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.”

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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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Teachers kick off contract campaign by targeting corporate tax dodgers

April 18, 2017 by

“Public schools belong to everyone in a community. So everyone who’s present in that community should contribute their fair share,” Jenna Styles Spooner, a kindergarten teacher at Riverview School of Excellence said at a rally kicking off the SPFT’s contract campaign.

 

Anticipating negotiations with a school district that seems perpetually short on resources, St. Paul teachers launched their contract campaign today – Tax Day – by calling on the city’s wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share toward local public schools.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 kicked off its contract campaign early this morning with a rally outside U.S. Bank’s operations center. Located across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Paul, the site was developed by the city using tax-increment financing – an arrangement that exempts U.S. Bank from paying about $1 million in property taxes to the St. Paul Public Schools annually, Local 28 President Denise Rodriguez told about 50 members and supporters at the rally.

SPFT President Denise Rodriguez delivers an invoice to U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis.

“While our schools are facing a budget deficit, the CEO of US Bank earns $83,800 a day,” Rodriguez said. “When I think of what that could fund in our schools alone, that’s why we’re standing here today.”

Rodriguez and other teachers called out Wells Fargo and Ecolab for dodging their fair share in local taxes too, but big banks and corporations, they added, share responsibility for the district’s budget shortfalls with huge, tax-exempt organizations – hospitals and private colleges – that sit on massive endowments or foundations.

Nonprofit health care corporations like Allina Health and Health Partners “have $1 billion invested in stocks, hedge funds and private equity,” Rodriguez said. “Does that sound like a nonprofit to you?”

After the rally, Rodriguez and other teachers entered the operations center to deliver an invoice to U.S. Bank seeking the funds it’s avoided paying into the St. Paul Public Schools.

“I just want to say to U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, if you disagree with any of my facts, please call me,” Rodriguez added. “I would love for my people to sit down with your people.”

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House Republicans play politics with unemployment extension for steelworkers

March 4, 2016 by

capitolSteelworkers pleaded with members of a House committee yesterday to pass a clean bill extending unemployment benefits to workers impacted by the Iron Range mining slowdown, but they couldn’t convince Republicans, who continued holding the relief package hostage for $271 million in tax cuts for businesses.

“Believe me, this is not an easy thing for us proud Iron Rangers to do,” Cliff Tobey, president of United Steelworkers Local 2660, told members of the House Job Growth and Energy Affordability Committee.

Tobey and another laid-off Steelworker traveled to St. Paul to testify in favor of extending benefits by 26 weeks for workers impacted by the crisis, which was triggered by an influx of cheap foreign steel that flooded the U.S. market and left ore prices at a 10-year low.

Most of the region’s 11 mining outfits have issued layoffs in the last 12 months, and by the time the legislative session starts Tuesday, about 1,200 Iron Range workers will have exhausted their unemployment benefits.

Toby urged committee members to pass the extension “without attaching unnecessary demands,” but Republicans couldn’t resist including a tax rebate for businesses that pay into the state’s unemployment insurance fund.

The bill passed the committee over objections from members of the DFL minority, who said the two issues – extending benefits for steelworkers and reforming the state’s unemployment insurance system – deserve separate consideration.

Rep. Jason Metsa, whose District 6B includes the heart of taconite mining country, choked up as he appealed to his Republican colleagues.

“These guys gotta go back to their families and their friends and tell them we didn’t get it done,” Metsa said of the Steelworkers who testified. “Let’s do the right thing and set these (issues) on two different tracks.”

The committee’s vote cast doubt on whether lawmakers will be able to pass an extension of benefits during the first week of session, a goal set by Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates mining companies have laid off 2,000 workers since March 1, 2015, and the slowdown has impacted an additional 4,700 Iron Range workers in mining-related jobs.

DEED has crafted a relief package to extend benefits for about 2,750 workers at a cost to the unemployment insurance trust fund of $29.7 million. The Republican tax break would siphon nearly 10 times that amount from the state’s unemployment trust fund, leaving its balance below federal guidelines, DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben said.

“We know that a recession can deplete reserves quickly,” Sieben warned.

In 2009, for example, the unemployment fund paid out $1.7 billion – more than its current $1.57 billion balance. Faced with $1.4 billion in claims in 2010, the fund was forced to borrow from the federal government to meet its obligations, a debt that took almost three years to pay back.

“Putting the future solvency of our unemployment insurance trust fund at risk is unconscionable,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy told the committee.

But with each additional day Republicans play politics with the issue, more Iron Range families see their benefits disappear.

Tobey, a third-generation miner, said his local has 360 members “out on the street right now trying to feed their families, trying to pay their mortgages, trying to get by.” He questioned whether Republicans would insist on business tax cuts before providing flood relief or assistance in the wake of a bridge collapse.

“We have no more control over other countries flooding our market (with cheap steel) than the people of Minnesota have over falling bridges and flooding rivers,” he said.

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Students, teachers, unions urge lawmakers to invest state budget surplus

December 3, 2015 by
U of M grad student Courtney Gildersleeve speaks at a town hall meeting on how to use the state's $1.2 billion budget surplus.

U of M grad student Courtney Gildersleeve speaks at a town hall meeting on how to use the state’s $1.2 billion budget surplus.

 

The projected $1.2 billion state budget surplus, announced by state officials today, creates an opportunity for lawmakers to strengthen communities and continue growing Minnesota’s middle class in the 2016 legislative session, union members and allies said.

And the first place lawmakers should look to invest is education.

That’s the message three Metro-area legislators heard from students, teachers, academics and religious leaders during a town hall meeting in Dinkytown today, as stakeholders from across the education spectrum offered a united front in support of investing surplus funds in education “from cradle to career.”

Sen. Greg Clausen talks with participants in a town hall forum on the state budget surplus in Dinkytown.

Sen. Greg Clausen talks with participants in a town hall forum on the state budget surplus in Dinkytown.

“The Legislature is listening,” Sen. Greg Clausen (DFL-Apple Valley) assured participants in the meeting at University Baptist Church. “We need to invest in education. There’s no question about it.”

Rep. Carlos Mariani, a DFLer from St. Paul, said the healthy surplus is a positive indicator for Minnesota’s economy. “It means our state is working,” he said. “It means our tax structure makes sense.

But lawmakers and labor leaders, including Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy, warned against the inevitable calls to squander the surplus on election-year tax cuts.

“Instead of giveaways to corporate CEOs and employers who choose to pay low wages, lawmakers should embrace policies and investments that support working people,” McCarthy said. “We can ensure all Minnesotans are paid fairly for the work they do and have time for family. We can invest in schools so that every child can attend pre-K. We can improve our state’s infrastructure, boost our job creation tools, and strengthen the public services that vulnerable Minnesotans depend on.”

Eliot Seide, director of AFSCME Council 5, added: “The Legislature shouldn’t raid workers’ wallets to give unneeded tax breaks to billionaires and big businesses.  Those tax giveaways create income inequality, budget deficits and government shutdowns.”

At the town hall meeting, educators urged investments in pre-kindergarten and per-pupil funding for public school districts, as well as targeted investments to address the achievement gap between white students and students of color.

“A lot of people are losing hope because they don’t have a decent education, because they don’t have a decent job,” said Chase Elliott, a parent and a member of the Minneapolis-based community group Neighborhoods Organizing for Change.

The need for investment extends into suburban communities, too. Farmington fourth-grade teacher Jennifer York, a member of Education Minnesota, said cutbacks in recent years have forced her school district and others to lay off support staff, like school counselors, nurses and family-support workers.

Farmington teacher Jennifer York urges lawmakers to invest "every dollar" of the surplus in education.

Farmington teacher Jennifer York urges lawmakers to invest “every dollar” of the surplus in education.

Pre-kindergarten teacher Amanda Reineck, meanwhile, said professionals in her field remain among the lowest-paid in the country. “Many excellent teachers have left the profession because the pay was not enough for them to support their families,” she said.

Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union organized the town hall meeting with its affiliate group MN Academics United, which represents faculty at the U of M’s Twin Cities campus who are working to form a union.

Academics and graduate students supportive of the organizing drive called for investments in higher education that would lower tuition, provide relief from student debt and guarantee living wages for faculty, teaching assistants and frontline workers at the U.

“The working conditions of instructors are the learning conditions of students,” physics grad student Jarrett Brown said.

Speakers acknowledged their priorities are likely to be pit against each other at the Capitol next year, but remained hopeful that listening to each other was a first step toward winning together in 2016.

“I hope we’ll be holding these town hall meetings in other parts of the state,” said Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis).

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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.

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Taxpayers are subsidizing fast-food industry’s low wages, report finds

October 17, 2013 by
Activists pass out fliers highlighting the findings of a new report on the public cost of fast-food wages outside a Minneapolis Wendy's restaurant.

Outside a Minneapolis Wendy’s, activists pass out fliers highlighting a new report on the public cost of fast-food wages.

That extra value meal might seem like a bargain, but a new report shows low prices on the fast-food menu come at a high cost to U.S. taxpayers.

How much? Nearly $7 billion a year.

That’s the cost of public assistance for fast-food workers and their families, according to “Fast Food, Poverty Wages,” a report released Tuesday by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The report undermines industry-backed stereotypes of fast-food workers as teenagers gaining valuable employment experience, or students mixing part-time work into their busy schedules.

In reality, fast-food workers are more likely to be parents than to be living with their parents. Most are adults for whom “fast-food wages are an essential component of family income,” according to the report, which looked at “core” workers – those logging 10 hours or more per week, at least 27 weeks out of the year on the industry’s front lines.

The industry’s low wages, coupled with its approach to scheduling, mean people working fast-food jobs are more likely than other workers to live in or near poverty, the report found. The median hourly wage for core, front-line workers in the industry is $8.69, and the median number of hours worked is 30 per week. Only 13 percent receive health benefits through their employer.

With basic needs like food, shelter and health care out of reach, 52 percent of front-line fast-food workers seek public assistance for themselves or their families. Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) are “indispensible programs” for fast-food workers, according to the researchers.

‘Unacceptable and unsustainable’

To activists who demonstrated outside the Wendy’s restaurant off Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis on Tuesday, the new report was more evidence that taxpayers are picking up the social costs of fast-food companies’ low wages and staggering profits.

“Fast food companies like Wendy’s have accumulated profits in the billions of dollars, yet they are saying they can’t afford to do more for their workers,” said Carol Nieters, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 284.

SEIU members joined forces with the community outreach organization Minnesotans for a Fair Economy to stage the demonstration. Activists waved leaflets at cars exiting the Wendy’s drive-through, and they talked to customers about the findings of “Fast Food, Poverty Wages,” the findings of which, Nieters said, highlighted a “sad moment in our nation’s history.”

Rev. Grant Stevensen, a pastor at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in St. Paul, joined the protest out of concern not just for fast-food workers, but also for franchise owners, who are being “squeezed more and more by the parent company,” he said.

“We are tied together as a patchwork in this country,” Stevensen said. “Whether we rise or we fall, we do that together. It is imperative the faith community be involved in this call for justice because we don’t have to live this way. We can create a different future that works for everybody.”

Raise the wage!

Both Stevenson and Nieters pointed to the report as more evidence to support raising the minimum wage at both the state and federal levels. The Minnesota Legislature is likely to take up a minimum-wage bill during the 2014 session, and labor, faith and progressive groups have formed a coalition planning to push a $9.50-per-hour minimum wage.

Authors of the report agree: Stronger minimum-wage laws would go a long way toward bridging the gap between fast-food workers’ wages and their basic needs, while easing the burden on taxpayer-funded programs.

“The results of this report suggest (public assistance) programs would be more effective if they were combined with measures to improve wages and health benefits among low-wage workers,” the report says. “Many fast-food workers earn close to the minimum wage and would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage or through targeted local laws to raise labor standards.”

The report also notes that “very few fast-food restaurants have collective bargaining agreements,” which would “increase wage and benefits standards” in the industry.

One thing Nieters knows for sure is fast-food companies won’t increase wages and benefits for their workers without public pressure. “Corporations like Wendy’s will not do more for their workers because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.

Click here to add your name to a petition in support of raising Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 by 2015.

Rev. Grant Stevensen and SEIU Local 284 Executive Director Carol Nieters speak to activists outside a Wendy's in Minneapolis.

Rev. Grant Stevensen and SEIU Local 284 Executive Director Carol Nieters speak to activists outside a Wendy’s in Minneapolis.

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Letters to the Editor: Kudos to Metsa for walking in low-wage workers’ skin

May 31, 2013 by
Jason Metsa shops for groceries on a minimum-wage budget.

Jason Metsa shops for groceries on a minimum-wage budget.

A story in the May Union Advocate (“A constant juggling act”) about state Rep. Jason Metsa of Virginia trying to live for a week on a minimun-wage budget brings to mind a quote from the famous novel “To Kill a Mocking-bird,” in which lawyer Atticus Finch tells his young daughter, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Well, I think a lot more politicans and business leaders need to walk around in the skin of workers and experience the hardships and frustrations of raising families and trying to make ends meet on low wages.

– Louis DiSanto, St. Paul, Former member of AFSCME Council 5

*****

Session was pro-jobs

The 2013 session was a pro-jobs session. The cuts in property taxes for homeowners and renters will put more money in the pockets of the middle class. That will mean higher receipts for Minnesota’s small businesses. Freezing tuition also helps family budgets.

The one huge negative was the House Republicans’ voting down the bonding bill. The House GOP’s action costs the state several thousands of desperately needed construction jobs. The Republicans claimed they opposed bonding because it was the “off-year.” Wrong. House Republicans have objected to bonding three of the last four years. During Gov. Pawlenty’s last year, a “bonding year,” the GOP House caucus urged Pawlenty to veto three-fourths of the bonding proposals. In 2011 the GOP majority passed no bonding bill, but agreed to accept a modest amount after the government shutdown. Last year, they passed a modest amount – in an election year.

Shifting taxes from the middle class to those with highest incomes will help the economy. Gov. Mark Dayton and the DFL Legislature are on the side of the economic angels. Restoration of aids to schools and local governments will also slow down rises in property taxes. The improvements in education are designed to increase business productivity.

– Wayne Cox, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice

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

Education funding, tax reform highlight gains made in 2013 session, unions say

May 22, 2013 by

capitolMinnesota’s working families will see the most obvious fruits of the 2013 legislative session in their public schools and property-tax bills, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of investments, reforms and initiatives passed by labor-endorsed majorities in the Legislature this year, union leaders said.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO called the session, which adjourned May 20, “one of the most productive legislative sessions for working Minnesotans in a generation,” pointing to a laundry list of bills passed by DFL majorities – with the support of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton – “that will help countless numbers of working people in Minnesota.”

State lawmakers made their biggest investment in public education, reversing a decade-long trend of underfunding by adding about $235 million to the general education funding formula over the next two years.

“The leaders of the House and Senate said education would be a priority this session, and they delivered,” said Tom Dooher, president of Education Minnesota, the statewide educators’ union.

Lawmakers also expanded access to all-day kindergarten – a proven strategy for raising students’ academic achievement – to students statewide beginning in 2014, and they boosted support for special education by about $40 million.

“Our schools won’t recover from a decade of underfunding in a single session, but the new investments in the basic formula, special education and all-day kindergarten put us on the road to recovery,” Dooher said.

To pay for new investments in education, lawmakers raised $2 billion in revenue by closing tax loopholes exploited by corporations, raising taxes on the richest 2 percent and increasing the tax on cigarettes – a strategy Carol Nieters, executive director of SEIU Local 284, called “a much better investment for Minnesota’s future.”

“Finally, Minnesota is closing corporate tax loopholes instead of schools,” said Nieters, who represents more than 8,000 public school paraprofessionals, clerical staff, bus drivers, custodians and food service workers. “After years of gimmicks and borrowing billions from schools, we have a historic investment in education.”

New revenues also will underwrite property-tax relief for homeowners – a critical step toward fixing a tax system that hits middle-income families harder than their wealthy counterparts. A January 2013 report by the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Minnesota’s top 1 percent of earners pay just 6.2 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the middle 20 percent of the state’s earners pay 9.6 percent.

Raising income taxes on the highest earners and providing property-tax relief for homeowners will “make taxes fairer for middle-class Minnesotans,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said. “Minnesota won’t turn around overnight, but the 2013 session was an enormous step forward.”

While tax reform and education funding were two labor priorities that passed during the 2013 session, one top priority – a minimum-wage hike – failed to win legislative approval.

Although minimum wage bills passed both the House and Senate, legislative leaders could not reconcile differences between the two bills.

The House bill, supported by a coalition of labor, faith and community organizations, called for raising the minimum wage to $9.50 over three years and adjusting the rate annually for inflation. The Senate passed a much smaller increase.

With an eye on the 2014 legislative session, Knutson said the issue will remain a priority for the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

“Hundreds of thousands of low-wage working Minnesotans and their families who deserve a pay raise are extremely disappointed in the Senate’s failure to agree to a meaningful minimum wage increase,” Knutson said.

“Between now and the 2014 session, our coalition will be having conversations with lawmakers and their constituents about why a significant minimum wage increase is good for workers, small businesses, and our entire state.”

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Community forum on ‘honest tax reform’ April 4 in Woodbury

March 27, 2013 by

NoGimmicksForumA forum and panel discussion in Woodbury April 4 will demonstrate “the need for the Minnesota Legislature to make reforms that stop the cycle of recurring deficits, and instead establish a structurally sound budget now and in the future.”

Sponsored by River Valley Action, the forum will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Woodbury-Peaceful Grove United Methodist Church, 7465 Steepleview Road.

Three brief presentations by tax policy experts – Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue Myron Frans; Jeff Van Wychen of Minnesota 2020; and Sean Kershaw, executive director of the Citizens League – will open the forum. After the speakers explore the history of recent budgeting gimmicks, tax loopholes and the need for adequate revenue, Dane Smith, director of the think tank Growth and Justice, will moderate a panel discussion, featuring questions from the audience.

Following the forum, River Valley Action will provide information to assist audience members in influencing lawmakers in their decisions on the current budget.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

River Valley Action is a group of citizens of Washington County who value a healthy and informed civic community. Learn more at www.rivervalleyaction.org.

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