Unions see plenty to like in results of 2013 legislative session

May 30, 2013 by
Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Service Employees International Union members and staff join a rally for marriage equality at the Capitol. Unions were a big part of the successful push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Legislative leaders called 2013 the “education session” for the new investments in E-12 students, and a bill to extend union rights to 21,000 child-care providers and home health care workers grabbed headlines as Republicans tried to filibuster it to death.

But the 2013 legislative session yielded many other victories for union members and middle class families. Here’s a look at some of the less-publicized measures passed by labor-endorsed majorities in the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

• Protections for locked-out workers. Included in the jobs bill is a 26-week extension of unemployment-insurance benefits for any worker whose employer locks them out.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers. Minnesota Orchestra musicians remain locked out of their jobs, while St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians and workers at American Crystal Sugar in the Red River Valley recently struck deals to return to work.

Lawmakers viewed the extension of unemployment benefits as a way to mitigate the negative impact lockouts have had on families, communities and businesses.

• Marriage equality. Thousands gathered outside the Minnesota State Capitol on May 14 to watch Dayton sign legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry. Several Minnesota unions supported the legislation as an issue important to their members and as an advance in equal rights for all.

Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, explained the union’s decision to endorse marriage equality: “Same-sex couples pay taxes in Minnesota. They vote here, run businesses here, and serve in our military. They work hard and contribute to our communities, and they have children who deserve to grow up in stable families with married parents.

“Everyone should be able to marry the person they love. No one should be singled out and denied the economic protections and cultural privileges associated with matrimony.”

• Fair trade advisory council. The jobs bill also included reauthorization of the Trade Policy Advisory Council, which saw its authority “sunset” in 2012, but in a new form – one more inclusive of the groups with a stake in international trade policy. The TPAC is required to meet at least once a year and report back to the governor and Legislature about potential U.S. trade agreements and their impact on the state’s economy. The council also may offer draft legislation to implement the recommendations.

Click here to read more about the reauthorized Trade Policy Advisory Council.

• Construction jobs. The Legislature did not pass a large bonding bill, but it did approve much-needed repairs to the Capitol building. Lawmakers also made investments in job creation tools and key construction projects like the Mall of America expansion.

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Musicians ratify contract, call for new SPCO leadership

April 29, 2013 by

spcomuslogo1Stressing that they “remain deeply concerned” about the ensemble’s future, musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra today announced their vote to ratify a three-year agreement with the orchestra, officially ending the lockout that began Oct. 21, 2012.

The new contract will reduce the size of the SPCO from 34 to 28 musicians. It also slashes by more than 20 percent musicians’ salaries and “overscale” pay, additional compensation some musicians receive for special skills or leadership roles.

In a press release, members of the musicians’ negotiating team said they accepted the pay cuts in order to avoid a two-tiered pay scale that would make it difficult to attract high-caliber artists to positions with the SPCO.

“The vast difference between the new SPCO annual salary of $60,000 and the salaries of other major American orchestras, many of which exceed $100,000, will make attracting such musicians very difficult,” said Carole Mason Smith, chair of the negotiating committee.

Musicians estimated the SPCO will achieve cost savings of $5 million by 2016 as a result of the new contract – and the 191-day lockout, which will be lifted tomorrow.

In the press release, musicians also “called for the immediate commencement of a search for a new SPCO leader with proven orchestra management experience, and the vision and skill to substantially increase revenues and to maintain and enhance the SPCO’s status as one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras. If revenues are not significantly increased in the next three years, the artistic quality of this Orchestra will not be preserved.”

“We’re eager and excited to return to the stage and play music again for our loyal audiences,” Mason Smith said. “We’ve keenly missed performing for our community, but we remain deeply concerned about the artistic quality of the SPCO for future generations.”

SPCO concerts are scheduled to resume May 9. Click here for ticket information.

The musicians of the SPCO are members of American Federation of Musicians Local 30-73, which also represents musicians locked out of their jobs by the Minnesota Orchestra since Oct. 1, 2012.

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As lockout drags on, community group ponders forming new orchestra

March 26, 2013 by
Mariellen Jacobson, chair of Save Our SPCO, announces plans to explore forming a new chamber orchestra in St. Paul.

Mariellen Jacobson, chair of Save Our SPCO, announces plans to explore forming a new chamber orchestra in St. Paul.

A community group working to end the five-month lockout of St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians is exploring the possibility of forming a new group to replace the SPCO – and prevent any further losses of SPCO musicians to other orchestras around the country.

Save Our SPCO, a grassroots group of patrons and audience members, announced its latest effort at a press conference today outside Ordway Center for the Performing Arts – the SPCO’s home.

SOSPCO Chair Mariellen Jacobson listed several SPCO musicians who have taken jobs with other orchestras since the lockout began. “We want to keep our world-class orchestra together,” she said, rather than watch as it is “dismantled piece by piece.”

To that end, an exploratory committee of “arts, philanthropy, education, business and political” leaders – including two influential state legislators – will consider whether “a new arts organization could house a world-class orchestra,” she said.

One of the two lawmakers on the exploratory committee, Minneapolis Rep. Phyllis Kahn, chairs the House Legacy Committee, which oversees the process by which conservation and arts organizations – including the SPCO – receive public funding from the Legacy Amendment, a sales tax approved by voters in 2008.

Kahn, a DFLer, said she was interested in efforts to “set up something so that the (Legacy) funding would go to musicians to play music, as it is intended to do.”

Inver Grove Heights Rep. Joe Atkins, another DFLer, is also a part of the exploratory committee.

Learn more about the exploratory committee, and audience-driven efforts to end the lockout of 34 St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians, at www.sospco.org.

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With lockouts on the rise, state lawmakers weigh social, economic impacts

January 24, 2013 by
Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Musicians locked out by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform an impromptu concert in the hall outside a Minnesota House committee hearing on lockouts.

Lockouts have gained popularity among Minnesota employers looking to flex their muscles in contract negotiations with union workers, but state lawmakers yesterday began examining the impact these prolonged work stoppages have had on families, communities and businesses.

The House Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee’s hearing on lockouts was likely a first step toward legislative action to protect locked-out workers – and make the tactic less appealing to employers.

Committee members surveyed ongoing lockouts at American Crystal Sugar, the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as the recently settled dispute between the National Hockey League and its players’ union. Testimony, often impassioned, came from labor, management and community stakeholders.

Becki Jacobson, a Moorhead, Minn., resident locked out of her job by Crystal Sugar for nearly 18 months, fought back tears as she talked about struggling to make her mortgage payments after her unemployment-insurance benefits expired six months ago. She added that she was recently diagnosed with severe depression.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills,” said Jacobson, one of 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union locked out by the sugar-beet cooperative. “I don’t know where my next meal is going to come from.”

Heidi Durand, a sociology professor and member of the Moorhead City Council, said her community was not equipped to handle the volume of problems Jacobson and Crystal Sugar’s other locked-out workers are facing, from increased foreclosures and bankruptcies to mental-health issues and substance abuse.

Receipts are down at local businesses, and Moorhead’s homeless shelters have been “beyond capacity” since the fall, Durand said. Longtime friendships have splintered, leaving the community’s “social fabric greatly weakened.”

Orchestras locked out

In the metro area, two pillars of the classical music scene fell silent after the Minnesota Orchestra and the SPCO locked out their musicians last fall.

The musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-72, voted overwhelmingly against contracts that included steep salary, benefit and work-rule concessions. Rather than continue negotiating during the 2012-13 concert season, the orchestras went on the offensive, canceling concerts and cutting musicians off from their jobs.

At the House committee hearing, orchestra fans and business owners joined locked-out musicians in describing the ripple effects – economic, civic and artistic – of the lockouts.

Laurie Greeno, co-chair of the community group Orchestrate Excellence, said downtown Minneapolis merchants already have lost $1.25 million as a result of the lockout. Restaurants have told the group they are losing between $3,000 and $10,000 per concert.

Minnesota Orchestra trombonist Doug Wright said orchestra board members have shown a “disregard for the greater musical community,” pointing to music-education programming in schools across the state that has been canceled as a result of the lockout.

And SPCO musician Carole Mason Smith warned the committee that each day the lockout continues, the likelihood increases that another world-class musician from one of the Twin Cities’ orchestras will take their talents elsewhere. “Some of us have sold our homes,” she said, pointing to growing frustration among musicians with management’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue with the union.

Legislative action coming?

Although the committee hearing was not related to any specific bill, lawmakers heard some suggestions for how they might get involved. Greeno urged a “thorough analysis” of lockouts’ economic impact on the state, while Mark Thoson of the audience-driven group Save Our SPCO suggested holding the orchestras’ accountable for their nonprofit statuses.

“When the state confers nonprofit status to an organization, the state and organization have a duty to ensure the benefit to the public are protected,” Thoson said.

Musicians said lawmakers would not be overstepping their bounds by getting involved in the orchestra lockouts, as the state has financially supported the orchestras’ programming and facilities in the past, most notably a $14 million investment in ongoing Orchestra Hall renovations.

“We didn’t build Target Field for a minor league baseball team,” Wright said.

Unions also will push lawmakers to extend workers’ unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout. Such an extension would prevent employers like Crystal Sugar from starving workers like Jacobson into accepting their contract demands.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the state’s largest labor federation also would support adding a penalty to the unemployment tax paid by employers after a lockout enters its second month. Money collected through the penalty would be split equally between the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and the Workforce Development Fund.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

Testifying before the House committee: Becki Jacobson, Moorhead school teacher Jeff Offutt and Moorhead City Council Member Heidi Durand.

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Steve Hunter: Labor agenda includes investments, tax fairness, new jobs and workplace dignity

January 24, 2013 by

mug-hunter-webThe 2013 legislative session presents Minnesota’s labor movement with opportunities we haven’t seen since 1990, the last time we had a pro-labor governor and labor-friendly majorities in both the House and Senate. After 22 years of playing defense, we finally have an opportunity to accomplish positive change for working people. The Minnesota AFL-CIO, working with our affiliate unions, has assembled an agenda for this session that focuses on new investments, tax fairness, job creation and workplace dignity and fairness.

Our No. 1 priority is the state budget. We need to make new investments in our roads and bridges, schools and colleges – and provide care and dignity for our senior citizens. To make these important investments, there needs to be new tax revenue. We need to increase revenue by reforming our tax system to ensure fairness and stability. We have witnessed years of cuts to state and local government services, education, higher education, health care, human services, transportation and public safety. At the same time we’ve been asked to pay more in fees, property taxes and tuition. To protect the wealthiest Minnesotans from paying their fair share, previous governors and legislators have resorted to spending down reserves and borrowing from schools and endowments. It’s time to balance the budget without gimmicks while providing the additional funding needed to invest in our future.

We can also increase revenue by putting Minnesota back to work. The state AFL-CIO supports the Mall of America expansion, and we also support a significant bonding bill to put people back to work improving our state’s infrastructure, which will support and facilitate future economic growth.

Feb. 1 will mark the 18th month of the American Crystal Sugar lockout. As I write this, both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra remain locked out, and the NHL has only recently resumed games after a prolonged lockout. Locked out workers in Minnesota qualify for unemployment benefits, but cases like Crystal Sugar show that lockouts can linger well beyond the length of those benefits. That’s why we are proposing legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the duration of a lockout, and also add a penalty to the employer’s unemployment tax after the beginning of a lockout’s second month. Half of that penalty would go to the UI Trust Fund; the other 50 percent would support the Workforce Development Fund.

We will also support initiatives to protect workers’ right to organize, raise minimum wage and limit employers’ use of credit checks related to terms of employment. We will soon announce our complete agenda to the public.

The election was only the first half of ensuring pro-labor policies become law; the other half is holding elected officials accountable. We need union members to contact their legislators concerning these issues. For more information on labor-related legislation, contact our offices, visit www.mnaflcio.org or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

– Steve Hunter is Secretary-Treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the statewide labor federation representing over 300,000 workers.

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Renowned conductor, Minnesota Chorale join benefit for SPCO’s locked-out musicians

November 29, 2012 by

Locked out of their jobs, the Musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are looking to grow public support in their ongoing dispute with orchestra management by doing what they do best – performing world-class music for their fans.

The Musicians of the SPCO will partner with the Minnesota Chorale, the region’s premier symphonic chorus, for two performances Dec. 20- 21 of the traditional holiday classic Handel’s Messiah at Central Lutheran Church downtown Minneapolis. Both performances will start at 7:30 p.m.

Central Lutheran Church is located across the street from the Minneapolis Convention Center, at 333 South 12th Street. Convenient parking is adjacent to the church.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Hugh Wolff, the SPCO’s principal conductor and music director from 1988 to 2000, will conduct the concerts.

Tickets cost between $15 and $45, and they are available through the Central Lutheran Church website, or at messiahmpls.brownpapertickets.com.

The concerts will benefit SPCO musicians, who have been out of work since being locked out by orchestra management Oct. 21. The orchestra is seeking steep cuts to pay and benefits – cuts orchestra members say will have a negative impact on the group’s artistic quality.

The holiday benefit concerts will follow an all-Mozart benefit concert Dec. 2 at Wayzata Community Church, staged by the SPCO musicians with Pinchas Zukerman, an internationally acclaimed violinist and conductor.

For more information on the SPCO musicians and their lockout, go to www.musiciansspco.org.

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Locked-out musicians reject SPCO’s contract proposal

October 31, 2012 by

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra voted unanimously today to reject a contract offer from management, prolonging a work stoppage that began Oct. 21.

Management’s proposed reductions to current musicians’ salaries and benefits are unacceptable, union members said. They warned even bigger proposed cuts to future musicians’ compensation would undermine the orchestra’s quality and artistry.

Lynn Erickson, SPCO member and spokesperson for the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, said the SPCO would be “unable to identify any qualified artistic consultant who would support the proposed reductions.”

Kyu-Young Kim, an SPCO violinist and member of the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, called the contract proposal an attempt by management to divide current and future orchestra members.

“Management again fails to realize that an orchestra functions as a team, and that none of us in the SPCO have any interest in selling our present or future colleagues down the river,” Kim said.

Kim pointed to a letter made public Oct. 25 in which SPCO management said it planned to reduce the pay of highly paid “principal players” significantly less than those who receive the base pay.

SPCO management has said it is looking to cut $1.5 million from its annual budget in contract negotiations. Musicians have presented management with a counter-proposal that, they say, would save the SPCO more than $700,000 over the course of three years – while continuing to live up to the orchestra’s high artistic standards.

“Our goal is to preserve the artistic excellence of the SPCO in a fiscally responsible way, for our supporters and for this community,” Erickson said. “We want to resume negotiations as soon as possible and hope that a mutually agreeable solution can be quickly achieved.”

The proposal rejected today also would give management the ability to terminate musicians at any time with no recourse, the musicians said.

Click here for more information on the Musicians of the SPCO and their lockout.

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Union musicians locked out on both sides of the Mississippi River

October 29, 2012 by

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra musicians at Ordway Center.

Union musicians in Minneapolis and St. Paul have been locked out of their jobs by the Minneapolis-based Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO), leaving a deafening void in the Twin Cities cultural scene.

SPCO musicians, who had been working under a “talk-and-play” agreement after their contract expired in September, were locked out Oct. 21, when orchestra President and Chair Dobson West posted a statement that concerts had been canceled through Nov. 4.

The musicians, members of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73, are encouraging fans and supporters to contact SPCO management with an appeal to reconsider a counterproposal the union offered during contract talks Sept. 25. Go to musiciansspco.org to take action.

Rejected by management a day later, the counterproposal offered to cut musicians’ salaries by 10.5 percent across the board over the next two years and by 4 percent in the third year – in exchange for shared sacrifice from SPCO management. According to the union, it would save the SPCO more than $700,000 over the course of the three-year pact.

SPCO management has said it is seeking $1.5 million in cost savings from the musicians’ contract – a figure musicians say is impossible to reach without compromising the SPCO’s artistic quality.

“It is disheartening that management isn’t interested in preserving this historic ensemble,” said Carole Smith, a bassoonist and chair of the union’s Negotiations Committee. “We need the public now more than ever to contact management and ask them to reconsider.”

The counterproposal includes other concessions designed to help the SPCO raise revenue, including free musician performances eight times each year and performances at small gatherings of SPCO donors. Musicians say the SPCO has the money in hand to maintain operations without drastic cuts. The union’s counterproposal, Smith said, would provide management with the savings it needs in the short run in order “to finally put together an effective endowment drive.”

MN Orchestra lockout drags on

In 2010, The New Yorker magazine critic Alex Ross lauded the Minnesota Orchestra as “the greatest orchestra in the world.” The orchestra, founded 110 years ago as the Minneapolis Symphony, tours nationally and internationally, and issues critically-acclaimed symphonic recordings.

The management of the orchestra, however, locked out its 95 musicians Oct. 1, when they failed to ratify a proposed contract. The proposal included pay cuts of 30-50 percent in musicians’ salaries. The proposed contract also included more than 250 changes to the musicians’ current agreement, gutting 40 years of worker protections gained through collective bargaining.

The musicians, also members of the Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73, were ready to continue working and performing while contract issues were resolved. But orchestra management – the Minnesota Orchestral Association – cancelled the entire fall season.

Although the lock-out meant the cancellation of the fall season’s opening night, scheduled for Oct. 18, the musicians were determined to play. Independent of management, they promoted and staged their own sold-out concert the same night with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting.

“From the beginning,”orchestra member Wendy Williams said, “our perception has been a refusal to bargain in good faith by the other side.”

She noted that management recently adopted a new business model and  changed the Minnesota Orchestral Association’s mission statement – even dropping presenting a “symphony orchestra” from the stated mission.

More information is at MinnesotaOrchestraMusicians.org.

– Minneapolis Labor Review Editor Steve Share contributed reporting.

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With contract set to expire Sunday, SPCO musicians ask supporters to take action

September 28, 2012 by

Musicians of the SPCO give a free concert as part of their commitment to the long-term financial stability of the orchestra.

With their contract set to expire Sunday, the Musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are encouraging supporters to show their appreciation for the quality and artistry union members bring to the SPCO by attending one of two concerts this weekend – and by calling SPCO management.

The SPCO will give performances of “American Romantics and Maria Schneider” at 8 p.m. tonight at Wayzata Community Church, 125 E. Wayzata Blvd., and at 8 p.m. tomorrow at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, 900 Summit Ave., St. Paul.

The musicians, members of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73, are also encouraging fans to contact SPCO management with an appeal to reconsider a counterproposal the union offered during contract talks Sept. 25.

Rejected by management a day later, the counteroffer would have cut musicians’ salaries by 10.5 percent across the board over the next two years and by 4 percent in the third year – in exchange for “shared sacrifice” from SPCO management.

According to the union, it would save the SPCO more than $700,000 over the course of the three-year pact.

Management has said it is seeking $1.5 million in cost savings from the musicians’ contract – a figure musicians say is impossible to reach without compromising the SPCO’s artistic quality.

“It is disheartening that management isn’t interested in preserving this historic ensemble,” said Carole Smith, a bassoonist and chair of the union’s Negotiations Committee. “We need the public now more than ever to contact management and ask them to reconsider – time is running out.”

The counterproposal includes other concessions designed to help the SPCO raise revenue, including free musician performances eight times each year and performances at small gatherings of SPCO donors.

Musicians say the SPCO has the money in hand to maintain operations without drastic cuts. The union’s counteroffer, Smith said, would provide management with the savings it needs in the short run in order “to finally put together an effective endowment drive.”

For more on the negotiations, go to the Musicians of the SPCO website.

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Keillor to host free concert with Musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

September 24, 2012 by

The union musicians of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO), currently engaged in a contentious round of negotiations with their employer, will present a free concert for the public at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2 on the Macalester College campus, with St. Paul-based author and radio personality Garrison Keillor serving as host.

The musician-led program will feature works by Rossini, Mozart and Beethoven. Afterward, musicians will host a special reception for all patrons in attendance.

“The musicians in the SPCO adore their enthusiastic audiences in the Twin Cities, and this is a fun and celebratory way to really give something back to the community that supports what we do, and in an unexpected venue as well,” Concertmaster Steven Copes said in a statement.

The concert will take place in the Leonard Center gymnasium, 125 Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

For more information about the Musicians of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and their contract negotiations, go to www.musiciansspco.org.

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