Standardized testing the subject of two events this month

March 2, 2015 by

Broken PencilTwo public events in March – a film screening and a lecture – will consider the wisdom of increasing the use of standardized testing in public education.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 will co-sponsor a screening of “Standardized” at 6 p.m. March 10 at the East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St. The free event is part of the library’s ongoing series of education-focused films and discussions.

The film features education experts offering their opinions on standardized testing. It’s subtitled: “Lies, Money and Civil Rights: How Testing if Ruining Public Education.”

The discussion will continue March 21, when Seattle high school history teacher and Macalester College graduate Jesse Hagopian offers a public presentation on his essay “The Testocracy versus the Educational Spring” at 7 p.m. in the college’s John B. Davis Auditorium, located at the southwest corner of Snelling and Grand Avenues.

9781608463923_0Hagopian edited “More than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing,” a collection of essays by scholars, teachers, administrators, students and parents, published last year by Haymarket Press.

As a union activist, Hagopian was among the leaders of a historic 2013 boycott of the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) test in Seattle. In 2013 he was named the national “Secondary School Teacher of the Year” by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences.

He writes frequently for nationally circulated journals, and posts a widely read blog, I Am an Educator.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

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Films, stories, lectures celebrate Black History Month at East Side Freedom Library

February 2, 2015 by

blackhistorymonth2The East Side Freedom Library will mark Black History Month with a series of free, public programs at 1105 Greenbrier Street, St. Paul.

  • “Brooklyn Castles” (flier). St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 will co-sonsor a screening and discussion of the film, which follows students at an impoverished school who win national championships in chess, Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 6 p.m.
  • Freedom Riders (flier). African American Registry will c-sponsor a conversation with Claire O’Connor, the only woman among Minnesota’s six Freedom Riders in the summer of 1961, Saturday, Feb.14 at 3 p.m.
  • “Storytelling and the Struggle for Justice” (flier). Join a conversation with Naima Richmond of the Black Storytellers’ Alliance Saturday, Feb. 21 at 1 p.m.
  • “Confronting Slavery Today: How Does the Global Economy Produce It? What Can We Learn From the 19th Century Movements to End It?” (flier). Jim Stewart, founder of Historians Against Slavery,” will present on the topic Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.

The East Side Freedom Library opened last year as an independent organization committed to preserving and promoting knowledge about the East Side – its history, residents and institutions – through educational collections and programs.

Monitor the Events page at eastsidefreedomlibrary.org for programming updates.

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East Side Freedom Library announces film series, major grant funding

October 24, 2014 by

esfl-bldgSaint Paul’s East Side Freedom Library has received a $25,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support a founding, large-scale arts project in the Phalen neighborhood’s Beaux Arts Carnegie Library.

The grant, library co-directors Peter Rachleff and Beth Cleary said, will contribute to the re-purposing of the library building as an educational and cultural center focusing on labor, immigration and civil rights history and art.

Artists will be commissioned in the final project to work on silk screens and prints for the 12 architectural rondelles that line the main floor, a mural link the main floor with the lower level, four new tables featuring design and carving methods of East Side immigrant communities, and panels for art exhibits.

Conversations among artists, residents and translators will be documented and made available in the library’s collections, deepening the center’s mission of linking history with culture.

“This project will help weave the arts into people’s everyday lives, and use the arts as a lens for examining the community’s history,” said Dennis Scholl, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation.

Film series debuts Nov. 11

The East Side Freedom Library also announced last month a new film-and-discussion series, co-sponsored by the library and the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, that will explore the topic of education.

Films will screen the second Tuesday of each month, beginning at 6 p.m., inside the library, located at 1105 Greenbrier St., St. Paul. Screenings are open to interested community members of all ages.

The debut screening Nov. 11 will feature “Granito de Arena (Grain of Sand),” an award-winning 2005 documentary that follows Mexican teachers’ efforts to put forward, with parents, students, and community members, their own vision of reform in the face of budget cuts, privatization and standardization of curriculum and testing.

For more information on East Side Freedom Library programming, go to www.eastsidefreedomlibrary.org.

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‘Moral Mondays’ leader joins March for Equity in Minneapolis

August 18, 2014 by
Rev. Dr. William Barber II speaks to a crowd of more than 150 people in Peavey Plaza before the Minneapolis teachers' March for Equity.

Rev. Dr. William Barber II speaks to a crowd of more than 150 people in Minneapolis.

A leading progressive voice from the South delivered a spirited, Saturday-morning sermon downtown Minneapolis Aug. 16, making a scripture-based appeal for social justice and leading a “March for Equity” along Nicollet Mall.

“We have a tale of two cities, whether it’s up north or down south,” Rev. Dr. William Barber II told a crowd of more than 150 people gathered in Peavey Plaza. “In America we are both the richest and the poorest nation in the world, and it is a scar on our moral integrity.”

Activists march down Nicollet Mall after Barber's speech. The March for Equity was organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

Activists march down Nicollet Mall after Barber’s speech. The March for Equity was organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.

Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, has staked a progressive claim to the moral high ground in his Bible Belt state. With an act of civil disobedience at the state’s legislative building in April 2013, he sparked the “Moral Mondays” campaign, a grassroots revival of anti-poverty, pro-worker activism that has spilled into neighboring states.

“These are not just policy issues,” Barber said. “It’s not a left-versus-right debate or a conservative-versus-liberal debate. These issues form the centerpiece of our faith, the very soul of our democracy.”

Since Barber’s initial arrest – he was leading a protest of efforts to restrict voting rights in North Carolina – the “Moral Mondays” campaign has grown, drawing support from a diverse group of religious and community groups.

Thousands of people have joined weekly demonstrations in Raleigh, and more than 900 have been arrested for protesting a wide range of conservative bills passed by the Legislature, including cuts to unemployment benefits, health care and public education.

Cutting programs that lift people out of poverty, Barber said, goes against the teachings of Christ.

“If you’re going to put your hand on a Bible and swear yourself into public office, you ought to know what’s in that Bible,” he said. While many right-wing lawmakers focus on divisive issues, like gay marriage or prayer in schools, he added, “none of them trump the scripture that says you must love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

“When we put the poor at the center – and not the margins – of our agenda, that’s what equity looks like,” Barber said.

The March for Equity was part of a weekend-long series of events organized by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers as a kickoff to the 2014 election push. Union members will work to elect candidates who support not only public schools, but policies that lift families out of poverty, so that students in their classes are in a better position to learn.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers members at the March for Equity included Kimberly Colbert, Leah Lindemann, President Denise Rodriguez, Rebecca Bauer, Sue Snyder, Erica Schatzlein, Nick Faber and Ellen Olsen.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers members at the March for Equity included Kimberly Colbert, Leah Lindemann, President Denise Rodriguez, Rebecca Bauer, Sue Snyder, Erica Schatzlein, Nick Faber and Ellen Olsen.

It’s a mission – and a message – the teachers’ union in St. Paul carried into its contract campaign earlier this year. Several members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers joined the march in Minneapolis.

“Our families and students do better if parents are earning a living wage, if they have access to health care and affordable housing,” SPFT member Sue Snyder said. “We need to come together for all people – for students, for families, for the community – so we can all do better.”

Barber, SPFT member Ellen Olsen added, is a progressive “rock star” whose Moral Mondays campaign embodies the type of organizing work teachers are aiming to do.

“This is not a special interest thing,” Olsen said. “They have been building bridges and community relationships for a long time. And that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’ve been trying to do in St. Paul.

“We’ve got so many different people working on different things – we’ve got to come together. That’s where the power is, in numbers.”

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‘Untold Stories’ series to celebrate labor history with free public events

April 2, 2014 by

untold-stories-header12Untold Stories, the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s annual labor-history series, will focus this year on the struggles facing workers in the past and how they influence the issues of today.

The free, public programs begin April 22 and wrap up May 14. A full programming guide is available on the Friends’ website.

April events include:

• “Pete Daniel – Dispossession.” April 22, 7 p.m. Minnesota History Center, 345 W. Kellogg Blvd.

Pete Daniel, a past president of the Organization of American Historians and a retired curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, will speak about his recent book “Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights.”

Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594 – a drop of 93 percent. Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers’ fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination.

After Daniel’s presentation, Pakou Hang of the Hmong American Farmers Association and Dale Wiehoff from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy will talk about current struggles of small farmers to keep their land.

• “From Low Wage to Middle Class?” April 28, 7 p.m. St. Paul Labor Centre, 411 Main St.

Workers in retail, home care, warehousing, the restaurant industry and other parts of the modern economy are only the latest in a long line of employees rising up to claim that “working” and “poor” should never be in the same sentence. This program will examine how today’s workers are fighting to make a living in their service-sector jobs. It also will consider how fields such as nursing and teaching turned their professions from low-wage jobs into middle-class careers.

Panelists will include representatives from the Department of Employment and Economic Development, Working America, Child Care Providers Together, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and the Minnesota Nurses Association.

• “Bdote Memory Map” April 30, 7 p.m. Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 N. Dale St.

Mona Smith, a Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota storyteller and media artist, will discuss her creation of a “memory map” of the bdote area of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. This bdote, a place where two waters come together, is central to Dakota spirituality and history.

Her online map is viewable online. It contains a series of sites that have special meaning to the Dakota people.

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St. Paul Schools, teachers reach tentative agreement

February 21, 2014 by
St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

Three days before members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers were scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote, negotiators for the school district and the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract that will run through the 2014-15 school year.

Teachers planned a ratification vote for March 4, and the union’s executive board has recommended members vote to approve.

The tentative agreement was the result of a 24-hour mediation session between the two sides that began Feb. 20. Joined by a state mediator and some members of the Board of Education, negotiators worked through the night.

After months of frustrating talks, SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker said, “the momentum was there the entire night, the engagement was there.”

As a result, instead of voting on whether to authorize a strike Feb. 24, teachers held a membership meeting to review details of the agreement, which Ricker said was an important step in efforts to “reclaim the school experiences that have been lost due to tightened budgets or encroaching standardized tests.”

Both the union and school administrators touted “key provisions” of the contract – and related agreements reached in bargaining – that, they say, will make progress on the teachers’ core bargaining principles. Known as “The Schools St. Paul Children Deserve,” the teachers’ guiding principles were developed after intensive outreach to parents and community stakeholders.

Chief among those priorities was lowering class sizes in the district. The tentative agreement will deliver more consistency and predictability in class sizes, while making the formula for calculating class-size restrictions more transparent, Ricker said.

The agreement also sets lower limits for class sizes in the 30 schools with the highest levels of poverty in the district, to “make sure resources get where students need them to go,” Ricker said.

The SPFT also made professional support staffing – media specialists, nurses, school counselors and social workers – a priority in negotiations, and the district committed to hiring 42 professionals in those fields.

Language in the agreement will reduce in-class time spent on standardized testing and test preparation activities over the next two years – another union priority – and calls for a “review of existing assessments for cultural relevance,” Ricker said.

Additionally, the district agreed to spend at least $6 million per school year to maintain and expand its pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds.

Teachers made pre-K access a rallying cry at mobilization events in the weeks leading up to the strike vote, but SPPS Superintendent Valeria Silva said the district was always on board with increasing early-education investments. “We both needed to see it, and we got it into a wonderful agreement between the district and the union,” Silva said.

Ricker agreed the tentative agreement was a win-win for teachers and administrators. “You can’t see where the union’s proposal ends and the district’s proposal begins anymore because it’s such a blend,” she said.

The tentative agreement calls for salary and benefit increases amounting to 8.6 percent over the course of two years. Silva said the district remained “committed to providing a really competitive wage” to attract and retain teachers.

By scheduling a strike vote, the teachers’ union may have hastened the pace of negotiations. “I think maybe we were able to listen to each other a little better than before,” Silva acknowledged.

Still, at a press conference to review details of the agreement, the superintendent, union president and school board chair gave no indication the threat of strike had poisoned the labor-management relationship.

“We are nationally known for working well with our unions,” Board Chair Mary Doran said, “and we want to get back to that.”

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Community rallies behind teachers’ campaign for ‘schools our kids deserve’

February 19, 2014 by

Supporters line the sidewalk outside St. Paul Public Schools headquarters during a rally in support of the teachers' contract campaign.

Wearing red scarves, hats and shirts to show their solidarity with union teachers, families packed the parking lot outside St. Paul Public Schools headquarters yesterday during a rally in support of smaller class sizes, expanded pre-kindergarten and other community-driven priorities teachers have brought to the table in contract negotiations with the district.

“Parents are standing with you because you actually want to know what we want for our kids,” parent Leon Sanders told teachers at the rally. “And when we told you, you stood up for us.”

Supporters wear red to show their support for the teachers' union.

Supporters wear red to show their support for the teachers’ union.

The St. Paul Federation of Teachers organized the rally, which drew about 200 people, in advance of two critical events in negotiations: a return to the bargaining table tomorrow and a strike-authorization vote Feb. 24.

“We need to make sure our Board of Education hears they need to get serious about making progress with us on the schools St. Paul children deserve,” SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker said. “We want progress.”

Board of Education members received that message during a public hearing that opened their meeting later in the evening. A string of parents, teachers and students lined up to show their support for the teachers’ contract campaign.

Mariah Duncan, a senior at Central High School, told board members she’s had to sit on the floor of some classrooms stuffed beyond capacity. Jennifer Ewald, whose son has a severe peanut allergy and asthma, told board members she supports teachers’ efforts to staff more of the district’s schools with nurses.

Smaller class sizes and increased professional staffing are among the principles, culled from months of listening sessions with parents, students and other community stakeholders, that are guiding the teachers’ contract campaign. Others include a decreased reliance on standardized testing and expansion of the district’s pre-kindergarten offerings.

“I cannot stress enough that pre-K helped us put the pieces in place for our child to be successful,” Zuki Ellis told board members during the public hearing.

Leroy Duncan said his children report having as many as 29 students in their classes. “It’s not right," he said. "There’s no reason we can’t do better for our kids so they can get the type of attention they deserve."

Leroy Duncan said his children report having as many as 29 students in their classes. “It’s not right,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t do better for our kids.”

A parent of three, Ellis also supports teachers’ efforts to reduce class sizes. Her oldest son has “close to 40 students” in some high school classes, she said.

“Is that safe for 40 high school students to be in a science lab?” Ellis asked. “Our babies deserve better – my babies, your babies, our babies.

“Thank you, teachers, for standing up for these issues.”

After the public hearing, board members tabled a resolution on the district’s response to a potential strike. But last week Superintendent Valeria Silva and Board Chair Mary Doran mailed letters to parents warning of school closures, schedule changes and other potential impacts of a teacher strike.

For Phillip Cryan, parent of a third-grader at J.J. Hill Montessori, the intent of that letter was clear.

“I was supposed to feel afraid,” Cryan said. “Other people got that message too? Well, I don’t feel afraid today.”

If it takes a strike to make progress on the schools St. Paul students deserve, Cryan added, then teachers will have his support – and support from parents across the district like him.

“We are with you in this fight because we see the love you show to our kids every day,” he said. “That’s why so many of us choose to live here and pay taxes here. We are going to be with you whatever it takes and for as long as it takes.”

web.SPFT-rally-lineup

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Teachers will make anti-bullying law a priority at Capitol next year

December 6, 2013 by

i_heart_safe_schools_cta_bannerAs the 2013 Legislative Session drew to a close in May, supporters of a bill to strengthen Minnesota’s anti-bullying laws made one last push, urging their state senators to vote on the Safe and Supportive Schools Act, which had already won approval in the House.

The session gaveled to a close before senators could take that vote, but members of Education Minnesota, the statewide educators’ union, will help kick off a campaign next week to make sure the anti-bullying bill gets a vote in 2014.

Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said members have been vocal in support of efforts to prevent bullying in schools, prompting union leaders to declare the bill, which would give Minnesota the nation’s strongest anti-bullying laws, a top priority for the upcoming session.

“Our members know that in order for students to do well, we need safe and welcoming schools,” Specht said. “We’re stepping up our efforts to make sure the bill passes and gets over the finish line.”

That effort kicks off Sunday afternoon with a “call to action” at Minneapolis South High School, where students, parents, educators and community members will unite in support of the Safe and Supportive Schools Act. [Click here to view the event page on Facebook.]

On Monday, a national day of action in support of public education, Education Minnesota will co-host a press conference and rally in support of the anti-bullying bill at St. Paul Central High School. [Click here to view the event page on Facebook.]

Having teachers play a visible role in efforts to pass the Safe and Supportive Schools Act is critical, OutFront Minnesota Executive Director Monica Meyer said. Her organization gathered a coalition of supporters to push for new anti-bullying laws in 2009, and it has since attracted more than 100 member organizations, including Education Minnesota and the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

“Teachers are looking at how to be proactive in addressing the bullying they are seeing, and how to create an environment in the schools that will help all students thrive,” Meyer said.

In a 2010 survey of Minnesota students, 13 percent reported that they were bullied at least monthly. A 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Education rated Minnesota’s anti-bullying law the weakest in the nation.

But parents and teachers don’t need statistics to know bullying is a problem.

“We know anecdotally, and we hear stories everyday from students and parents and teachers who see firsthand the bullying that exists,” Meyer said. “There’s a real hunger out there from Minnesotans to have the Legislature pass something that’s proactive about making our schools safe.”

Supporters say the Safe and Supportive Schools Act, co-authored by Sen. Scott Dibble and Rep. Jim Davnie, would replace the weakest anti-bullying law in the country with the strongest.

Instead of leaving bullying policy up to individual school districts, the bill would establish uniform policies in accordance with the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Doing so would protect all students, Meyer said, from discrimination or harassment “on the basis of anything from race, ethnicity or disability to immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious beliefs.”

“It’s a comprehensive policy,” Meyer added. “You really know that a lot of students can see themselves in it. We want to make sure they know that they are protected.”

The bill also would provide training opportunities, a key provision for educators.

“It speaks to training and resources for school staff, students and volunteers around bullying prevention and intervention,” she said.

Teachers plan to echo events in the metro Sunday and Monday across Greater Minnesota, Specht added. Education Minnesota members will be circulating petitions and having conversations with their school board members and lawmakers before the Legislature reconvenes Feb. 25.

“We’re going to show lawmakers how broad based the support is for passing this legislation,” Meyer said.

[Click here to sign a petition showing your support for safe schools!]

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Roy Magnuson: Brodrick brings the right blend of old school, new vision to school board

October 31, 2013 by
Incumbent school board member John Brodrick (right), with St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper, will be among the labor candidates seeking DFL endorsement June 8.

John Brodrick (right), with St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper, is a labor-endorsed candidate for St. Paul Board of Education in the Nov. 5 election.

In the Kevin Bacon movie “Six Degrees of Separation,” the premise is that everybody on the planet is connectable to everyone else in six degrees or less. St. Paul Board of Education member John Brodrick’s world is the city of St. Paul, and St. Paul is smaller than the world, so Brodrick is disappointed if he has to go to the second or third degree of separation. And if you spend time with him, you see that he rarely does.

Brodrick is both “old” St. Paul and connected to St. Paul’s present. A proud graduate, teacher and coach at the former Mechanic Arts, he keeps the tradition of the Trainers alive – to those who share and remember the school by the Capitol and to those who have never heard of Mechanic Arts and its history of success. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, civil rights leader Roy Wilkins, Elmer Bailey, Floyd Smaller and Brodrick are all “M club” members.

Brodrick’s history is connected not only to working St. Paul, but to St. Paul as a “labor” town. His mother was a union member while working at the Stahl House on Rice Street. Brodrick’s dad and step-dad were active Teamsters and Laborers. Brodrick’s first job was union, at Pioneer Sausage. He is a retired member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, a former delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation and a consistent supporter of labor’s issues during his years on the school board.

Project1_Layout 1Brodrick’s St. Paul starts from the heart of the city and works outward. Growing up almost in the shadow of the capitol, in the old Scheffer neighborhood, he migrated north from Mechanic Arts to Washington Senior High and then west to Como Park Senior High. In all, Brodrick taught social studies for 34 years, and he coached hockey and some baseball for most of those years. As St. Paul’s education community is close-knit, so too is its hockey community. Brodrick’s Trainers, Prexies and Cougars never quite had their own “miracle on ice,” but his players created their own lifetime of memories.

As a school board member, Brodrick has kept in mind that our schools serve to knit our community together. One way is by helping our students, families, teachers and coaches create their own lifetime of memories. He believes that step one to closing the various gaps in our schools is making them welcoming places where students learn – including life lessons – and where teachers can teach and parents are welcome.

One of the few shared experiences left in our increasingly segmented world is our school days. Brodrick grew up and started his teaching career in a time when diversity in St. Paul had a different meaning than it does now, but Mechanic Arts and Washington and Como Park all reflected the diversity of their times. Brodrick’s block in Frogtown is a classic example of today’s St. Paul, and by reflection, our schools. From his 90-year-old neighbor (who he helps with yard and sidewalk chores) to the Murray High grad across the street, to the Hmong-American families down the street, Brodrick’s world is still the world of St. Paul, our schools and our neighbors – all of whom are workers.

Brodrick has won three elections to the school board. He has actively campaigned for four successful school levies. He was nominated for his first DFL endorsement by Mee Moua before she was State Senator Moua. He has been a consistent campaigner for DFL and labor-endorsed candidates in other races. His commitment to St. Paul, to St. Paul’s kids and schools and to the workers of St. Paul is sincere and lifelong.

Brodrick’s connectedness to St. Paul is proof that we do better together, not apart. What some call connectivity, the labor movement calls solidarity. Brodrick’s life has been one of solidarity – with our schools and kids, with our communities, with the labor movement.

The labor community has had one of its own on the SPPS school board during Brodrick’s years of service. Let’s make sure that we remember to turn out and vote Nov. 5, and return John for one last term of service.

– Roy Magnuson is a teacher in the St. Paul Public Schools, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and a trustee for the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

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

Fifty years ago, another Romney was bad news for union members

November 1, 2012 by

A name certain to be in the headlines this November – for better or for worse – was also in The Union Advocate’s front-page headlines 50 years ago.

The top story in the Nov. 16, 1962, edition analyzed the results of gubernatorial races across the country: “Rocky, Romney, Scranton Win Big For GOP; Nixon, Others Defeated.”

George Romney, father of the Republican nominee for president in 2012, was elected governor of Michigan, defeating the labor-endorsed Democratic incumbent John Swainson by 78,000 votes. The Advocate considered Romney’s win something of a fluke, noting the narrow margin of victory and “great hoopla” surrounding the prominent automobile executive’s campaign.

“Upsetting as the Romney victory was to the Democrats, it was the only statewide one scored by the Republicans, indicating that Romney won more on his glamour than on the Republican program,” The Advocate reported.

Of course, readers can expect a more dire tone in these pages next month if George Romney’s son upsets another labor-endorsed Democratic incumbent on Nov. 6, 2012.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what our newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

• 100 Years Ago: Gompers re-elected

In its Nov. 29, 1912, edition, The Minnesota Union Advocate celebrated the re-election of Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor, to another term in office during the AFL’s national convention in Rochester, N.Y.

Gompers defeated Max Hayes of Cleveland “by an overwhelming majority and amid scenes of enthusiasm,” The Advocate reported. “In fact, the demonstration in his favor was never before equaled at any of his numerous elections.”

Gompers, who helped found the AFL in 1886, served as its president from 1886 to 1894, and again from 1895 until he died in 1924.

By 1912 labor newspapers like The Advocate were referring to Gompers as the “grand old man.” The Advocate described his opposition as stemming from “the radical wing of the convention.”

Gompers had this to say to delegates after his re-election: “If this American Federation of Labor makes changes that are fundamentally in conflict with the views for which I have contended all my life, I shall go along as a union man, but you will have to choose another president.”

• 75 Years Ago: St. Paul Teachers hold City Council accountable

After accepting wage cuts to help the City of St. Paul ride out dwindling tax revenues during the Great Depression, union teachers put the city on notice in November 1937 that they would sue, if necessary, for full payment of the salaries adopted in an ordinance passed by the City Council two years earlier.

“The teachers declare their intentions of fulfilling their responsibilities by teaching the entire month of December, but insist that the city will be held to strict accountability to live up to its contract,” The Advocate reported in its Nov. 25 edition.

In a resolution passed at a joint meeting of the American Federation of Women Teachers and Men Teachers, St. Paul educators pointed out that their average salary, $1,521, was almost $600 less than their peers in cities with populations above 100,000.

The resolution called on the City Council to use its full taxing power – the city’s levy had been below the $30 per-capita limit for several years – to fulfill the promises made to St. Paul’s teachers.

“We believe the people of St. Paul want the city to honor its just obligations,” the teachers’ resolution said. “We do not believe they want the teachers to teach for nothing.”

• 25 Years Ago: Homeless Union organizes in St. Paul

The National Union of the Homeless founded a St. Paul chapter Nov. 21, 1987, in a convention held at the Labor Centre, The Union Advocate reported in its Nov. 30 edition.

“About 200 homeless and low-income people turned out to hear speakers, elect officers and pass resolutions on homelessness and other issues,” Editor Barb Kucera wrote.

The homeless union got its start two years earlier in Philadelphia, advocating for job training and affordable housing for its members. “When homeless people were barred from the polls for having no permanent address, the union won lawsuits that reaffirmed their right to vote,” The Advocate reported.

St. Paul Trades and Labor Secretary-Treasurer David Foster gave the convention’s keynote speech. Organized labor, he said, is starting to recognize “we share a lot more with people at the bottom of American society than the people at the top.”

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