To stop cycle of cuts, St. Paul educators back levy referendum

October 25, 2018 by

spps-levy-logoJust months after emerging from a fractious round of contract negotiations, St. Paul educators, board members and administrators are pulling in the same direction this fall, urging voters to approve an operating levy worth an additional $18.6 million in annual school funding for the district.

The new funds would help the St. Paul Public Schools address revenue shortfalls that have forced over $50 million in programming, staff and other budget cuts over the last three years. This school year, the district shaved an additional $17.2 million from its budget.

A number of factors outside the district’s control have contributed to the budget woes, but the biggest factor, district leaders say, is the state government’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t kept pace with rising education costs. Mandated special education services, for example, cost the district $42 million more annually than the funding it receives to provide those services.

With so much uncertainty, SPPS Superintendent Joe Gothard said the levy increase would provide the district with greater budget stability, freeing schools and educators to focus less on where to cut and more on the students they serve.

“We have great work happening every day in our schools, but it is a challenge to sustain our efforts,” Gothard said. “We see this levy as a investment in making sure St. Paul continues to be a great place to live, work and learn.”

Members of the St. Paul educators’ union began mobilizing in support of the levy as the new school year began, pursuing an ambitious plan to knock the door of every educator living in the district. Beth Swanberg, a music teacher at Highland Park Middle School, said her conversations at the doors have been positive.

“People in St. Paul are supportive of public schools,” Swanberg said. “There is a history of quality education here, and people have told me they want to continue that.”

A game of ‘what if?’

Indeed, the stakes are high for students, parents and educators. Long gone are the days when districts like St. Paul went to voters with levy requests to fund the extras that might enrich their schools’ programming.

“Now we’re trying to do a levy referendum to make up for the cuts that have come down from our state Legislature,” union president Nick Faber said.

Last month the North Star Policy Institute unveiled a new report, “Minnesota Backslide,” that charts the decline in state funding to local school districts. Researchers found 93 percent of school districts statewide are receiving less aid today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than in 2003, when state lawmakers overhauled the school funding system. In half of districts statewide, state funding has dropped by more than 10 percent.

The state’s failure to keep school funding steady has forced most school districts to seek property-tax levies to bridge the gap.

St. Paul is no exception. If state funding had kept up with inflation over the past 15 years, SPPS would have received nearly $620 more per student this year. That’s a total of $21.6 million in lost funds – a number that leaves a lot of educators wondering “what if?”

“If we could actually start to recoup the funding that we’ve lost over the last 20 years and have that referendum on top of it, imagine the things that we could do,” Faber said. “With the knowledge that our educators have here in St. Paul, with their willingness to tackle racial equity head on, we could accomplish so much with that kind of funding.”

“I often wonder what I would request for my students if we had more funds, and it’s hard to even imagine because I’m so used to not having any extras,” Highland Park Middle School teacher Leah VanDassor said. “It’s been so many years of cuts, cuts, cuts at every level.”

VanDassor, Swanberg and other St. Paul educators aren’t just talking with voters about the levy. They are also trying to paint the bigger picture, urging support for labor-endorsed candidates at the top of the ballot who will reinvest in public schools. That includes Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor.

But VanDassor acknowledged “any fundamental change will not be fast,” and the immediate needs of her students are great.

Trusting the voters

The levy campaign has broad support from the community. The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation has endorsed it, and so has St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who called SPPS the “lifeblood” of his community.

Only a year removed from campaigning citywide for the mayor’s office, Carter said he has faith people living in the school district will join him in voting “yes.” The investment, Carter added, goes hand in hand with his administration’s work to realign city programming to meet the needs of St. Paul’s changing population – and include more voices.

“We’re not just going to say we can do more for our children,” he said. “We’re actually going to do more for our children.

“I’m confident the city will step forward.”

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On right to work and prevailing wage, it’s Walz … or Wisconsin

October 24, 2018 by

Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor, is pictured speaking at a union rally in 2016.

When Tim Walz addressed delegates to the Minnesota Building Trades’ annual convention in Duluth over the summer, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor did not mince words, giving the labor leaders and union stewards a message to take back to their union halls.

“People will tell you, ‘I’m not into politics,’” Walz said. “You tell them too damn bad because politics is into you.

“The choice is Walz or Wisconsin when it comes to organized labor. It’s that simple.”

Walz was referencing the string of attacks Wisconsin union members saw on their wages, benefits and freedom to join together after Republicans, led by Gov. Scott Walker, seized total control of the state’s government eight years ago.

It began with Act 10, which gutted the collective bargaining power of teachers and other public-sector workers in 2011. Four years later Walker signed a right-to-work bill, weakening the bargaining power of all unions.

And last year, Wisconsin Republicans unleashed a pair of attacks on union tradespeople and their quality of life. One law banned local governments from entering into project labor agreements, which establish fair wage and benefit standards on construction projects. Another repealed the state’s prevailing-wage law, which builds fair wages into the public construction bidding process.

But it hasn’t just happened in Wisconsin.

“We’ve got to keep Minnesota from going the way of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico – all states that since 2012 have gone right to work, have banned project labor agreements and have eliminated prevailing wage,” said Tony McGarvey, government affairs liaison for District 82 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

Already, the effects of Wisconsin’s anti-worker agenda are noticeable even here in Minnesota.

In Rochester, where construction of a Destination Medical Center has helped create a booming job market for tradespeople, Painters Local 681 rep Scott Parker said he sees an “influx of union workers coming over from Wisconsin,” where they would earn less for doing the same work.

“If we go right to work, where do we go? North Dakota? South Dakota? Wisconsin? Iowa?” Parker said. “We are an island surrounded by right to work. Where will I go to make the money I’m making now?”

Prevailing wage: A case study

No issue better represents what’s at stake for construction workers in this election than prevailing wage.

Minnesota’s prevailing wage laws establish wage floors in regions across the state that contractors must agree to meet in order to win bids on publicly funded construction projects. The principle behind the law is that workers should be able to afford to live in the area where they find work.

Opponents argue that repealing the law would save taxpayers money, and as a former state legislator, it’s an argument Carly Melin, now executive director of the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council, has heard plenty of times.

“We know repealing prevailing wage doesn’t save the public any money,” Melin said. “The contractor still makes the money, it’s just the workers who see less of it in their paychecks.”

The vast majority of peer-reviewed academic studies on prevailing wage support Melin’s claim, according to a report issued earlier this year by researchers at the nonpartisan Midwest Economic Policy Institute and Colorado State University-Pueblo.

The report concludes that if Minnesota joins its neighbors in repealing prevailing wage, tradespeople stand to lose their wage advantage and more. “Minnesota’s prevailing wage law supports self-sufficient construction workers,” the report’s authors, Frank Manzo and Dr. Kevin Duncan, concluded.

By comparing data from seven Upper Midwest states, the report found Minnesota tradespeople are doing better than their counterparts in Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin – states without strong (or any) prevailing wage laws. Because Minnesota still has prevailing wage on the books, construction workers here see 5.2 percent higher incomes, are more likely to have health and pension benefits, and are less likely to rely on food stamps.

Threat to apprenticeship

In fact, rather than driving up public construction costs, the researchers found Minnesota’s prevailing wage law actually delivers significant value to the state in terms of workforce development.

By setting a higher wage floor, the law guarantees local union contractors a fair shake at publicly bid construction projects. And when Building Trades union members are working, a portion of their wages are deducted to help fund their unions’ apprenticeship training programs, which provide world-class training opportunities to thousands of Minnesotans without any government funding.

Without prevailing wage, the authors conclude, Minnesota contractors who participate in apprenticeship training programs would lose more bids to “fly-by-night contractors from neighboring states with low wages, resulting in fewer training opportunities (not to mention shoddier infrastructure).

That’s the reality Building Trades union members are now facing in states like Wisconsin and Michigan – labor strongholds where “we never would have thought they would repeal prevailing wage,” Melin said. And it’s a threat Minnesota’s Building Trades unions are hoping to keep at bay by electing Tim Walz governor Nov. 6.

“If it can happen in Wisconsin and it can happen in Michigan, then it can happen in Minnesota,” Melin said. “We have a lot at stake.”

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Postal unions call National Day of Action to stop privatization

October 3, 2018 by

Postal Service employees and their customers will rally across the country Monday in opposition to President Trump’s proposal to privatize the U.S. mail.

The National Day of Action has support from all four postal unions, including the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU).

In the Twin Cities, union members and supporters will rally over the noon hour Oct. 8, outside the Minneapolis Post Office, 307 S. 4th Ave.

Trump announced his interest in turning over the USPS to private hands in June, and his administration later directed a task force to look into overhauling the mail.

That committee has yet to release its report, but the idea of privatization already has drawn formal – and bipartisan – resistance in Congress.

Last month, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith joined 26 colleagues from both parties in co-sponsoring a resolution to keep the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the federal government.

“It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the federal government and is not subject to privatization in whole or in part,” the resolution said.

A similar resolution in the House has drawn 197 co-sponsors, including four from Minnesota: Reps. Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, Rick Nolan and Collin Peterson.

Fully privatizing the Postal Service would require Congress to act, and the early, bipartisan support for the resolutions indicate Trump has a steep hill to climb if he pushes forward on the issue.

But postal unions aren’t taking any chances. They warn that privatization would increase prices for consumers, threaten service in rural parts of the country and undermine good jobs.

What’s more, privatization is a solution in search of a problem. The USPS is self-sufficient; taxpayers do not subsidize its operations.

“Privatizing the Postal Service is not in the public interest or the interest of postal workers and would be nothing more than a raid by corporate pirates on a national treasure,” the APWU said in a statement.

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Bobby Kasper: Our movement is on the rise, but we can’t stop now

August 31, 2018 by

Bobby Kasper

(Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, which represents more than 100 affiliate unions with over 50,000 members living or working in Ramsey, Washington, Dakota and Chisago counties.)

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer in Minnesota. But at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, it’s the beginning of an all-out push to elect candidates who share our vision for a fair and just economy.

It’s important work – this year more than ever before – and we can’t do it alone. We need union members and retirees like you to get involved as Labor 2018 volunteers.

How will our volunteers make a difference? By doing what organizers do best: talking to each other. Our volunteers reach out to fellow working people by phone and at the door, and remind them how much is at stake this year, from our paychecks and benefits to our basic dignity on the job.

Working people have the power to create the fair economy we deserve, and right now is the perfect opportunity to put our power to work. Why now? Because something is happening in America.

Our movement is on the rise.

As a wave of collective action sweeps the country, working people are standing together to demand what we deserve. We are marching and striking and organizing. We are refusing to accept business as usual.

For too long now, corporations have tried to keep us weak and divided. They have rigged the economy to work for the few at the expense of the many. They have tried to destroy our unions and pit us against each other. And too many of America’s leaders have done their bidding, waging an assault on our most fundamental freedoms.

As a result, the wealth of a few corporate elites continues to reach unprecedented heights, while working people are left out of the immense prosperity we create every day. CEOs now earn 361 times the average worker, and we still are denied the wages, health care retirement security and quality of life that we have earned.

Rather than taking action to unrig our economy, too many politicians in Washington are only interested in making it worse. Look no further than the tax scam passed this year by President Trump and congressional Republicans, including our own Jason Lewis. They promised these cuts, targeted overwhelmingly toward corporations and the rich, would lead to raises for workers like us. Instead, we’re seeing corporations reward their executives and buy back their own stock.

Of course, as union members we have never looked to corporations or politicians to validate our movement. The rights of working people have always been won and sustained by our own desire and passion for change.

Our power lies in the hundreds of thousands of workers carrying new union cards – three-quarters of them younger than 35. It lies in the tens of millions more who would vote today to join a union if given the chance. Our movement’s capacity for change lies in the workers across the country who are standing together, marching together and fighting together, arms locked in unflinching solidarity.

The midterm elections present the next critical opportunity to secure a brighter future. We can reverse course and start building an America that works for all of us by winning on Nov. 6.

We have the power to create the fair economy and just society that we deserve. And that means making our voices heard loud and clear on the campaign trail – and, in the process, electing labor-endorsed candidates like Tim Walz for governor. We are mobilizing locally to defeat corporate-backed politicians and fill the halls of power with genuine allies of working families. Victory in November will be delivered by conversations between friends, family and co-workers. More than anyone, you have the ability to win hearts and minds and ensure that working people have a say in the future of our country.

Are you ready to make history? Find a volunteer shift that works for you, or call us at 651-222-3787. Let’s put the power of working people on full display this election season.

Have a great Labor Day!

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Labor unites behind Walz for governor

August 16, 2018 by

Tim Walz talks with union members at a Helmets to Hardhats event in Duluth last month.

After emerging as the Minnesota DFL’s nominee for governor on primary-election night, Tim Walz today won the endorsement of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

With the endorsement, Minnesota’s unions join forces to elect one of their own to the state’s highest office. Walz worked as a classroom teacher and coach for 20 years before winning a seat in Congress, and he was a member of Education Minnesota, the statewide educators union.

Because of his experience as a teacher and union member, Walz “understands first-hand the importance of protecting working people’s freedom to join together in union to negotiate a fair return on their work,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy said.

Keeping an ally in the governor’s office is the top election-year priority for the federation and its 1,000-plus affiliate unions, which represent more than 300,000 working people statewide.

Union members have much at stake. Since the 2010 election, Minnesota and Gov. Mark Dayton have charted a very different course than most other Midwestern states, where Republican governors have pursued a steady erosion of working people’s freedoms.

Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin passed “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions’ bargaining power. The same three states recently repealed prevailing-wage laws that build fair wages into the bidding process for public construction projects – a direct attack on union tradespeople’s quality of life.

And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker remains infamous for Act 10, a blunt attack on public workers’ wages, benefits and union rights that served as a model for GOP lawmakers in other Midwest states – and aspiring lawmakers, too. Walz’s opponent in the Nov. 6 election, Jeff Johnson, promised during his failed campaign for governor four years ago that he would “go all Scott Walker on Minnesota” if elected.

Dayton, meanwhile, signed legislation expanding collective bargaining rights to more than 20,000 home care workers, and he used his veto pen to fend off Walker-inspired style attacks on public workers and prevailing wage.

Unions trust Walz to govern similarly.

“Working people can count on Minnesota AFL-CIO endorsed candidates to share our values,” Secretary-Treasurer Brad Lehto said. “We can count on Tim and Peggy because they value our freedom to negotiate a fair return on our work, so we can provide for our families; workplaces where we are safe and respected; and the freedom to retire with dignity.”

At a union-sponsored debate in February, Walz told activists he would be an “organizer-in-chief” as governor. “This is about us taking a message beyond the four walls that we’re in,” he said.

He also said he would recruit teachers and high-road businesses from Wisconsin, where Walker’s anti-union agenda has driven educators away from the profession and left wages stagnant.

Prior to representing the 1st Congressional District in southern Minnesota, Walz taught and coached football at Mankato West High School for 12 years. He was named Mankato Teacher of the Year and a Minnesota Teacher of Excellence in 2003.

Walz also served 24 years in the Army National Guard, including a deployment overseas in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He retired in 2005 as a command sergeant major, the highest-ranking enlisted National Guard soldier in southern Minnesota.

Flanagan is a state lawmaker from St. Louis Park and former director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota. She is a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe.

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Candidates for governor vie for labor support at state AFL-CIO forum

February 16, 2018 by

The four leading DFL candidates for governor made their pitch to union activists from across Minnesota today at a forum in St. Paul, promising to support working people and their organizations if elected.

State Reps. Erin Murphy and Tina Liebling, U.S. Rep. Tim Walz and State Auditor Rebecca Otto were united in their opposition to right-to-work legislation and support for union organizing and collective bargaining.

[Watch the full debate on the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Facebook page.]

Bargaining rights and professional standards would be off the table in Capitol negotiations with Republicans under her administration, Murphy said. Otto pledged to be the “most pro-labor governor since Floyd B. Olson.” Walz cast himself as an “organizer in chief.” Liebling spoke of finding inspiration in the iconic photos of Memphis sanitation workers carrying “I am a man” signs.

Unions, Liebling added, are “about human dignity and freedom, about being able to stand together and fight to have a decent life.”

The candidates also brandished their union credentials. Murphy is a member and past executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, Otto and Walz are former members of Education Minnesota, and Liebling was a steward in her union when she worked as a public defender. All four said they had walked a picket line in the last year – “in heels,” Murphy quipped.

When it came to issues, the candidates frequently agreed. They supported raising the minimum wage, expanding free access to higher education and protecting public pensions. Minnesota’s next governor, they agreed, should get the state on track to a single-payer health care system, crack down on wage theft and make needed investments in infrastructure and public schools.

The candidates differed, of course, over who among them could best sell a bold, progressive vision for shared prosperity to Minnesota voters.

Otto, the only candidate on stage who has won a statewide election, said her focus on “bread and butter issues” would resonate best. “The DFL should never be afraid to run on an economic populism message,” she added.

Walz and Liebling touted their success winning in traditionally conservative areas, flipping red districts to blue. Voters are anxious about their economic security, Walz said, but in 2016 they didn’t hear a message from labor-endorsed candidates that spoke to their concerns.

“This is about us taking a message beyond the four walls that we’re in,” he said. “As much as having the right idea, it’s being able to articulate it to those very people who are casting votes and are going to be impacted by it.”

Instead of taking shots at each other, the candidates targeted their criticism at President Trump, likely GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Pawlenty and Wisconsin’s anti-worker governor, Scott Walker.

Murphy said her administration would take action where the federal government is failing to lead, on issues like immigration and rising student debt loads, which are “inhibiting young people’s ability to participate fully in our economy,” she said.

Otto said she would “clean Pawlenty’s clock” in a general election matchup. Walz said he would aggressively recruit teachers and high-road businesses from Wisconsin, where Walker’s anti-union agenda has driven educators away from the profession and left wages stagnant.

“If the states are the laboratories of democracies … that laboratory’s on fire right now,” Walz said of Wisconsin.

The debate capped the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2018 Campaigns Conference, two days of workshops, panel discussions and trainings for political activists and organizers.

The event kicked off labor’s statewide political campaign, Labor 2018. Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy, the state’s highest-ranking labor leader, said electing a labor-endorsed governor will be labor’s No. 1 goal in a busy election season. The state House of Representatives is up for election, as are both of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seats.

“It’s going to be up to all of us to get the word out to fellow union members why this election is so important,” McCarthy said. “I think you heard (why) from the candidates here today.”

Marcia Avner, a nonprofit leader and longtime progressive voice, moderated the forum. She did not mince words about the stakes for 2018.

“We need to elect a governor whose values and actions serve the working people of Minnesota,” Avner said. “We cannot afford to lose.”

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

Retirees back bill to get troubled pension funds on track

December 4, 2017 by

Retirees packed the UFCW Local 1189 union hall for a rally with U.S. Reps. Tim Walz and Rick Nolan.

Federal legislation introduced last month would lend cash to ailing pension funds so they can meet their obligations to current retirees and grow enough to serve people still working toward retirement.

The Butch Lewis Act, authored by Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, received a full-throated endorsement from retirees, union leaders and lawmakers at a rally organized by Save Our Pensions-Minnesota on Saturday.

Over 100 people, mostly retired and active Teamsters in the beleaguered Central States Pension Fund, packed the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 hall in South St. Paul to learn more about the new bill, which has bipartisan support.

“This is not a bailout,” Save Our Pensions co-chair Jeff Brooks told fellow retirees. “This is essentially a refinancing plan.”

The bill is named after the deceased Central States pensioner who led efforts to stop the fund from cutting benefits for 273,000 retirees. The Treasury Department rejected that so-called “rescue strategy” in May 2016, after Save Our Pensions-Minnesota and other grassroots organizations mobilized retirees in opposition to the plan.

Still, the fund claims it will run out of money sometime in the next 10 years, and it’s not the only U.S. multi-employer pension fund in trouble. An analysis by two actuarial consulting firms released earlier this year found 114  funds – covering nearly 1.5 million workers – in critical condition or worse.

The Butch Lewis Act would create a new federal office, funded by the sale of U.S. Treasury bonds, empowered to lend troubled pensions the money they need to remain solvent.

Funds would pay back the low-interest loans over 30 years. In exchange, they would be barred from making risky investments and required to deliver regular progress reports to federal administrators showing their progress in getting back on track.

For those plans needing additional help, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation would be available to make up the difference.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, in a previously recorded video address to Saturday’s rally, called the bill a “win-win” for retirees and pension plans alike. “No more stalling,” she said. “No more false promises. We need to act now.”

DFL Reps. Rick Nolan and Tim Walz attended the rally and pledged their support as well.

“If this country can’t provide a decent retirement to its people, then what do we stand for?” Walz asked.

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