As driver shortage hampers start of school, unions point to low pay, benefits

September 22, 2021 by

A shortage of school bus drivers hampered the start of school in St. Paul and districts across the state this fall, but it came as no surprise to local union leaders, who have long pushed officials to head off the crisis with better wages and benefits, including unemployment insurance.

“We can fix this problem, but first we have to understand what caused the shortage,” said Teresa Jakubowski, a driver in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district. “If we want to get out of this mess, it has to be done with higher wages, better benefits and access to unemployment benefits.”

A steward with Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union, Jakubowski spoke with reporters during a virtual press conference arranged by her union as school districts scrambled to address the driver shortage.

In the St. Paul Public Schools, administrators abruptly changed start times the week before school was to begin. Families in several districts reported finding out they would temporarily need to arrange transportation to and from school for their children.

Teamsters Local 320, which represents transportation workers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, said the bargaining unit, which typically includes about 170 workers, was down to 90.

“This is not a bus driver shortage; this is a bus driver crisis,” Local 320 Communications Director Gus Froemke said. “People are on the edge.”

Split shifts, limited hours

Typical wages for drivers are $17 to $20 per hour, according to Local 284 President Kelly Gibbons, who drove bus for 18 years in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools.

But driving bus is part-time work, and the split between morning and afternoon shifts makes it hard for bus drivers to supplement their income with a second job. Drivers often must build up seniority to bid for additional duties, like field trips and extracurricular routes, Gibbons added.

“Sometimes a beginning bus driver can’t get more than four hours a day,” she said. “Who can live on four hours a day?

“You come in the morning, and you come in the afternoon. It’s split up, there’s down time in between and sometimes there’s not enough time even to go home. Some drivers are just sitting in the transportation center, not getting paid.”

In the Rosemount district, Jakubowski said, drivers see just four full paychecks per year, with scheduled school breaks, cancelations and holidays cutting into the rest. Drivers able to work in the summer see their hours cut in half, she said.

Long fight for UI

Access to unemployment insurance would help retain drivers through the lean times, advocates said.

While construction workers, landscapers, resort workers and other seasonal employees are eligible for unemployment, hourly school employees are not, according to the state’s unemployment statute, because they have a “reasonable assurance” of returning to work.

Earlier this year, the DFL-controlled House included language reversing that policy in its jobs bill, but a lobbying group for school districts succeeded in keeping it out of the Senate bill. The measure never made it to Gov. Tim Walz’s desk.

Gibbons did not mince words in pinning partial responsibility for the transportation crisis facing local districts on the administrators and lawmakers who blocked the unemployment measure.

“This is a discriminatory law, and it’s time to make real positive change for the workers, for the kids and for the school districts we represent,” Gibbons said. “Our members were on the front line every single day since this pandemic started. Our members have gotten sick. They’ve had long-term effects of COVID. Some have died.

“We need to make sure they are respected, valued and paid.”

Pandemic makes things worse

Bus driver shortages plagued school districts before the pandemic, but COVID-19 exacerbated the problem everywhere. In a survey of school transportation providers conducted earlier this year by three industry groups, 78% of respondents indicated the shortage is getting worse.

Jakubowski said many drivers who left her district were people who previously retired from a different career and had taken jobs as drivers to keep busy and serve their community. But when the pandemic hit, the risks of continuing to drive outweighed the benefits.

“We’ve been relying on (previously retired workers) for a long time, and we shouldn’t be,” Jakubowski said. “We need to bring in new workers who are younger, who will be there for a lot longer.”

That means anteing up for higher wages and better benefits.

“The people who safely drive your children to and from school should be valued, full-time employees with a livable wage,” Jakubowski said. “That would allow us to draw new employees from all age groups.”

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

Excluded from unemployment benefits, hourly school workers speak out: ‘It is insulting’

July 16, 2020 by

School employees on the video press conference (clockwise from top-left): Teresa Jakubowski, Ronnie Sprigler, Rochelle Stoffel, Sieara Washington and Kelly Gibbons.

For decades, hourly school employees in Minnesota have been fighting to change a state law that restricts their access to unemployment insurance benefits, but to no avail.

Now, school bus drivers, paraprofessionals, teaching assistants and support staff across the state are being left behind as unemployment benefits, bolstered by $600 per week through the federal CARES Act, keep many Americans from slipping into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is insulting we aren’t treated the same as other workers when it comes to unemployment,” Sieara Washington, an education support professional in the Osseo school district, said. “It’s really telling us how they feel about ESPs. I guess we aren’t valuable enough.”

Washington spoke out during a virtual press conference hosted today by four Minnesota unions that represent hourly school employees: Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union, Education Minnesota, AFSCME Council 5 and Teamsters Local 320.

Union members called on state lawmakers, who began a special legislative session Monday, to take emergency action providing relief for hourly school employees, who are simultaneously dealing with the uncertainty of what their jobs will look like – assuming they exist at all – in the fall semester.

Kelly Gibbons, president of SEIU Local 284, said hourly school employees want both “short term solutions and long-term structural change.”

While construction workers, landscapers, resort workers and other seasonal employees are eligible for unemployment, school employees are not, according to the state’s unemployment statute, provided they have a “reasonable assurance” of returning to work in the fall.

“I think it’s discriminatory,” Gibbons said, noting that hourly positions in school districts are “more female-dominated” than other seasonal jobs like construction. “We’re being excluded from the law, so I think it’s not equitable. I don’t think it’s fair.”

Meanwhile, union stewards on the press call described the mounting financial pressures facing hourly workers, some of whom have been out of work since March.

Local 320 steward Ronnie Sprigler, a teaching assistant in the St. Paul Public Schools, said the sudden loss of income has been “catastrophic” for many of her fellow Teamsters, particularly single parents. Sprigler, herself a widow who cares for a disabled son, has incurred “serious debt and quality-of-life issues” as a result of the pandemic.

“But I also know that I am far from alone,” Sprigler said, noting that calls have been streaming in from distressed co-workers. “There’s a level of mental and emotional damage happening to people I hear from every week.”

Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan bus driver Teresa Jakubowski, a steward with Local 284, said that while she’s able to weather the storm by taking on debt, others without access to credit have faced heartbreaking decisions. One member of her bargaining unit recently sold her mother’s engagement ring for cash, Jakubowski said, and another couldn’t afford to replace her broken-down car.

“Food and rent are the biggest worries,” Jakubowski said. “We are frustrated, and we are fearful.”

AFSCME steward Rochelle Stoffel, a middle-school office clerk in St. Paul, said she gets “calls and emails constantly” from members in a panic about their unemployment status.

“They thought because programming was cancelled and they lost their position, they would receive unemployment, only to find out they’re in a pending status, with no help or estimation from the unemployment office when or if they will see a benefit at all,” Stoffel said. “It’s a terrible feeling.”

As painful as the last three months have been for hourly school employees and their families, union members on the press call said they were hopeful the crisis would finally lead to action, which workers like Gibbons have been pressing lawmakers to take for decades.

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this law applies to jobs that are traditionally done by women and people of color,” Gibbons said. “But this work is way too important to be treated this way. We need action from our state leaders.”

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

TAs win access to training in deal with St. Paul schools

February 13, 2020 by

St. Paul TAs, members of Teamsters Local 320, celebrate their new contract. (Local 320 photo)

About 750 members of Teamsters Local 320 who work as teaching assistants in the St. Paul Public Schools will vote soon on a proposed two-year contract with the district. The sides finalized terms of a tentative agreement last Wednesday.

TAs targeted more access to professional development as their No. 1 priority in negotiations, and they refused to give up on the demand as bargaining dragged on for more than eight months.

Finally, the district agreed to language making professional development available to TAs whenever it closes school to offer trainings for its teachers. The current school calendar includes seven such days, Local 320 rep Josh Loahr said.

That’s a win not just for TAs, who assist early-education teachers and work individually with students who need extra help. It’s also a win for St. Paul students and the district as a whole.

“We want to learn how to serve our students better,” Dallas Robertson, a TA and member of Local 320’s bargaining team, said.

Previously, TAs had to seek out training opportunities on their own time, Robertson added, “even though we work with students all day, every school day.”

The district’s negotiations with Local 320 took place as the district also negotiated contracts with the St. Paul Federation of Educators, covering about 3,600 district employees. Both unions put student-centered proposals at the forefront of their contract campaigns, and they teamed up to turn out more than 100 supporters to a rally before a school board meeting last month.

SPFE President Nick Faber (R) hands the mic to Teamsters Local 320 member Dallas Robertson, a teaching assistant in the St. Paul Schools.

SPFE remains without a tentative agreement, and the union has scheduled a strike vote Feb. 20.

Although Local 320’s last contract with the district raised the minimum wage for TAs to $15 an hour, they remain among the district’s lowest-paid employees. But the new contract, Loahr said, would give more TAs access to the trainings they need to climb into higher pay lanes.

“The real meat of our wage scale is based on career advancement,” Loahr said. “If TAs take professional-development courses, they can earn a lane advancement, which means more money. But because TAs have never been offered those courses, 46% of our (bargaining unit) is still at the first lane.”

The proposed contract would make it possible for a TA who takes advantage of every training day on the calendar to advance a full lane in just one year. That could translate into a wage premium of $1.50 to $3 per hour.

The proposed contract also includes wage increases of 1.5% retroactive to July 2019 and 2% in November 2020.

After a meeting Feb. 26 to review the contract, Local 320 members will take a ratification vote by mail. Ballots will be counted March 6.

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

St. Paul educators to district: ‘We’re here for our students’

January 23, 2020 by

Union members rally outside the St. Paul Public Schools district offices.

 

The parking lot outside St. Paul Public Schools’ district offices was a sea of red – #RedForEd – before Tuesday night’s school board meeting, as staff frustrated by contract negotiations rallied behind their unions’ student-centered demands.

The public demonstration brought together members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators and Teamsters Local 320, as well as parents, elected officials and supporters from the labor community.

After 30 minutes of speeches, chants and music in the parking lot, union members filed into the building and packed the school board’s chambers. Several took the microphone during a public-comment period to reinforce their bargaining proposals.

SPFE member Rachel Stohlmann, a special-ed teacher at Benjamin E. Mays school, told board members her union’s demands reflect the urgent needs educators see in their schools each day.

“Instead of urgency at the bargaining table, we are being met with platitudes about how our proposals sound great, but there’s just no money in the budget,” Stohlmann said. “If you want SPPS to achieve, you need to use your power as a school board to adjust the budget to meet more than just the basic needs of your students and your educators.”

Educators dressed in #RedForEd pack the St. Paul school board meeting Jan. 21.

Fighting for students

Negotiations between SPFE and the district began last May. After nine public sessions, during which union members offered 31 proposals, the two sides agreed in November to move talks behind closed doors and enlist the help of a state mediator.

But the bargaining teams remained far apart after their latest mediated session Jan. 16, according to educators, who said SPPS had not yet responded to most of their proposals. “They have refused to discuss any proposals that will cost money,” SPFE’s bargaining team said in a statement.

The nature of some union proposals, educators say, has rankled district officials.

Instead of focusing exclusively on wages and benefits, SPFE members in recent years have approached bargaining as their window of opportunity to influence how the district serves its students and families.

SPFE calls it “bargaining for the schools St. Paul children deserve,” and the strategy – gathering member and community input, identifying areas of need and proposing student-centered solutions – has compelled the district to take action on class sizes, professional staffing, restorative conflict-resolution practices and more.

But this is the first round of contract negotiations since the district installed a five-year strategic plan, “SPPS Achieves.” Nick Faber, SPFE’s president, accused district negotiators of using the plan as a shield to deflect union members’ proposals.

“Classroom teachers were not significantly involved in the strategic planning process, and now the district is acting very surprised that we are demanding these things we’ve brought to the table,” Faber said.

Urgent needs

Educators’ top priority at the bargaining table this year is improving mental-health supports for their students. SPFE wants the district to hire more social workers, provide teachers with relevant training and install a “mental-health team” in every school building.

Union members like Sarah Kaufenberg, who teaches kindergarten at Benjamin E. Mays, say their students’ mental-health needs often go unmet, creating barriers to learning that spread throughout the classroom.

“We have students whose parents are incarcerated or in medical facilities, who have been through a lot of trauma in their lives, and they have nobody to talk to but the teachers in their classrooms,” Kaufenberg said. “They’re in survival mode, and without support, we just are not able to provide them with what they need.”

Lindsay Walker, an art teacher in the same building, said the school’s lone counselor too often is forced to “triage” the needs of students, tending only to those most visibly distressed.

“A student who is hungry or a student experiencing homelessness, their needs should be met just as much as somebody who is having a behavior crisis,” Walker said. “Right now our staff is being pulled in too many directions at once.”

Additionally, educators have proposed “weighted caseloads” for special-ed teachers. Rather than assigning the same number of students to each teacher, they want caseloads to reflect the severity of students’ needs.

“Our special-ed teachers are burning out left and right,” Stohlmann said. “Other districts are taking this approach, and teachers see it working. So we have teachers leaving all the time.”

And education assistants represented by SPFE have spearheaded the union’s proposal to bolster support systems for multilingual students and families.

“How can students be successful if we have a lack of communication?” SPFE member Yasmin Muridi, recently named the state’s Education Support Professional of the Year, asked at the rally. “Frustrations on this issue are building slowly, and one day our parents will burst like a volcano and leave the district. And I don’t want that.”

SPFE President Nick Faber (R) hands the mic to Teamsters Local 320 member Dallas Robertson, a teaching assistant in the St. Paul Schools.

Teamsters fight for training

Teamsters Local 320, meanwhile, co-sponsored the rally with SPFE. The union represents teaching assistants who are also in contract bargaining with the St. Paul Public Schools.

Teaching assistants’ top priority, Local 320 member Dallas Robertson said, is making the district’s training programs more accessible.

“Even though we work with students all day, every school day, we don’t have any days in our contract set aside for us to further our learning with other educators,” said Robertson, a TA at American Indian Magnet School. “We want to learn how to serve our students better, but the current system of requiring TA’s to pursue professional development on our own time … is not working for our members – not when these opportunities are offered when many of our TA’s are working second or third jobs.”

The district, Robertson added, has told TA’s any new funds for training will have to come out of union members’ wage increases, even though TA’s make just $16,000 per year to start in the district.

‘Open your eyes’

So what does the district want to achieve in bargaining new contracts with educators?

Faber said administrators have proposed making it easier to put teachers on performance-improvement plans, increasing the waiting period before new hires are eligible for benefits and limiting employees’ access to union leave.

“The message is clear,” Faber told members at the rally. “Our district wants to take stuff away. And for educators who are with students every day, they want you to sit down, shut up, take what you’ve been given and do what you’re told. And they also want you to take the blame.”

Still, classroom teachers like Kaufenberg are holding out hope administrators – or their bosses on the school board – can be persuaded to take educators’ demands seriously.

“Maybe they need to join us in our classrooms,” she said. “Spend a couple hours with us, spend a day with us, spend a week with us, and you’ll see it. And if you don’t see it, then you have to open your eyes.”

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

With support from more unions, St. Paul labor federation gains strength

July 31, 2018 by

Working people gain a stronger, more powerful voice when they join together in unions. That’s the basis of collective bargaining and a core principle of the labor movement.

But solidarity works for unions, too. By joining together in coalitions and federations, unions build important bonds that amplify the voice of all working people and advocate for our common interests.

Faced with a relentless wave of corporate attacks on unions and collective bargaining, unions won’t survive unless they stick together.

Three local unions – Bakery Workers Local 22, Teamsters Local 320, and Office and Professional Employees Local 12 – pledged to do just that last month, affiliating with the east metro’s largest labor organization, the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

“We’re excited and honored to welcome these three local unions into our labor family,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said. “There is strength in numbers, and we need to be as strong as possible heading into election season.”

The St. Paul RLF works year round to support its affiliates’ contract, organizing and issue-based campaigns. The federation also recruits, trains and deploys volunteers for Labor 2018, the campaign to elect union-endorsed candidates, in four east-metro counties: Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago.

OPEIU Local 12

Local 12 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union represents more than 2,500 people working in health care operations, credit unions, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, local union offices and other workplaces in Minnesota.

The local’s largest bargaining unit is at HealthPartners, and women make up roughly 80 percent of the union’s total membership.

Ryan Mortensen, Local 12’s business manager, said the political atmosphere for organized labor drove his union’s decision to affiliate with the RLF.

“We alone cannot take this on,” he said. “By affiliating with the St. Paul labor federation, we gain more voice, more power to get our message out across the state and, hopefully, the nation.”

BCTGM Local 22

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 22’s history in St. Paul dates back to 1886, when it was just the Bakers and Confectioners Union. The founding charter still hangs in Local 22’s offices in Minneapolis.

Today, Local 22 represents about 1,800 workers in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, including people working at Pearson’s Candy and Baldinger Bakery in St. Paul.

Union President Bruce Peglow noted the St. Paul RLF provided assistance to Local 22 even before the union affiliated. The RLF stepped up in support of workers at Franklin Street Bakery, whose attempt to form a union has been met with harsh – and sometimes illegal – pushback from management.

“We appreciated that help, and we wanted to help out others in the labor movement as we are able to,” Peglow said. “We’re all stronger when we’re all together. None of us can afford to be an island unto ourselves.”

Teamsters Local 320

Teamsters Local 320 represents 11,500 public employees in all 87 Minnesota counties. They serve cities, townships, counties, school boards and other municipalities in a wide variety of jobs: maintenance workers, lawyers, food service aides, doctors, police and corrections officers, airport workers and more.

Brian Aldes, secretary-treasurer and principal officer, considers Local 320’s diversity to be among its greatest strengths.

“No matter what the member’s craft is, we all have something in common, and that’s being public employees who serve the taxpayers,” Aldes said. “We all understand how important what all of us do is for the public and for our communities.”

Local 320 members also know the importance of electing people to local, state and national office who value the work public employees do. That was among the reasons, Aldes said, the union’s political board voted to affiliate with the RLF.

“We live and die by who we elect to serve in public office,” Aldes said. “We saw what can happen when we don’t have a positive outcome in our presidential elections when the most recent Supreme Court nominee tipped the scales in the Janus case. Now we have nationwide right to work in the public sector.”

Closer to home, Local 320 saw the power of building relationships with elected officials during a difficult round of negotiations with the St. Paul Public Schools over cafeteria workers’ contract.

“We reached out to the St. Paul labor federation and Bobby Kasper, and I’ll tell you, it was an incredible resource to have,” Aldes said. “Whether it’s connections in community-based organizations, school boards, city councils or county boards, the work the labor federation does – and its ability to reach so many households with our message – we just knew we had to be a part of this.

“We’re stronger together.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Workers, parents show unity with St. Paul teachers after strike vote

February 1, 2018 by

A solidarity rally outside the SPFT strike vote drew parents and supporters from other unions. (photo credit: MN Workers United)

Members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers yesterday delivered a powerful message of unity in their drive for a contract that delivers the fully funded, racially equitable schools St. Paul students deserve.

Parents and working people in the district, meanwhile, delivered a message of their own: It’s time for the school district to start listening to educators.

Several unions representing thousands of working people in St. Paul offered up statements of solidarity with SPFT members.

They included Teamsters Local 320, which represents more than 100 Nutrition Services workers in the St. Paul Public Schools. In a letter to the school board and administrators, Secretary-Treasurer Brian Aldes noted that teachers stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Local 320 member fighting for a $15 wage floor last fall.

“It’s time for the District to support its employees and drop the adversarial approach to negotiations,” Aldes wrote. “If the St. Paul Teachers go on strike against the District, please know that they will have the full support of Teamsters Local 320 and its 11,500 strong membership.”

Presidents of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees weighed in with letters to the district as well. Together, the labor groups represent more than 80,000 union members.

“These are moments when leaders need to step up and lead,” MNA President Mary Turner wrote. “And I am urging you to do just that.”

Bobby Kasper, president of the 50,000-member St. Paul RLF, called the district’s approach to negotiations “incredibly disappointing.”

“Our schools work best when educators are valued and their concerns are heard,” Kasper wrote. “Today’s strike vote is a clear indication that isn’t happening… We hope today’s vote serves as a wake-up call to district leaders that it’s time to get serious about negotiations.”

SPFT held its strike-authorization vote at a downtown hotel yesterday, drawing participation from about two-thirds of it 3,700 members. The union represents three bargaining units in negotiations: community service professionals, educational assistants and teachers and licensed staff. All three overwhelmingly backed strike authorization, with over 80 percent support.

The union planned to file notice of members’ intent to strike today, and a work stoppage could begin as early as mid-February.

The two sides have scheduled a return to mediated talks tomorrow. Teachers said they will continue to push for smaller class sizes, restorative practices, support for English language learners, more nurses and librarians and other measures aimed at improving student outcomes and tackling racial disparities.

Support for language programs is among SPFT’s core bargaining proposals.

“Our members are ready to tackle the racial disparities that exist in our schools and in our community, but they need the resources in order to get that done,” SPFT President Nick Faber told hundreds of people gathered for a rally downtown St. Paul Monday. “But our district has refused to talk to us about many of these issues.”

Teachers also aren’t giving up on efforts to build new partnerships with corporations like Ecolab and U.S. Bank that avoid paying property taxes in St. Paul, as well as large nonprofits like Allina Health and Macalester that benefit from property-tax exemptions.

Parents like Kirinda Anderson, whose daughter attends Wellstone Elementary, want the district to team up with teachers and get serious about holding corporate tax-dodgers accountable for draining resources from public schools.

“Instead of going to our schools, our money is going to tax breaks for companies like Ecolab and U.S. Bank,” Anderson said at Monday’s rally. “When they don’t pay their fair share of taxes, they’re depriving our children – kids like my daughter – the education that all children need to be successful… I’m going to call it what it is, and that’s systemic racism.”

“Nobody wants a strike,” Faber added. “None of our members wants to walk away from our students, but sometimes it is the only way workers have to get management to listen.”

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

As Super Bowl approaches, NFL players take sides in local labor standoffs

January 12, 2018 by

As Minnesota prepares to bask in the Super Bowl spotlight, pro football players are using their platform to lift up Minnesota workers fighting for justice and a voice on the job.

Through their union, the NFL Players Association, the athletes are standing in solidarity with bakery workers fighting for a union in Minneapolis and Teamsters weighing a strike at University of Minnesota campuses statewide.

DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFLPA, sent letters this week putting bosses at the university and Franklin Street Bakery on notice that the players stand squarely – and publicly – on the side of working people in Minnesota.

“The NFLPA is a labor union,” Smith wrote to U of M President Eric Kaler on Monday. “In that regard, we do what is necessary to protect the rights of our members and support the efforts of other unionized workers across America.”

At the university, that means supporting members of Teamsters Local 320, who voted in November to authorize a strike after the U balked at their request for contract language strengthening protections against workplace harassment.

The roughly 1,500 custodians, food-service workers and groundskeepers will vote soon on the university’s final contract offer. Union leaders say a vote to reject the offer would trigger a strike, creating a potential conflict for the NFLPA, which plans to hold an event at the U’s alumni center during Super Bowl week.

“We would not have signed the contracts for this event had we known of the pending local labor issues,” Smith wrote to Kaler. “My hope is that the University will resolve all remaining issues with Teamsters Local 320 soon.”

Smith sent a letter Thursday to the CEO of the Super Bowl Host Committee outlining concerns with the glitzy “Taste of the NFL” event, organized annually by Franklin Street Bakery co-owner Wayne Kostroski as a fundraiser for food pantries nationwide. Kostroski, who received a copy of the letter, “doesn’t practice what he preaches” when it comes to his own employees, Smith warned.

“Many Franklin Street Bakery workers are reportedly paid as little as $11 per hour, well below what it takes to sustain a family, raising the real possibility that some of Mr. Kostroski’s own employees are often forced to visit the same food pantries for whom he raises money,” Smith added.

Smith also noted Franklin Street Bakery’s track record of breaking labor law to prevent its workers from organizing for a voice on the job. After the National Labor Relations Board investigated dozens of charges filed by bakery employees, Kostroski and his co-owner last year agreed to a settlement providing $20,000 in back pay to three workers unjustly fired or disciplined for union activity.

But the settlement hasn’t put a stop to bakery workers’ organizing efforts. While Kostroski hobnobs with celebrity chefs and corporate sponsors Feb. 3, his workers will hold a separate event – the “Taste of Justice” – at a union hall just blocks away.

Last year’s “Taste of Justice” raised $1,200 for the food shelf closest to Franklin Street Bakery. The event is free and open to all community supporters. Click here to RSVP on Facebook.

“We stand in full solidarity with our brothers and sisters of the Franklin Street Bakery,” Smith wrote.

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

Teamsters to vote on U’s final contract offer [UPDATED]

January 9, 2018 by

UPDATED 01/24/18 – Members of Teamsters Local 320 have voted to accept the University of Minnesota’s offer, the union announced yesterday.

“Though this vote today is a victory on many pressing items, issues surrounding dignity, re­spect, and working conditions for University Teamsters remain unresolved,” Local 320 Secretary Treasurer Brian Aldes said. “Today we call on the University to address workers’ lasting issues through Meet and Confer and during future contract talks.”

The results of balloting, which took place by mail in recent weeks, mean there will be no strike during the run-up to Super Bowl events at the U.

Highlights of the two-year contract are detailed below.

*****

Teamsters who work at the University of Minnesota will vote soon on whether to accept the U’s final contract offer, received early this morning after a marathon mediation session, or go on strike.

“We will continue to educate the membership on the contract offer, but also continue to prepare for a possible rejection and work stoppage,” Teamsters Local 320 President Sami Gabriel said in a press release issued by the union today.

Local 320 represents about 1,500 university employees, including custodians, food-service workers and groundskeepers throughout the U of M system.

Voting will take place by mail over a two-week period. The union’s bargaining team did not issue a recommendation to members on whether to approve or reject the offer.

The proposed two-year contract makes some progress on issues Local 320 members prioritized in negotiations with the university, including a $15 wage floor. Other compensation-related provisions include $300 lump-sum payments, step increases and, for workers at the top of their pay scales, raises of 2 percent in each year of the contract.

In addition, workers would be allowed to use to six weeks of accrued leave without losing their bid position for assignments, an increase from the current cap of two weeks.

Union members were seeking contract language that would bolster protections for workers against harassment in the workplace. The U’s final offer calls for remaining issues to be “worked out on a continual basis through a Meet and Confer process between Teamsters Local 320 and the University’s Office of Human Resources.”

Brian Aldes, the union’s secretary-treasurer and principal officer, said university workers have some high-profile support in their fight for a fair contract.

“This offer is the culmination of nine months of negotiations and state-facilitated mediation between Teamsters and the University of Minnesota,” Aldes said. “We put the University on notice with strike authorization last November and yesterday we were honored to receive the support of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA).”

Local 320 members aren’t the only university workers voting on a contract proposal this month. Clerical workers at the U, members of AFSCME Local 3800, are taking a ratification vote this week on a proposed two-year contract, reached in negotiations Dec. 13.

AFSCME members, Teamsters and members of other bargaining units will discuss labor relations at the state’s land-grant university during a panel discussion tomorrow night (Jan. 10) at the East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St., St. Paul.

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

Teamsters say U of M policy punishes dining workers who use earned sick time

November 3, 2016 by

Brian Aldes, Local 320's principal officer, leads a rally at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Brian Aldes, Local 320’s principal officer, leads a rally at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

 

On the steps of Morrill Hall Tuesday, front-line staff at the University of Minnesota rallied with other U of M workers, including faculty members seeking a union vote, to protest an attendance policy that, workers say, unfairly disciplines them for getting sick.

Teamsters Local 320, which organized the rally, represents food-service workers at the university who, according to the union, face automatic discipline for exceeding a threshold of three unscheduled “occurrences,” the university’s term for unforeseen uses of sick leave.

The local has filed 30 grievances seeking to rescind disciplinary actions, including one against a dining-hall worker sent home after vomiting.

Brian Aldes, Local 320’s principal officer, said no worker should face discipline for using their earned sick time. “We’re not going away,” he said at the rally. “We’re going to keep the heat up on the U of M.”

Students, researchers and members of other unions joined the rally in solidarity with Local 320 members. Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner called food-service workers’ access to sick leave “a public health issue,” and Geoffrey Rojas, president of the U’s Postdoctoral Association, said sick time is essential for workers with disabilities or chronic health issues “in order to be productive at work.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Debra Hillstrom (DFL-Brooklyn Center), a U of M graduate, took the opportunity to show her support for another of Local 320’s campaigns. “I would be proud to have a university that paid everyone a $15 minimum wage,” she said.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Colleagues, labor community mourn Teamster fatally shot during traffic stop

July 7, 2016 by

castile-320

Philando Castile, the man fatally shot during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights last night, was a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul and a member of Teamsters Local 320.

Officers of Castile’s union today expressed grief at the sudden loss of their union brother, “an amazing person who did his job at St. Paul Public Schools because he loved the children he served,” Local 320 President Sami Gabriel said.

Grief gave way to frustration today, as hundreds gathered outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul to remember Castile and demand justice for his family. Classmates and colleagues from the school district took the microphone to express anger at seeing another interaction with law enforcement turn fatal for a person of color.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28, which represents teachers and support staff in the St. Paul district, released a statement calling Castile’s shooting “unjustifiable” and urging members to attend a vigil for his family at J.J. Hill, 998 Selby Ave., at 5:30 p.m. tonight.

“Structural racism is real and present in our country and our community,” SPFT’s statement said. “We are horrified by the number of black citizens and youth dying as a result of police shootings. These are incidences our students are watching and living daily. We can, and must, do better.”

‘Enthusiasm and fist bumps’

Castile, who was 32, began working for the St. Paul school district in 2002. A graduate of St. Paul Central High School, he was well known among students and staff at J.J. Hill, Principal Fatima Lawson said in a letter to the school’s families and staff.

“He welcomed students to the lunchroom with enthusiasm and fist bumps,” Lawson wrote. “Teachers and staff loved working with him and he frequently greeted former colleagues with a smile and a hug. This is a tragic loss for our school, our staff and his family. Our hearts go out to all who knew him and we will definitely miss his presence this fall.”

Minnesota teachers asked for a moment of silence to remember Castile during the National Education Association’s assembly in Washington D.C. this morning, joining teachers from Louisiana who mourned the loss of another black man, Alton Sterling, shot by police Tuesday in Baton Rouge. (Video)

Central High School teacher Kimberly Colbert asked delegates to “send prayers and healing thoughts” to St. Paul. “Please remember him, as we remember all the victims of the horrible violence that’s been going on in our country,” she added.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Governor's Residence in St. Paul today to call for justice in the shooting of Phil Castile.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul today to call for justice in the shooting of Phil Castile.

A double standard

The shootings of Castile and Sterling drew nationwide attention, including condolences from the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

“Philando Castile was a union member, and so his family is our family,” Trumka said.

Earlier this year the AFL-CIO brought its Commission on Racial and Economic Justice to the Twin Cities, and both Trumka and Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy reiterated their commitment to dealing with racism as a labor issue.

“Labor cannot and will not sit on the sidelines when it comes to racial justice,” Trumka said. “It is not enough to simply say ‘Black Lives Matter.’ We must and will continue to fight for reforms in policing and to address issues of racial and economic inequality.”

McCarthy, meanwhile, called for a thorough, impartial investigation of Castile’s death, while acknowledging a troubling “double standard” African Americans face in dealings with police.

Castile is the 136th black person fatally injured by law enforcement in the U.S. this year, according to The Guardian, which tracks people killed by U.S. law enforcement agencies on its website. Blacks and Native Americans have been much more likely to be killed by police in 2016 than any other ethnic group, according to the site.

“Whether the bias is intentional or not, too many African American men find themselves on the receiving end of deadly force,” McCarthy said. “There are no quick and easy solutions to this all too familiar incident. These are complex problems that will require tough conversations and decisions.

“Minnesota’s Labor movement remains committed to helping address the racial inequalities, in both the economic and criminal justice systems, that continue to persist in our state and nation.”

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»