Nurses, allies back MinnesotaCare expansion as fix for state’s individual market woes

February 14, 2017 by
Rally participants signed Valentine’s Day cards to Gov. Dayton urging him to stand against legislation that would bail out insurance companies.

Rally participants signed Valentine’s Day cards to Gov. Dayton urging him to stand against legislation that would bail out insurance companies.

Union nurses rallied at the Capitol today with family farmers, small business owners, clergy and other allies in their push to expand health care coverage to all Minnesotans – and hold insurance companies accountable.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association spent the day talking to state representatives about making health care more accessible and affordable, including a proposal by Gov. Mark Dayton to expand MinnesotaCare and make it an option for all Minnesotans buying individual insurance.

Rose Roach, MNA’s executive director, called expansion of the popular, successful insurance program for low-income Minnesotans an “obvious solution that’s been in front of us all along.” It’s preferable, she added, to Republican and industry calls for the state to subsidize a “reinsurance” fund to protect insurers from losses.

Insurance companies “want to socialize debts and privatize profits, and they dare to ask us for more,” Roach said.

Small business owners, farmers and retirees at the rally took to the podium to vent their frustrations with the individual health insurance market, which saw premiums soar and provider networks shrink dramatically this year.

Dayton and state lawmakers agreed last month to provide emergency assistance to consumers, but that’s a one-time fix, Franklin dairy farmer James Kanne said. Kanne would have paid individual premiums of $1,040 per month this year without subsidies. But farm incomes fluctuate, and he said he’s worried next year those subsidies might not be available.

web-mna-capitol2The “ultimate” fix,” Kanne said and other speakers acknowledged, would be a single-payer health system, such as the proposal long advanced by Roseville Sen. John Marty. But with Republicans controlling the Legislature, Marty’s plan is not likely to get a hearing.

“That first rung on the ladder (to single payer) is MinnesotaCare as a public option,” Kanne said.

MNA’s rally drew support from members three progressive organizations partnering with the union on the health care campaign: the Land Stewardship Project, TakeAction Minnesota and faith-based ISAIAH.

“Nurses don’t care about your insurance card or your credit card,” Roach told supporters. “They only care about your get-well card.”

After the rally participants delivered a Valentine’s Day message to Dayton “thanking him for his leadership and urging him to stand against proposed legislation that provides more money to bail out insurance companies.”

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

Protesters to Best Buy: ‘Get out of the way so we can have justice’

June 9, 2015 by
Protesters demonstrate outside Best Buy's annual shareholder meeting.

Protesters demonstrate outside Best Buy’s annual shareholder meeting.

 

RICHFIELD – Inside and outside of Best Buy’s annual shareholders meeting today, Minnesotans called on the corporation to stop using its political clout to block policies that improve working families’ lives.

That includes proposed legislation in Minnesota that would provide workers and their families with the stability and security they need to ensure a healthy work-life balance – policies opposed by lobbying groups Best Buy helps fund.

Best Buy plays “an important role in the Chamber of Commerce and other business associations that have been opposing legislation that supports workers’ rights to take care of their families,” Veronica Mendez Moore, an organizer with the Twin Cities worker Center CTUL, told about 100 demonstrators at a rally outside the shareholders meeting.

CTUL, which has been supporting janitors’ campaign to improve wages and working conditions maintained by cleaning contractors that service big-box retailers, organized the protest with faith groups, labor unions and progressive organizations working to build support at the Capitol for basic worker benefits and protections.

The Working Parents Act, introduced by House DFLers last session and backed by labor, stalled after drawing swift opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Retailer’s Association, another Best Buy-led lobbying outfit. The bill pulled together initiatives seeking to crack down on employers who commit wage theft, require fairness in employee scheduling and guarantee workers access to earned sick time and paid family leave.

Leticia Zuniga describes what happened as a delegation of workers and their supporters met with Best Buy executives during the shareholder meeting.

Leticia Zuniga describes what happened as a delegation of workers and their supporters met with Best Buy executives during the shareholder meeting.

Too many of the jobs created during the current economic recovery don’t provide those benefits, janitor Hilario DeLeon told the crowd through a translator.

“Where I work we have no benefits at all,” DeLeon said. “We want to be able to have vacation. We want to be able to have paid sick days.”

DeLeon has cleaned the Target in downtown Minneapolis for seven years, and he said conditions deteriorate as contractors, looking to offer big-box retailers the lowest bid, seek new ways to cut costs. If Best Buy won’t agree to hold contractors to higher standards, he said, the company should at least stop using its clout at the Capitol to oppose raising the floor for everyone.

“We know that Best Buy has been getting in the way of our efforts,” DeLeon said. “We want Best Buy to get out of the way so we … can have justice.”

As protesters rallied outside, a delegation of activists gained access to Best Buy’s shareholder meeting by holding stock in the company or acting as a supportive shareholder’s proxy. Leticia Zuniga, a janitor and CTUL member who cleans Herberger’s, said a three Best Buy executives met with the delegation privately as well.

“We talked a lot about the problems there are in this industry: the rampant wage theft, workers not getting paid on time or with pay stubs, not knowing what hours they’re getting paid for,” Zuniga said. “We asked Best Buy to sign a responsible contractor policy, and they said they’d get back to us in a month.”

Ironically, the janitors who will clean up after today’s shareholders meeting are union members who enjoy many of the benefits workers inside Best Buy’s stores are fighting to win.

Ricardo Chavez, a member of the Service Employees International Union who works inside the corporate headquarters, joined the protest. He earns a fair wage with good benefits, predictable scheduling and access to paid sick days.

“But I know my brothers and sisters that work cleaning Best Buy’s stores right next door don’t have access to any of these benefits,” Chavez said. “Thousands of workers all over the state do not have access to these benefits, and all of us deserve them.”

Indeed, about 1 million workers in Minnesota do not have access to paid sick and safe time to care for themselves or their family members, TakeAction Minnesota Director Dan McGrath said, yet policies requiring employers to provide sick days are generally popular among voters.

“These corporations are created for people to make money,” Pastor Doug Mork of Cross of Glory Lutheran Church said. “They shouldn’t be cutting back our democratic voice.”

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

Minnesota AFL-CIO calls on Bloomington to drop charges against MOA protesters

March 10, 2015 by

mnaflcioMinnesota’s largest labor federation today added its voice to the chorus of community, faith and progressive groups calling on Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson to drop criminal charges against 11 Black Lives Matter members arrested at the Mall of America in December.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents more than 1,000 local unions with 300,000 members statewide, made the stance official after members of its executive board voted to pass a resolution against prosecution.

Two of the defendants, Todd Dahlstrom and Kandace Montgomery, are members of the Communications Workers of America, an AFL-CIO affiliate. Dahlstrom is organizing director at the Minnesota AFL-CIO, and Montgomery is an organizer for the progressive group TakeAction Minnesota.

Both are members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002.

Meanwhile, in Hennepin County Court this morning, the 11 defendants pleaded not guilty to unlawful assembly, trespassing and other crimes that, Bloomington authorities allege, occurred during a peaceful demonstration against police brutality and racism that drew thousands to the mall Dec. 20.

As the activists appeared inside the courtroom, a vigil and rally outside drew supporters from the labor movement:

https://twitter.com/danmcgrath1/status/575300569331433472

Although Johnson, the city attorney responsible for prosecuting the MOA protesters, is an appointed official, Bloomington Mayor Gene Winstead and several members of the City Council, including Cynthia Bemis Abrams, Tim Busse and Dwayne Lowman, have sought and received labor endorsement in their most recent campaigns, according to the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation website.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson released the following statement regarding the executive board’s resolution:

“Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of social change in our democracy. From the Labor movement, to the Women’s movement, and the Civil Rights movement; major change in this country has always included peaceful demonstrations.

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is pointing out the structural racial inequalities that persist in our society. Much like other social movements, #BlackLivesMatter is engaging in non-violent protest to help point out these inequalities.

By prosecuting protest organizers, local authorities are sending a message that a minor inconvenience trumps the right to peacefully assemble. Minnesota’s Labor movement is urging Sandra Johnson to correct this wrong by choosing not to prosecute these peaceful activists.”

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CWA rallies support for members charged in Black Lives Matter protest at MOA

February 6, 2015 by

MN Guild new logo 3-4-13The Communications Workers of America is rallying support for two members of the union who face criminal charges resulting from their participation in the massive protest against police brutality and racism at Mall of America in December.

Todd Dahlstrom and Kandace Montgomery, members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002, are among 10 activists charged with unlawful assembly, trespassing and other crimes that, Bloomington authorities allege, occurred during the peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration that drew thousands to the mall Dec. 20.

Guild President Janet Moore and CWA State Council President Mona Meyer have made appeals to union members in recent weeks, seeking support for a defense fund established for the accused activists, who face thousands in legal fees and potential fines. [Click here to contribute.]

“It’s another twist on the corporate dominance in our country,” Meyer said in an e-mail appeal. “The Supreme Court in Citizens United gave corporations the right to steamroll our democracy by lifting all limits on spending corporate profits to silent our voices in the name of corporate free speech. Now those same profits are being used in the court system against our members to silence them for having actually exercised free speech.”

Dahlstrom is organizing director of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO. Montgomery is an organizer with the progressive advocacy group TakeAction Minnesota.

TakeAction workers voted to form the Guild’s newest unit last fall.

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TakeAction employees unionize, join Newspaper & Communications Guild

October 7, 2014 by

MN Guild new logo 3-4-13Employees at TakeAction Minnesota, the progressive-advocacy group based in St. Paul, came together to form a union last week, joining the Minnesota Newspaper & Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002.

TakeAction employees conducted their organizing campaign under the terms of a “card check” neutrality agreement with their employer. More than two dozen employees signed cards requesting Guild representation. After a neutral arbitrator reviewed the cards Sept. 30, the new unit became official.

TakeAction and the Minnesota Guild announced the result of the organizing drive in a press release yesterday.

“TakeAction has long stood with the labor movement, and now we stand as a part of it,” said Terin Mayer, a TakeAction employee who worked on the organizing campaign. “This shows that as a progressive organization, we walk the walk.”

Dan McGrath, executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, credited employees for conducting their organizing drive in a “respectful and professional manner,” and he looked forward to bargaining a first contract with the new unit in a similar spirit.

“We congratulate our staff on choosing the Newspaper Guild as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining,” McGrath said. “As a people’s organization committed to making Minnesota more equitable and democratic, we fervently believe in the right of all workers to organize and bargain collectively. Our staff is no exception.”

Thirty-two TakeAction workers will make up the new Guild unit. It marks the 81-year-old local’s first successful organizing campaign in over a decade.

“We are delighted to welcome TakeAction employees to our union,” Guild President Janet Moore said. “As smart and dedicated folks, they’re an incredible fit with our organization.”

A sector of the Communications Workers of America, the Minnesota Guild represents about 630 members who work at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and other publications, including The Union Advocate. TakeAction employees join a growing number of Guild members who do not work in publishing. The Guild also represents interpreters at Hennepin County Medical Center and workers at the Minneapolis branch of  Clean Water Action, a national progressive organization.

“For more than 80 years, Guild journalists have been speaking truth to power, and that tradition will continue with the addition of our Local’s newest members,” Moore said.

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Report: No earned sick time for 41 percent of Minnesota workers

September 15, 2014 by
Activists in St. Paul rallied in 2008 in support of expanding workers' access to paid sick time.

Activists in St. Paul rallied in 2008 in support of expanding workers’ access to paid sick time. (file photo)

Four in 10 Minnesota workers face a choice between showing up for work sick and forfeiting a day’s pay. What’s more troubling, most of the 1.1 million Minnesotans who lack access to earned sick time off work in low-wage jobs.

Those are among the findings of a report on earned sick time benefits, released today by TakeAction Minnesota and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

The report bolsters growing momentum for legislation to increase Minnesotans’ access to earned sick benefits.

Earlier this week California lawmakers passed a new law requiring employers to provide a minimum of three paid sick days per year to employees who work 30 or more days in a calendar year. Labor-endorsed lawmakers have expressed an interest in advancing a similar bill when the Minnesota Legislature convenes next year.

Proponents say such legislation would benefit not only low-wage workers, but public health as well. That’s because the Minnesotans least likely to have access to earned sick time work in service jobs – food service, accommodations and other occupations that bring workers into frequent contact with the public.

Just 35 percent of service workers in Minnesota have access to earned sick time off, according to the report.

“Because these workers tend to have lower wages, they also tend to come into work when they are sick,” Jessica Milli, senior research associate at the IWPR, told reporters and policymakers in a teleconference briefing this morning. “That means they may get their co-workers and their customers sick.”

Employers have an incentive to support earned sick time benefits as well, Milli added.

“Employees are happier when their employers provide them with these benefits,” she said. “They’re more productive. They’re less likely to voluntarily quit their job in search of new work.

“All of these are benefits that are not currently being realized when 41 percent of workers in the state don’t have access.”

Greta Bergstrom, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, said the statewide network of progressive activists and organizations will lead the campaign to pass earned sick time legislation at the Capitol next year.

“We’re in a situation where those who can least afford to lose a day’s wages or their job altogether are most often … having to make that impossible choice,” Bergstrom said. “That’s the work ahead for the state of Minnesota.”

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

Walmart fires Brooklyn Center associate who joined one-day strike

February 28, 2014 by

web.walmart-firing1April Williams knew the risk she ran last November, when she joined two co-workers in a one-day strike for higher wages, full-time scheduling and a voice on the job.

But Williams, a single mother who lives with her sister and relies on public assistance to make ends meet, said she’d rather face those risks than remain silent any longer. “Living like this is not working for me,” she said.

Walmart fired Williams earlier this month, but yesterday she vowed to keep fighting.

“Walmart has chosen to not only pay the majority of its workers poverty wages, it has also decided to retaliate against workers like me who dare to speak out,” Williams said. “No matter what Walmart tries to do to me, I will continue to stand up and speak out for higher wages free from retaliation.”

Fortunately for Williams, she’s not in that fight alone.

More than 100 supporters, including several single mothers, marched to the Brooklyn Center store yesterday, where they called on management to reinstate Williams, pay higher wages and enact family-friendly scheduling policies that empower single moms like Williams to lift themselves out of poverty.

OUR Walmart members Cantaré Davunt and Gabe Teneyuque exit the Brooklyn Center Walmart after delivering a letter in support of fired associate April Williams.

OUR Walmart members Cantaré Davunt and Gabe Teneyuque exit the Brooklyn Center Walmart after delivering a letter in support of fired associate April Williams.

Two Walmart associates active in OUR Walmart, the non-union organizing group behind the recent wave of unfair-labor-practice strikes and protests across the country, delivered a petition and letter supporting Williams to management at the Brooklyn Center store.

“I was raised in a military family, and I learned we need to speak up for those who aren’t able to speak for themselves,” said Cantaré Davunt of Duluth, who has worked at Walmart for nearly five years.

OUR Walmart organized the demonstration with TakeAction Minnesota as part of a week of action targeting low-wage employers – and highlighting the importance of raising Minnesota’s minimum wage.

Wealthy corporations like Walmart have a responsibility to pay their workers higher hourly wages and to create flexible scheduling for store associates working to balance work and family life, demonstrators said.

Jacquita Berens, a single mother of three and a full-time student, is not a Walmart employee, but she joined the demonstration to support friends and family members who work minimum-wage jobs at Walmart.

“I and many others like me are working hard, long hour shifts daily, away from our children and families yet receive no benefits,” Berens said. “As employees, we’re constantly put in situations where we’re forced to choose whether to care for our sick children or lose our jobs. Poverty wages just aren’t right.”

Berens delivered a letter from TakeAction Minnesota calling on Walmart to help solve Minnesota’s low-wage work crisis by publicly supporting a bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2015 and index the wage to adjust for inflation.

In Minnesota, seven out of ten minimum wage workers are women, and many are single mothers struggling to provide for themselves and their families.

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Call to end poverty wages rings out from Black Friday protests in Twin Cities

November 29, 2013 by
Carrying a banner that read "End Poverty Wages in Minnesota," demonstrators march past the Midway Walmart's entrance in St. Paul on Black Friday.

Carrying a banner that read “End Poverty Wages in Minnesota,” demonstrators march past the Midway Walmart’s entrance in St. Paul on Black Friday.

Hundreds of people flocked to the Midway Walmart in St. Paul today, but it wasn’t deep discounts or door-buster deals they wanted. It was justice for workers who make the holiday season happen.

Members of the non-union worker group CTUL who clean area retail stores march in St. Paul. They picketed outside Target in Minneapolis earlier in the day.

Members of the non-union worker group CTUL who clean area retail stores march in St. Paul. They picketed outside Target in Minneapolis earlier in the day.

Black Friday protests in the Twin Cities took on a renewed vigor this year, as activists from labor, faith and community groups capped off a week of demonstrations calling out low-wage employers like Walmart and Target – and building momentum for a legislative push to raise the state’s minimum wage.

The protests began early this morning, when janitors who clean Target stores throughout the metro area went on strike. Picketing outside the company’s flagship store downtown Minneapolis drew more than 100 supporters.

The action then shifted to University Avenue in St. Paul. Demonstrators marched past Target and Walmart stores on their way to the Snelling Avenue intersection. As hundreds of supporters cheered from the sidewalk, 26 people linked arms and sat down in the middle of the intersection. They were arrested, one by one, in acts of civil disobedience.

Organizers estimated turnout for the march was 1,000 people. St. Paul Police shut down several blocks of University, Snelling and other streets to accommodate the large crowd.

Walmart worker Mike Ahles (green shirt), who was disciplined by the company for participating in a strike earlier this year, prepares to take part in an act of civil disobedience.

Walmart worker Mike Ahles (green shirt), who was disciplined by the company for participating in a strike earlier this year, prepares to take part in an act of civil disobedience.

Jessica English, a single mother and member of TakeAction Minnesota, was among those arrested for civil disobedience.

“I worked 15 years for poverty wages,” English said, adding that she and her child recently found themselves homeless. “I’m here today to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“These are the workers who make the holidays happen,” TakeAction member Cliff Martin said. “We fight in solidarity today to say no to poverty wages … and to say yes to dignity, yes to a living wage and yes to justice.”

The Target strike, organized by supporters of the non-union worker center CTUL, is the third walkout cleaning workers have staged in the last year.

“We hope it’s the last one, so they give us fair wages for our families,” said Enrique Barcenas, an employee of Prestige Maintenance who earns $8 per hour cleaning the Apple Valley Target.

He said 63 workers from 40 stores committed to participating in the one-day strike.

The workers are not employed by Target, but by several different cleaning contractors like Prestige. Barcenas said the contractors in recent years have driven down wages and increased workloads in an effort to win the “race to the bottom” for contracts with Target and other retailers.

“People made $10 or $12 per hour before, with six people cleaning each store,” Barcenas said. “But our wages have gone down, while our workload has gone up. That’s why we’ve been organizing for the last three years.”

Other highlights from the week of action include:

web.BlackFriday-scene

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

Retail workers’ Black Friday wish list includes higher wages, a voice on the job

November 20, 2013 by
In a press conference outside the Midway Walmart, activists outline plans to protest low wages at big-box retail stores on Black Friday.

In a press conference outside the Midway Walmart, activists outline plans to protest low wages at big-box retail stores on Black Friday.

On Black Friday, will you shop for doorbusters? Or protest union-busters?

Twin Cities labor activists have announced their plans for the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season, which in recent years also has become a day of action for unions and worker-advocacy groups fighting back against big-box retailers’ crazy hours, frenzied working conditions and poverty-level wages.

Plans for Nov. 29 in the metro area include a march to the Midway Walmart in St. Paul and, potentially, a strike among workers who clean area Target stores, with picketing outside the retailer’s downtown Minneapolis location.

In addition to calling out big-box stores for their track record of suppressing workers’ organizing rights, Minnesota activists will use Black Friday to amplify calls to raise the state’s minimum wage – a top priority for unions during the 2014 state legislative session.

“We’re going to take a stand on Black Friday to support a higher minimum wage,” TakeAction Minnesota organizer Jen Arnold said at a press conference Nov. 12 outside the Midway Walmart.

TakeAction is part of a coalition of groups organizing the protests that also includes Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers and OUR Walmart, a growing group of associates nationwide organizing to improve working conditions at the world’s largest retailer.

logoKeeping pressure on Walmart

Local members of OUR Walmart will lead a march from the Gordon High School parking lot, 1212 University Ave. W., to a demonstration outside the Midway Walmart at University and Pascal. The march will begin at 11 a.m.; the protest will continue until 1 p.m.

[Click here to RSVP for the march on Facebook.]

A protest at the same location on Black Friday last year drew more than 200 people. Events nationwide yielded real improvements in Walmart’s scheduling practices – a victory that gave OUR Walmart momentum to carry out a series of strikes that continued in the weeks leading up to Black Friday 2013.

Mike Ahles, a Walmart associate from Sauk Centre, said he joined OUR Walmart after working three-plus years for poverty-level wages.

“We have helped to make Walmart the successful company it is today,” Ahles said. “That’s why I support the effort to tell Walmart it’s time to stand behind their associates. We make Walmart happen.”

CTUL gives Target deadline

Workers who clean Target stores, meanwhile, will picket on Black Friday outside the company’s downtown Minneapolis store, located at 10th Street and Nicollet Mall, if management does not respond by Thanksgiving to their demands for “a fair wage, a voice on the job and a path to form a union,” according to CTUL, the local advocacy group for low-wage workers.

It would be the third strike staged by workers who clean Target this year.

Target does not directly employ workers who clean its stores, But that does not absolve the retailer of responsibility for poverty-level wages paid by its subcontractors, CTUL member Maricela Flores, an employee of Carlson Building Maintenance who works inside a Target store, said at the Nov. 12 press conference.

“Every evening at work I am surrounded by a wealth of food and clothes, yet at $8 an hour I cannot afford to provide for my own family,” Flores said.

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