Labor-endorsed Craig fighting to make sure everyone gets a ‘fair shot’

October 30, 2018 by

Angie Craig, the labor-endorsed candidate in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, speaks at a rally with labor volunteers in South St. Paul.

Angie Craig learned the value of a union early in life.

Craig was 9 years old when her mother became the sole provider for Angie and her two siblings. To help them make ends meet, Craig’s grandmother gave up retirement, moved into the mobile-home court where Craig’s family lived, and went back to work.

Angie’s grandmother was 50 at the time. The job she found was in a unionized shoe factory. She was able to keep that job as she grew older, Angie believes, because of the protections of her union contract.

“I can remember on two occasions that her union rep went in with her and talked to management, and it saved her job,” Craig said. “I grew up with a very distinct feeling that a union had helped my family survive.”

Now, as Craig makes her second bid for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd District, unions have her back again. She has earned the endorsement of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, as someone who will stick up for working people and protect their freedom to join together.

UA: What can Congress do to get more people into union jobs?

AC: What businesses tell me they are lacking are people with career skills and technical skills. I want to see us rethink vocational-technical education in this country, and that would include these first-class apprenticeship programs that labor unions and their employers have developed. I’d like to make sure that young people understand these apprenticeship programs are available to everyone.

The other thing that I think the Congress should do – and this is what really differentiates me from my opponent massively – is I think we should amend Taft-Hartley to make right-to-work laws illegal in this country.

UA: Income inequality is already at historic levels, and it’s only rising, thanks to the $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, which your opponent, Jason Lewis, backed. If you could go back do things differently, what would you do?

AC: I want to go back and do what we should have done in the first place, and that is focus on giving the middle class and working Americans a tax break. We’ve given over a trillion dollars away to large corporations – and at the same time we didn’t close tax loopholes that allow them to send jobs overseas. And now they’re talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security to pay for it.

UA: When it comes to health care, President Trump and Congressional Republicans, including your opponent, seem interested only in creating chaos and uncertainty for families seeking coverage. What approach would you take to health care policy?

AC: The first thing we need to do is to take on big drug companies and take on these health insurance companies. If we really wanted to control costs, we would be negotiating drug prices with Medicare. We would offer more competition into the marketplace, and we’d give consumers another choice by allowing them to choose to buy into a program like Medicare and compete with the large health insurance companies. But instead of taking on any of these special interests, the Republican-controlled Congress and the President have continued to just chip away at the current health care law for political purposes…

UA: Women voters appear to be especially energized this year. How can Congress make sure women who speak up about harassment, including at work, are heard?

AC: As the head of human resources for a Minnesota manufacturer, my team and I carried out investigations of harassment in the work place. In order for this moment to last, it’s important to strike the right balance between due process – including full, fair, and thorough investigations for the accused – with equal protection for everyone. Labor has led the way forward on forging the workplace protections Americans enjoy today, and I will work with our union brothers and sisters to continue strengthening them for everyone.

UA: It’s your second run in a district that hasn’t elected a DFLer in nearly two decades. What gives you hope this year is different? What keeps you in this fight?

AC: At the end of the day, I grew up in a family that had to work our ass off to get ahead, and that’s what I want to go fight for – to make sure that if you’re willing to work hard in this country, this country is fair to you and you have a fair shot to get ahead. That’s going to be my focus as a member of Congress. I grew up in a mobile home court, worked two jobs to put myself through school. I’ve got four boys, three of them are out of the house, two in college, one in trade school. I’m going to be fighting so that no matter how much money you were born into, you get a fair shot.

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Bobby Kasper: Raising wages starts at home

February 5, 2018 by

Bobby Kasper

Unemployment is down. Corporate earnings are up. But for most hardworking Americans, wages aren’t going anywhere.

Congress and President Trump say their $1.5 trillion tax plan will shift wage growth out of neutral. Working people see the tax scam for what it is: a massive and deeply corrupt giveaway to millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations. With the gap between rich and poor as large as it’s been since the Great Depression, politicians in Washington are only rigging the game even more.

Here in St. Paul, we can cross our fingers and wait for corporate tax cuts to trickle down into our paychecks, or we can take matters into our own hands. We can cut through federal inaction by passing a $15 minimum wage that ensures no one working in our city lives in poverty.

The labor movement has a long history of backing legislation that improves working people’s lives, from the eight-hour day to child labor laws. Today, unions carry on the work of raising standards for all workers, whether they hold a union card or not. That’s why unions in St. Paul are leading the campaign for one fair minimum wage in our city, with no penalty for tipped workers.

Poverty wages are the biggest barrier to realizing our self-styled billing as the most livable city in America. St. Paul boasts an unemployment rate well below the national average, but an estimated 40 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty.

Too many jobs in our community aren’t paying wages that reflect the cost of living here. The state Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates people working full-time, year-round jobs must earn $15.31 per hour to meet their basic needs in Ramsey County. Anyone earning less is forced to make impossible choices. Do I pay the rent or buy groceries? Fill my prescription or my gas tank?

Too often, those choices fall on women and people of color. Poverty wages exacerbate our region’s yawning economic disparities along gender and racial lines. Poverty rates among workers of color are nearly four times higher than white workers in the metro area. Raising the wage to $15 is the single most effective way our elected officials can narrow the gap.

Working people in St. Paul deserve to see their wages keep pace with those in Minneapolis, where all workers are on track to make $15 by 2024. Expect low-wage employers and their front groups to trot out the same tired arguments and doomsday scenarios here as they did in Minneapolis. By now, you’ve heard them all – businesses will pick up and leave, employers will cut hours, the restaurant scene will wither.

Don’t buy it. Minnesota’s economy has thrived since Gov. Mark Dayton signed the statewide minimum-wage hike in 2014. Back then, the restaurant industry warned of layoffs and closings if the legislation passed. Today, business is booming in the restaurant industry, with job openings up 75 percent over the past year in the metro area. Cities and states across the country are raising the minimum wage gradually and prudently, without any signs of economic contraction. There’s no reason we can’t do the same in St. Paul.

Poverty wages are a real crisis in St. Paul, one that should be at the top of our city’s agenda in 2018. Mayor-elect Melvin Carter’s support for $15, both during the campaign and since his election, is encouraging. But working people have waited too long already for the gains of this economic recovery to trickle down into our paychecks. It’s time to turn promises into a concrete timeline for action. St. Paul needs a $15 minimum wage ordinance by next summer.

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, representing more than 100 affiliate unions with over 50,000 members in Ramsey, Washington, Dakota and Chisago counties.

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Bobby Kasper: A stocking stuffed with tax cuts for the wealthy

December 14, 2017 by

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper joined a labor delegation to Rep. Jason Lewis’ office to oppose the tax scam Dec. 6.

With an unsettling lack of bipartisanship or debate, Republicans in both the Senate and House of Representatives have passed sweeping measures to reform the U.S. tax code in ways that would rig our system even more favorably toward corporations and the rich. Now, Congressional leaders are working overtime to get President Trump’s signature on the tax scam by Christmas – a timely gift for 1 percent.

But while Republicans look like Santa Claus to their wealthy corporate donors, the rest of us see the tax scam for the Grinch it is: a massive and deeply corrupt giveaway for millionaires, billionaires and corporations.

The numbers are mind boggling. Under both the House and Senate measures, the richest 5 percent of Americans would receive roughly half of the benefits in 2019, according to an analysis by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. The top 20 percent of earners see about 70 percent of the benefits. The House bill would eliminate the tax on corporations’ offshore profits – basically a subsidy to companies that outsource jobs – at a cost $205 billion over 10 years. And in a heartwarming effort to leave no millionaire behind, Senate Republicans targeted tax relief to folks in the market for a private jet, as well as those who inherit between $11 million and $22 million – provisions sure to delight the president and members of his jet-set Cabinet.

While Americans in the highest tax brackets are virtually guaranteed a tax cut, the rest of us are not. In fact, this Republican version of a tax cut actually raises taxes on millions of Americans. ITEP estimates a third of Americans in the middle-fifth of taxpayers – literally the “middle class” – would pay higher taxes under the Senate bill, a result of policy changes that would make it harder to deduct medical expenses, local taxes and more.

By the government’s own estimate, the Republican tax scam would add over $1 trillion to our deficit over the next 10 years. (Remember that the next time a politician tells you there’s no money for health care, schools, veterans’ services or other priorities!) Republicans, it seems, are only interested in fiscal responsibility as an excuse for cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which is exactly what some members of Congress are already talking about doing next. In fact, the Senate measure would force an immediate $25 billion cut to Medicare and leave 13 million Americans without health insurance.

Republicans are meeting plenty of resistance in their effort to sell out the middle class. I led a delegation of labor leaders who met with a member of Rep. Jason Lewis’ staff in Burnsville earlier this month. We told him working people in the 2nd Congressional District want trillion-dollar investments in infrastructure, education and health care – not trickle-down schemes and giveaways for the rich. And as we were leaving the office, it warmed my heart to see another delegation of activists from the district waiting in the lobby, ready to have the same discussion with Lewis’ aide.

It’s been heartening to see so many working people, retirees and students sound the alarm about the damage this tax scam would do. Even if most Republicans in Congress aren’t listening, our message is getting through to the public. Polls show the legislation is deeply unpopular with most Americans, who recognize it as the worst example of Washington politicians only looking out for themselves and their donors.

Until President Trump puts pen to paper on the tax scam, there’s still time to make your voice heard, too. Call the AFL-CIO’s legislative hotline at 1-844-899-9913, and you’ll be connected to your representatives in Congress. Urge them to reject any bill that makes drastic cuts that hurt working people to pay for wasteful tax giveaways for corporations and the rich.

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, representing more than 100 affiliate unions with over 50,000 members.

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