Outside Amazon fulfillment center, workers demand tax fairness

May 6, 2021 by

Tyler Hamilton is in his fourth year working at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Shakopee.

SHAKOPEE – Minnesota workers unfurled a “Tax the Rich” banner outside Amazon’s MSP1 fulfillment center here today. It was a not-so-subtle suggestion to state lawmakers about how they might pay for investments in child care, paid family leave, education, infrastructure and other supports for working families.

Tyler Hamilton, in his fourth year working at MSP1, said he and others inside the facility could use a little support right now.

“Honestly, I’m tired,” the Maplewood resident said during a press conference organized by local unions. “And I’m not just tired from working night shift, even though I’m a night-shift guy.

“I’m tired from working in this building behind me for over a year during the coronavirus pandemic and having to deal with all the stupid stuff Amazon does all the time – and they get away with.”

But the pandemic has been anything but exhausting for corporations like Amazon and the wealthiest Americans. With stock markets posting record gains over the last year, the super-rich have consolidated even more wealth. U.S. billionaires increased their combined wealth by $1.62 trillion, or 55 percent, between March 2020 and April 2021, according to an analysis published last month.

Inequality in the U.S., already sped up by corporate tax cuts in 2017, has shifted into overdrive. “Evidently, those tax cuts don’t go toward their workforce,” Hamilton said. “It’s really frustrating.”

Minnesota lawmakers have an opportunity to restore some fairness to the system before the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment May 17, other speakers at the event outside Amazon said.

Mary Solheim, a child care provider from Maplewood, described a state of “chronic underinvestment in care for the children” of Minnesota’s workforce – a crisis made worse by the pandemic, as frontline workers not eligible for essential care struggled to find care for their children after school buildings shut down.

Solheim was precise about where to pin the blame. “We know there is enough for everyone to thrive in Minnesota,” she said. “But for too long, corporations haven’t paid their fair share.”

Public school educators have seen chronic underinvestment firsthand too, said Kate Schmidt, president of Dakota County United Educators.

Meeting students’ needs, she said, requires smaller class sizes, more access to counselors and other specialists, healthy meals and safe buildings. But instead of fully funding those priorities, school districts across Minnesota are preparing to lay off teachers, a response to uncertain state funding.

“This year let’s demand that our Legislature ensure the wealthiest among us pay their fair share,” Schmidt said. “That’s how we fund the future of our students, by ensuring every child has what they need to focus on all they can become, whether they are black, brown or white.”

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, emcees a press conference calling on corporations like Amazon and the super-rich to pay more taxes.

Octavio Chung, a union Laborer from Hugo, said improvements to the state’s transportation system and other infrastructure are urgently needed. Corporate profits rely on getting products to customers, after all.

“Corporations like Amazon need to pay their fair share so we can address decades of delayed essential maintenance and upgrades to provide all Minnesotans with safe roads and bridges, more affordable housing and functional school buildings,” Chung said. “It is long past time.”

Debate over whether to fund these and other priorities is likely to heat up at the Capitol next week, as the deadline to adjourn draws closer.

Gov. Tim Walz has proposed – and Republicans in control of the Senate have opposed – small tax hikes on some corporations and on individual income over $500,000, or over $1 million for married couples filing jointly.

Among the proposed investments Walz and DFLers who control the Minnesota House would make with the extra revenue is paid family leave for all Minnesota workers. That’s a measure Hamilton, who believes he contracted COVID-19 while working at MSP1 last year, said is long overdue.

“I was out of work for a month, the majority of that being unpaid,” Hamilton said. “It’s tiring having to work hard to pay your bills – 10-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts – only to be hit with something like getting sick and falling behind because we don’t have paid family medical leave or paid sick leave like we should.”

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

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.

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

Minnesota state, local taxes fairer than most, report finds

January 14, 2015 by
web.ITEP-1

(Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy graphic)

Minnesota’s tax structure is among the fairest in the country, according to the results of an annual analysis of state and local tax systems released today by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report, “Who Pays,” looks at how states generate tax revenue – and how much it costs taxpayers at different income levels.

In Minnesota the wealthiest 1 percent of earners, with more than $498,000 in annual household income, pay 7.5 percent of their income, on average, in state and local taxes. That’s a lower rate than any other income bracket in the ITEP’s report, including:

  • The rest of the top 20 percent of Minnesota earners, with household incomes between $102,000 and $498,000. On average, they pay about 8.5 percent of their income in state and local taxes.
  • The lowest 20 percent, with less than $24,000 in annual income, who pay an average tax rate of 8.8 percent.
  • The middle 60 percent, with earnings between $24,000 and $102,000, who pay an average tax rate of about 9.7 percent.

Although middle- and low-income people in Minnesota pay more of their income in state and local taxes than the state’s highest earners, the same is true everywhere in the U.S. The good news for Minnesota is the gap between what middle- and low-income people pay and what wealthy people pay is smaller than the gap in 44 other states.

In some states, the report found, the poorest 20 percent of taxpayers pay more than double the effective tax rate paid by the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. Washington is the country’s most regressive state, taxing the poorest residents at 16.8 percent and the top 1 percent at just 2.4 percent.

Why does it matter if state and local taxes ding lower-income families more than upper-income ones? In addition to being a matter of basic fairness, regressive tax structures contribute to growing income inequality in the U.S., which has reached a level not seen since before the Great Depression.

“In recent years, multiple studies have revealed the growing chasm between the wealthy and everyone else,” ITEP Executive Director Matt Gardner said in a press release accompanying the report. “Upside down state tax systems didn’t cause the growing income divide, but they certainly exacerbate the problem.”

Why are state and local tax systems unfair across the board? According to the ITEP report, it’s mostly because these governments tend to rely more heavily on sales taxes to raise revenue than income taxes.

Minnesota’s tax structure is less regressive than most other states, according to “Who Pays,” in part because of its graduated tax structure, which assesses higher rates to higher income levels. Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL majorities in the Legislature raised taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans to address a budget shortfall two years ago.

The report also praised Minnesota’s sales tax exclusion for groceries and its Working Family Credit, increased by Dayton and DFL majorities last year.

The state’s comparatively high sales tax rate – on tobacco, in particular – hits lower- and middle-income earners harder than the wealthy, the report found.

Download the complete report here.

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

Nurses call for ‘Robin Hood Tax’ on Wall Street transactions

June 19, 2012 by

Registered nurses Elayne Best (left) and Carol Diemert join the call for a “Robin Hood Tax” outside J.P. Morgan’s Minneapolis offices.

Dressed as modern-day members of the band of Merry Men, union nurses fanned out across downtown Minneapolis today, doling out bottles of water and a prescription for healing what ails the American economy.

The nurses’ solution? A “Robin Hood Tax” on Wall Street transactions.

The plan would place a small sales tax – less than half of 1 percent – on trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and currencies. Revenues would help reverse declining public support for schools, health care and infrastructure repair and development – and put an estimated 9 million Americans back to work.

Linda Hamilton, president of the 20,000-member Minnesota Nurses Association, called it a “tax for the people, not on the people.”

Hamilton’s union organized the Robin Hood-themed demonstration – many nurses wore pointed, green hats and masks – to coincide with similar actions in 15 other U.S. cities.

The MNA and its parent union, National Nurses United, began calling on lawmakers to “take from Wall Street and give to Main Street” last year. Since then they have been joined by dozens of other public-health, civic and advocacy organizations, as well as prominent economists and celebrities.

The Robin Hood Tax is aimed at high-volume trading, which today makes up a majority of all trades. Experts say the tax will help place limits on the reckless short-term speculation that threatens financial stability.

“Wall Street’s reckless speculation and risky deals caused our economy’s most devastating crash since the Great Depression, forcing millions of Americans to lose their jobs, their homes and their pensions,” said Jean Ross, a MNA member and co-president of NNU. “Three years later, Americans on Main Street still struggle to recover from a crisis we didn’t create. This is the way to start to turn it around.”

In Minneapolis, nurses rallied outside the offices of J.P. Morgan Chase, the financial giant that recently announced it had lost more than $2 billion by gambling on credit derivatives.

MNA staff representative Linda Lange and registered nurse Bob Michaelson hand out water and fliers downtown Minneapolis.

It is that type of risky behavior, MNA member Bob Michaelson said, that a “Robin Hood Tax” would help curtail. A former accountant, Michaelson switched careers 10 years ago. He entered the medical field and has worked as a registered nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis for the last year.

When he saw his union’s plan for combating Wall Street greed, Michaelson, who calls himself a “recovering corporate tax accountant,” knew he had to get involved.

“The ‘Robin Hood Tax’ makes sense because of the volume of transactions that we have on Wall Street that do not generate income for the common good,” Michaelson said. “It’s the Wall Street banking firms that profit from all these trades.”

Nurses don’t need a background in economics to know the U.S. economy isn’t working for middle class families, Michaelson added. After all, Robin Hood didn’t have his MBA.

“Nurses are concerned about the daily lives of everybody,” Michaelson said. “People look to us for good judgment on things.”

MNA President Hamilton put it this way: “People are suffering, and nurses take care of people. Nurses are coming up with solutions.”

For more information on the “Robin Hood Tax,” go to www.robinhoodtax.org.

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