay their workers in full during this time of crisis,” she said. “We must all be united and work together to ensure that no worker has to choose between their lives and a paycheck.” 

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, in its letter to Walz and legislative leaders, called on the state to mandate that employers provide 15 days of emergency paid time off to all employees, and that school districts continue to pay furloughed employees, who are not eligible for unemployment insurance, for all scheduled days.  

“To avoid impacting small businesses for 15 days off, we are calling on the state to implement a separate tax on the largest businesses in the state including Amazon, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Target, Ecolab and others, and small to medium sized businesses can apply for a tax credit equal to 100% of the paid sick leave benefit they have paid out,” the letter reads. 

Other union demands – like a robust infrastructure jobs bill and extending unemployment benefits to a full year – look to soften the blow to Minnesota’s economy in the long term.  

A statement issued by the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council argues a strong bonding bill, with investments in roads, bridges, transit and public buildings, would “be the economic stimulus needed to jump start the economy, and especially the construction industry, after the worst of the coronavirus impacts have passed.”  

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

Mounds View paras stick together with strike vote

March 6, 2020 by

(SEIU photo)

More Twin Cities workers are making preparations for a possible strike.

The union representing nearly 400 para-educators in the Mounds View Public Schools today announced its members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a 24-hour strike if contract negotiations continue to stall.

Para-educators are the first district employees to take a strike vote in 40 years, according to their union, Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

“It’s sad we had to go this route,” said Local 284 member Melissa Grewe, who works with special-ed students at Reach Academy. “But we’re united, we’re standing together and we’re hopeful we can get this done.”

Bargaining with the district began nine months ago, but for union members, progress has been slow on key issues like affordable health insurance.

Para-educators pay a greater share of health-insurance premiums than other bargaining units in the district. Equity, para-educator Cathy Springhorn said, is long overdue.

“Paras are the people who always put others before themselves,” Springhorn said. “But now we’re standing up in a way we never have before. We deserve to get the same health insurance as everyone else, and we need the tools to make sure every student reaches their highest potential.”

Para-educators also are fighting the school district’s attempt to eliminate a provision allowing them to spread their pay over 12 months.

Other union demands reflect the changing nature of para-educators’ work.

Before bargaining began last June, Local 284 circulated surveys asking members to list their top concerns. Many said they lacked the time needed to keep up with new responsibilities, like third-party billing, communicating with families and filling out reports. Others felt they could better serve students with more time to plan and collaborate with teachers.

Contract proposals developed out of those concerns, Grewe said, have gone nowhere in negotiations so far.

“We have no time built into our day to get these tasks done, so a lot of people are either doing them after school on their own time or during their break time, their lunch time,” she said. “It’s frustrating, and members don’t feel respected or valued by the district.

“I think that shows by the number of people who came out to vote.”

About 90% of union members participated in the strike-authorization vote, held at school facilities earlier this week, and 80.7% voted “yes,” according to the union. Grewe said she hopes district leaders got the message.

“Come to the table and actually bargaining with us,” she said. “We do this because we love kids. And with a fair contract, we can make the kids’ experience even better than what it is.”

Para-educators have not set a strike date. They are required to provide the district with 10-days notice before going on strike.

The two sides are scheduled to resume mediated talks March 31.

Some 4,000 janitors across the metro and 3,600 St. Paul educators are in last-ditch negotiations this week. If they are unable to reach an agreement, janitors plan to begin an open-ended strike over unfair labor practices March 9. Educators would begin their strike a day later.

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

Hamline puts posturing before progress in contract talks, adjuncts say

January 29, 2019 by

Imagine paying $40,000 per year to attend a university, asking a faculty member for a letter of recommendation, and finding out the letter will come not from a “.edu” address associated with the school, but from an AOL account the professor maintains to write restaurant reviews and buy vintage concert posters online.

It’s just one example, adjunct faculty members say, of the retrograde positions Hamline University and its high-priced lawyers have staked out in negotiations that, despite 14 meetings since last June, have made no progress toward a new union contract.

“All we are trying to do is make reasonable improvements to the contract that help us be better teachers,” said Richard Wiebe, an adjunct instructor of creative writing and digital arts. “We haven’t even gotten to the point of (discussing) economics yet, and every ask we’ve made has been denied by administration on the other end of the table.

“These are things that don’t cost the university anything, so we’re kind of at a loss.”

The frustration boiled over in a press release issued last week by Minnesota Academics United, the SEIU-backed union that represents faculty members at Hamline, Augsburg and other local campuses.

The release blasted Hamline’s approach to bargaining a new contract, accusing school administrators of trying to weaken adjunct faculty members’ union and marginalize their status on campus.

They also blasted university leaders for bringing attorneys from the law firm Dorsey and Whitney into negotiations. The legal fees “almost certainly” have cost Hamline more “than the total cost of the first year of the union’s proposals,” the release said.

David Weiss, a co-steward of the faculty members’ bargaining unit, said union members had hoped talks would be collaborative and positive.

“We were sorely mistaken,” Weiss said. “Far from working with us in a collaborative spirit, Hamline is choosing to become a ‘gated’ academic community, trying to weaken our contract and union – as well as our relationships with students and fulltime faculty colleagues.”

Hamline relies on adjunct faculty to fill roughly half its teaching positions. Adjunct instructors’ workloads fluctuate at the school’s discretion, with few guarantees beyond the end of a given semester.

The intermittent nature of adjunct employment would become even more pronounced under contract language proposed by the university, union members said. One proposal would eliminate standing arrangements that protect adjunct instructors from having to reapply for teaching jobs each semester. Another would block their access to university email accounts, library services and online records in between teaching assignments.

The changes, faculty members warn, would impede their own scholarship and cut them off from students, who often look to instructors for academic assistance or networking support after a semester ends.

The school also rejected the union’s proposal that adjunct faculty members be allowed to carry over earned sick and safe time from one academic year to the next, Wiebe said. Some instructors have been teaching at Hamline for 17 years without accruing a single day of sick leave.

“It’s something we thought it would be reasonable to ask for,” Wiebe said. “We’re trying to work with an unconventional model, being on the academic calendar, but nevertheless ensure some continuity and security for ourselves and our families.”

Hamline’s previous contract with adjunct faculty members, finalized in Feburary 2016 after a first-of-its-kind organizing drive in Minnesota, expired in September. Anthropology instructor Marcia Regan, who has been teaching at Hamline since 2004, said progress on a new agreement won’t come until administrators put posturing aside.

“We know, as dedicated professionals who teach because we believe in the Hamline students, that our long-term connection to Hamline makes us better teachers and deepens our ties to the Hamline community,” Regan said. “The administration refuses to recognize that value, and this has really undercut our best efforts to reach an agreement.”

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

Proposal to slash special ed stuns Cambridge-Isanti parents, staff

March 21, 2018 by

(SEIU Local 284 photo)

Paraprofessionals in the Cambridge-Isanti Schools are mounting a last-ditch fight for their jobs and the special education students they serve after the district unexpectedly revealed plans Friday to slash staffing by 25 percent.

“It was shocking,” Melanie Custer, in her fifth year as a special-ed paraprofessional in District 911, said of learning her job is on the chopping block. “It was basically a slap in the face to us, that we don’t mean anything.”

The proposal, outlined in the school board’s Thursday meeting agenda, would reduce special-ed staffing at seven schools next year by roughly 230 hours per day. That adds up to between 50 and 60 jobs, according to the union that represents Cambridge-Isanti paraprofessionals, SEIU Local 284.

Union members plan to speak against the proposed cuts at the board meeting tomorrow, and they anticipate strong backing from parents and community members. [View the Facebook event.]

“I’ve seen Facebook posts, and I’ve talked to a couple of (special-ed students’) parents,” Custer said. “It stresses them out, and it makes them worried about what kind of care their children are going to be getting.”

The district did not respond to a request for comment, but the agenda item cites “changes in enrollment and staffing needs” as reason for the cuts. A separate budget document estimates savings of $770,000 next year from an “adjustment to special education staffing.”

But Custer, who provides one-on-one support to students with special needs, warned that any savings would come at a steep price for students, their families and teachers in the district.

“Our students will suffer,” she said. “These are students with emotional and behavioral disorders, autistic students and students with learning disabilities. If you cut out the people who give them help, they’re going to get lost in the system.”

Already, special-ed paras and the teachers they work alongside feel shorthanded, Custer added. Any time a para calls in sick, “it generally results in the teacher having to do a lot more than anyone’s capable of doing,” she said.

Custer, whose husband works in the construction industry and struggles for hours in the winter months, would have to find another job if she’s laid off by the district. But she doubts she could find anything as rewarding as her work with students.

It’s a message she hopes will resonate with board members tomorrow.

“We give day in and day out helping these kids,” she said. “We’ll never get rich doing this job; we’re all there for the kids. It seems like the district doesn’t care about us, they don’t care about the kids.”

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

Jesse Paggen: We can emerge stronger after Janus – and we must

March 1, 2018 by

Jesse Paggen is lead custodian in the Sartell schools.

As a union member with SEIU Local 284 in the Sartell schools, being in a union means having a voice to be heard as a group – even a family – so we can get what we so rightfully deserve. We all just want a piece of the American dream: a well-paying job with benefits for our families. We work hard and deserve to get the best pay and benefits possible.

With our union, we can stick together to not let big business run over the little guys like us.

I’m the lead custodian in the Sartell schools, where I’ve been for 22 years, and I am a proud union steward in Local 284. We all live in our community and care deeply about our public schools. My team and I work hard every day to make sure our buildings are safe and clean for our students.

We’ve had some issues over the last few years, and we voted to authorize a strike in December 2017 in order to make the district understand that it needed to do better. We reached a fair deal in the end and didn’t have to strike, but by sticking together we were able to get better results for our families and our schools than we ever would have alone. That is the power of being in a union.

But now, because of that power, a well-organized group of billionaires and corporate special interests have a case before the U.S. Supreme Court called Janus v. AFSCME, and it could undermine our unions. Basically, these special interests want to make every public sector union into “right to work,” which we all know really is just a fancy way of saying they are trying to destroy our ability to come together and make gains for our families.

The nine Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in Janus on Feb. 26, and they will rule sometime this spring. Most people assume they will rule for the anti-union plaintiff.

In anticipation, many unions have been making sure working people understand what it means to be a union member – and what we can accomplish together. My union, which brings together over 9,000 school employees across the state, has been working hard to make certain we don’t let any divide-and-conquer techniques rip us apart. We can, and must, come out stronger from this attack.

The groups attacking us think that making it harder for unions to survive will mean that we won’t be strong enough to fight for the things we deserve. They think they can divide us so we won’t have a unified voice, something everyone knows working people need to win a better future for our families.

I think they are wrong. I think no matter what this court case says, our unions are stronger than the divide-and-conquer techniques our opponents are using. More and more people are realizing that our system is rigged in favor of those at the top. They want regular families to be able to make ends meet and have a chance to get ahead. In the richest country in the history of the world, this doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

When we stick together with our unions (and work to get more people the chance to join unions), we can tip the scales back towards working families. If we let them split us apart, I’m scared to see where things will go.

As the Janus case rolls along, let’s prove our opponents wrong and use this moment to build a strong labor movement that sticks together and wins a better future for working families across Minnesota.

– Jesse Paggen is a member of SEIU Local 284 and lead custodian in Independent School District 748.

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

Day of action unites working people in St. Paul, nationwide

February 24, 2018 by

Hundreds rally at the Capitol in support of worker freedom and economic fairness, joining a nationwide Working People’s Day of Action.

Working people filled the Capitol rotunda in St. Paul today, celebrating their freedom to join together for a voice on the job and pledging to fight corporate attacks with urgency and solidarity.

“Unions are here for the common good,” former St. Paul teacher Mary Cathryn Ricker, now vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, told hundreds of people gathered for the Working People’s Day of Action. “And we are here for good.”

The rally in St. Paul was one of more than two dozen across the country highlighting the benefits of collective bargaining and the critical role union members play in their communities.

Anne Bipes, who works as a secretary in a west-metro school district, attended the rally with members of her union, Service Employees Local 284. She said strong unions mean more than “just pay and benefits” for workers like her.

“It’s about equity and justice within our society, about equality for working people,” Bipes explained.

 

The day of action comes two days before the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a lawsuit, bankrolled by corporate special interests, challenging the ability of Local 284 and other public sector employee unions to collect fair-share fees from workers they are legally required to represent.

The court’s conservative majority is likely to side with the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, and the decision, expected as early as April, could make right-to-work conditions in the public sector the law of the land.

But public-sector workers aren’t cowering. They traveled in busloads to the Capitol, wore their union colors and carried signs vowing that no court ruling will keep them from joining together to fight for themselves and their communities.

Jim Glazer, a teacher in the South Washington County Schools and member of Education Minnesota, joined the rally to be “part of the energy” fueling actions across the country today.

“Janus is really going to test our unions’ ability to stick together,” he said. “That’s the point of it, to drag us apart. But we have a common cause here: workers’ rights and freedoms.”

Public-sector workers aren’t standing alone either. Private sector union members bolstered their ranks at the Capitol, as did allies from immigrant rights groups, faith organizations and the business community.

“What affects public workers will affect all workers,” said Deb Haugen, a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis and member of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “For many years unions have set the standard for conditions in the workplace. If our voice is weaker, it’s not only going to be felt by union workers, but by all of us.”

Wendy Anderson, a Century Link retiree who remains active in her union, Local 7201 of the Communications Workers of America, said the landscape for unions is changing, but she thinks working people are up to the test.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the same union as me,” Anderson said. “We’re brothers and sisters, and we support each other.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»