Jennifer Christensen: ‘We really are dedicated, as a union, to everyone doing better’

August 24, 2021 by

UFCW Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen spoke at a Capitol press conference in 2016.

Jennifer Christensen’s career with the United Food and Commercial Workers started over 30 years ago as a part-time deli worker at Cub Foods, and it will end this month, when she retires as president of South St. Paul- and Duluth-based UFCW Local 1189.

She was the first woman to serve as president of the 10,000-member local, which represents workers in retail stores, nursing homes, hospitals, food processing plants, the state’s medical cannabis industry and beyond.

But in this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Christensen said she preferred to focus not on “the girl thing,” but on the work that has made Local 1189 a successful, fighting union with a bright future.

UA: What drove your interest in union leadership?

JC: When I went to work in the Cottage Grove deli part time, I set out in my mind to get the store director’s job. Then I got a full-time promotion working seafood when the Apple Valley store opened, and SuperValu paid for me to finish my degree. And I had for some time been trying to be a union meatcutter – I wanted to be a carpenter when I was younger, and being a meatcutter was almost like being a carpenter, only you took things apart rather than putting them together – and I finally got a job as a meatcutter apprentice when they opened the Midway store…

But before I became a meatcutter, I was on the negotiating committee of a different local in 1995… After that experience, I decided right then and there that if I ever got a chance to run a local, I would never run it that way!

UA: Eventually you got your chance, getting elected secretary-treasurer in 2003 and president in 2016. Did you stay true to that approach?

JC: I strongly believe that workers will always make the right decision for themselves, their families and even their employer – if they’re given true and honest information. Workers are smart, and regardless of how long they’ve been there or what wage they make, you need to respect their intelligence. It’s their workplace. It’s their union. That’s been the driving factor for me, taken from those experiences I had along the way.

UA: What have you learned about leadership?

JC: To purposefully take time to thank people and appreciate people and have conversations and build solidarity. Sometimes we keep calling on the same people, and we’re wearing people out. We need to find the joy in solidarity. The struggle is long. Stop and have a drink of water. Have a beer. And then go on.

UA: Local 1189 represents such a diverse group. How would you characterize your local’s identity?

JC: I find that the more we learn about each other and our neighbors, the stronger we are. Because we are a diverse local, we have in our culture that we support people in other industries. It’s not all about us! We are really dedicated, as a union, to everyone doing better.

Local 1189 and President Jennifer Christensen hosted a food giveaway in South St. Paul earlier this year.

UA: How has Local 1189 navigated COVID?

JC: The vast majority of our members are essential. Our members had to face the pandemic every day, head on. And we’re all fortunate that they are professionals and committed to what they do, so they did show up every day. They stayed. They worked. People adjusted their lives in order to rise to the challenge, even if it was scary. They’re heroes.

It took and is taking a toll. But we as a union did not let them go through that alone. We continued to come to work. We worked to make sure that the union representatives of essential workers were also essential, so that we could stand beside them, getting information out to people, making ourselves available, providing our members with masks or face shields…

UA: There was an outpouring of appreciation at the start of the pandemic for the essential work we too often take for granted. Do you think that will last?

JC: We all want to get back to normal, and some of normalcy is the ability to take things for granted like going to the grocery store and finding food and toilet paper. Our folks, we’ve always known what an integral part of the community they are. Everyone else found out, and I think from time to time we’ll all kind of remember still.

UA: What are you going to miss in retirement? And what are you looking forward to?

JC: I’ll miss being able to give people answers, giving people the right information. I will miss my staff and friends in the labor community. I’ll miss seeing the accomplishments we make as unions and being part of it, watching people grow in their power.

I’m going to do some pottery. I don’t know that I look forward to weeding my garden, but my garden might be looking forward to that.

Filed Under: Labor Voices Tagged With: , , ,

Medical cannabis workers ‘insulted’ by MN grower’s contract offer

July 9, 2021 by

When Vireo Health needed help lobbying state lawmakers to expand Minnesota’s medical cannabis program, employees and their union stepped up, helping push the measure across the finish line in May.

Unfortunately, that spirit of cooperation has not extended to the bargaining table this summer.

Workers at Vireo Health’s Otsego growing facility and eight Green Goods cannabis patient centers across the state voted unanimously to reject the employer’s “last, best and final” contract proposal in June, a month after their previous agreement expired.

The unanimous vote by members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 came despite a charm campaign led by Vireo’s CEO, who traveled across the state to meet with workers in person and urge them to vote “yes” on a contract that would eliminate annual wage progressions, among other takebacks.

Greenhouse worker Nate Noel called the company’s contract offer “insulting,” particularly in light of the union’s contribution to the successful lobbying push, which will allow Vireo Health and other manufacturers to introduce cannabis flower to its available treatments.

“They got what they wanted, and now they’re backtracking,” Noel said. “And it’s really disheartening that our efforts are being diminished while the fruits of our labor are going to be more publicly visible once we start selling flower.”

At the same time, Vireo Health stands to be much more profitable. In a recent promotional release, the company cited “growth catalysts driven by changing regulatory frameworks,” among other factors, in projecting revenue of up to $180 million in the coming fiscal year. That’s more than double the previous year’s amount.

Local 1189 members say Vireo’s contract demands would cut them – and, more drastically, the company’s future hires – out of those gains. The proposal would replace annual wage progressions, also known as “steps,” with across-the-board raises, and it would implement lower wage scales for new hires.

“They are trying to transition our work to more of a dead-end job with no opportunity for growth, and it’s not being received well,” Noel said. “How often do 55 people completely agree that something is a terrible offer?”

[Sign a petition in support of Vireo Health and Green Goods workers here.]

Adding to workers’ frustrations, management at Green Goods patient centers made a unilateral decision recently to retrofit workstations originally designed for use while sitting, forcing workers to stand for the entirety of their shifts.

“They want to create more of a retail environment,” Local 1189 organizer Claire Van den Berghe said, noting that cannabis patient centers are legally classified as health care facilities. “I’ve been to every one of the patient care centers, and they are not as busy as your usual retail store.”

Workers who accepted jobs with the understanding they would be able to sit most of the workday are now being forced to adjust – or pay for a consultation with a doctor in the hopes of forcing Vireo to make accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Van den Berghe said.

“People are really upset about their desks being taken away.”

Noel, the fifth employee hired by the company – formerly Minnesota Medical Solutions – after its founding in 2014, said employees are determined to take a stand for good wages and a voice on the job now, while the industry is still in its relative infancy. Noel noted that he already has reached the top pay scale, meaning the company’s effort to replace wage progressions from the contract would have no impact on him.

“The company has been growing and expanding, and we feel like the workers have been left behind,” Noel said. “We all feel fortunate to do what we do. A big part of our interest is a good deal for the people that will someday replace us at work as we move on or retire.”

Local 1189 has filed charges of unfair labor practices against the company. Workers’ plans to picket facilities in late June were called off after management agreed to additional talks, scheduled to resume later this month.

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

Grocery workers ask you to #ShopSmart during pandemic

April 27, 2020 by

Members of UFCW Local 1189 are keeping food and critical supplies on the shelves of local grocery stores, but they’re asking for our help keeping themselves – and all of us – healthy.

Going grocery shopping? Retail workers have a few polite requests for your consideration.

Wear a mask if you have one. Go alone if you can. Keep six feet between you and others in the store. And don’t leave trash – especially not gloves or tissues – on the floor.

In other words, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen said, “shop smart” until the pandemic is over – please and thank you.

“It’s about keeping yourself safe, keeping the workers safe and keeping the community safe,” said Christensen, whose union represents workers at Cub Foods, Jerry’s, Kowalskis, Lunds and Byerlys, Festival, Cooper’s, Oxendales and other union grocers in the east-metro area.

“It’s about all of us doing the right thing to ensure that everybody has safe access to food.”

Bakery Workers (BCTGM) Local 22 represents people working inside many of the same stores. Union President Wally Borgen said most employers have made unions aware of management’s plans for dealing with potential exposure to COVID-19, with many committed to a full facility shutdown for deep cleaning.

To prevent that from happening, employers are taking extreme precautions, Borgen added.

“Most companies are following a very diligent sanitizing plan, many with dedicated employees who simply spend the entire day sanitizing and re-sanitizing any surface that is touched frequently,” he said. “Most of them are also enforcing the 20-second hand washing rule, some literally observing with stop watches and issuing discipline to employees who don’t do a good enough job.”

So far, it’s worked well.

Minnesota has avoided the fate of areas forced to limit the number of customers allowed into the store at one time, or consider delivery-only options. And union members, many of whom are earning bonus “appreciation pay” during the pandemic, want to keep it that way.

“Our members are going to work, and I know they’re happy to be working, proud to be working,” Christensen said. “And they want to stay working, but that means they need to stay healthy.”

The UFCW’s international union launched the #ShopSmart campaign on social media and other channels earlier this month after a poll of some 5,000 members found 85% said customers are not practicing social distancing, 62% said customers are blaming employees for shortages and 43% reported instances of customers shouting at employees

“We really are all in this together,” Christensen said. “It’s a people business, and it’s hard to get away from people in these stores. They weren’t built for social distancing. But you can get six feet apart if you try, and that’s what we’re asking.”

As of last week’s print deadline, no UFCW Local 1189 grocery workers had tested positive for COVID-19, nor had any member of BCTGM Local 22.

 

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

Enthusiasm high among labor volunteers as Election Day nears

October 29, 2018 by

Labor 2018 volunteers pack UFCW Local 1189’s union hall in South St. Paul for a rally before knocking doors in the East Metro.

With the finish line in sight, national union leaders and labor-endorsed candidates fired up union volunteers Saturday in South St. Paul, urging them to keep working to turn out labor voters for the midterm election Nov. 6.

“We’ve got 10 days until the day that will determine the direction of our nation,” AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride told over 150 people ready to knock doors in St. Paul and nearby suburbs. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

McBride was one of two national labor leaders who traveled to Minnesota for the weekend campaign push. Political strategists are closely watching congressional races here that could be pivotal in determining control of Congress for the next two years.

“The reason we came in from Washington, D.C. is because all eyes are on Minnesota right now,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler, the nation’s second highest ranking labor leader, said.

Keith Ellison, the labor-endorsed candidate for attorney general in Minnesota, gets backing from AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler.
St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper fired up volunteers during a Labor 2018 door knock in October.
A volunteer captures remarks by labor-endorsed lieutenant governor candidate Peggy Flanagan on video.
Angie Craig, the labor-endorsed candidate in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, speaks at a rally with labor volunteers in South St. Paul.
AFSCME volunteer Sheila Pokorny lets out a cheer.

 

Several candidates running with labor support in key races joined the rally.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is running to keep the seat she’s held since being appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton to replace Al Franken. Smith thanked union volunteers for getting more voters to the polls.

“We have a job to do in this democracy, and that is to participate,” she said.

Angie Craig is running “to make Jason Lewis a one-term congressman,” she said, in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. Craig lost the third-closest U.S. House race in the country two years ago. She scored a standing ovation from volunteers when she said Congress should amend federal labor law to make right to work illegal.

“If you want to make America great again, you make unions great again in this country,” she said.

Both Smith and Craig are getting a boost from the Labor 2018 campaign, which has union volunteers reaching out to working Minnesotans at their front doors, on their phones and on social media. Since August, volunteers with the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation – just one of six regional labor bodies in the state – have attempted over 80,000 direct contacts with union members, retirees or their family members.

Labor 2018 is the most ambitious political push the state’s unions have ever attempted, and it’s tapping into enthusiasm among union activists, women voters and others who have had Nov. 6, 2018, circled on their calendars since Trump took office.

The Labor 2018 campaign’s top priority is electing Tim Walz governor. Walz’s running mate, state Rep. Peggy Flanagan, attended the rally, hosted by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189.

“Let’s be the wave for Walz,” McBride urged volunteers. “Let’s be the workers’ wave, the women’s wave.”

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

Letter Carriers’ food drive restocks local food shelves

May 12, 2018 by

Blong Moua, a Letter Carrier at Eastern Heights Post Office in Oakdale, unloads his truck on Stamp Out Hunger day 2018.

Stamp Out Hunger is the nation’s largest one-day food drive, and it’s powered by union members.

Letter Carriers across the country collected non-perishable food along their routes today for delivery to local food pantries. The carriers’ union, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), organizes the food drive each year.

Other unions co-sponsor the event, including the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the AFL-CIO.

For St. Paul-based UFCW Local 1189, it’s a natural partnership. UFCW members work in many of the grocery stores where people shop for their food donations. That includes Cub Foods, where Second Harvest Heartland sets up collection centers on Stamp Out Hunger day.

Local 1189 volunteers adopted collection sites in Oakdale and Cottage Grove this year, helping Letter Carriers unload their trucks and packing donations into semi-trailers.

“It’s kind of fun,” Local 1189 member Dennis McMahon, who works at Cub Foods in White Bear Lake, said as he unloaded mail trucks in Oakdale. Volunteering for the third time, he said the event offers a chance to “get together with some people you don’t see as much as you’d like to,” as well as support a good cause.

UFCW Local 1189 volunteers in Oakdale include (L to R) James Westin, Manzoor Wangnoo, Diana Tastad-Damer, Abraham Wangnoo, President Jennifer Christensen, Dennis McMahon and Zendaya Adkins.
South St. Paul carrier David Schimerowski has never missed a Stamp Out Hunger Saturday in 21 years as a Letter Carrier.
Machinists Local 1833 retirees Tom Hoppenstedt and Mary Sansom unload food at Neighbors Inc. in South St. Paul, which brought in 24,458 pounds on Stamp Out Hunger day 2018.

Stamp Out Hunger is in its 26th year. In 2017, Letter Carriers collected 75 million pounds of food nationwide.

South St. Paul carrier David Schimerowski, a member of NALC Branch 28, said donations along his route were about the same as in previous years.

Schimerowski, in his 21st year as a Letter Carrier, has never missed a Stamp Out Hunger Saturday.

“It usually adds about an hour and a half to my route,” he said. “But I like it.”

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

Nationwide campaign to fight cancer launches at Twin Cities union grocers

March 16, 2018 by

Union retail workers are teaming up with area grocers and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society this month to fight cancer, forging a bond they hope will catch on nationwide.

The Labor Against Cancer campaign will encourage customers at several union grocery stores to donate $1 or more at checkout, with proceeds supporting cancer research and copay support. The campaign runs from St. Patrick’s Day through March 31.

The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents retail workers nationwide, has a 36-year relationship with the LLS, and union members have raised over $86 million for the organization over that time.

But the new campaign, piloted by UFCW locals 1189 and 653, brings union employers and their customers into the fold, with hopes of expanding the fundraising drive’s public profile – and improving its results.

“What we realized is that we had a huge opportunity to engage not only our union friends but their employers, their retailers to be a part of a movement to end blood cancer,” Kay Skonieczny, a vice president at LLS, said. “UFCW is powering our movement, and we’re inviting unions of all types to join us.”

UFCW Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen and member Dean Nelson of South St. Paul join a Labor Against Cancer kickoff event.

Jennifer Christensen, president of St. Paul-based UFCW Local 1189, credited participating employers for “taking the big leap to work with us” on the campaign.

Blood cancer survivors from both local unions attended a campaign kickoff event at the LLS chapter’s Minneapolis offices Thursday. Dean Nelson, a meat cutter in the Midway Cub Foods, said his recovery from chronic myeloid leukemia diagnosis was “a walk in the park” thanks to lifesaving medication discovered as a result of LLS-funded research.

And the medication was affordable, Nelson added, because of his union-negotiated health insurance. He pays $15 per paycheck toward premiums and a $600 copay on medication that costs $176,000 per year.

“Collective bargaining is why I am where I am today,” Nelson said. “If I worked for Target, if I worked for Wal-Mart, they would have dumped me into public assistance.”

Raising awareness of union retailers, Christensen said, is an added bonus of the Labor Against Cancer campaign. “I think it’s important that we set our union employers apart from some of the competition, in the way that they support the folks that work there,” she said.

Participating retailers in the East Metro include Cub Foods, Jerry’s, Lunds and Byerlys, and Oxendales. [Click for participating sites in the East Metro and West Metro.]

“You’re going to hear a lot about Labor Against Cancer in the future,” Skonieczny said. “You can all know that it started right here in Minnesota.”

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

Minnesota gained 46,000 union members last year, reversing decade-long decline

January 19, 2018 by

Working people’s voice grew stronger last year in Minnesota, where organizing gains pushed union membership to its highest point since 2004, according to federal data released today.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual report on union membership shows Minnesota gained 46,000 union members from 2016 to 2017, the largest year-to-year gain since 2000. The state’s union population, 411,000, was at its highest since 2004.

Union members grew as a share of Minnesota’s total workforce as well. Union density increased from 14.2 percent to 15.2 percent in 2017, its highest point since 2010.

The report shows Minnesota unions are reversing a trend of decline that began over a decade ago.

“These numbers show that despite political threats from Washington, more working Minnesotans are exercising their freedom to join together in unions to negotiate for a better life,” said Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy, president of the state’s largest labor federation.

Driving the uptick in union membership are organizing gains Minnesota unions have made recently on several fronts, including the service sector, retail and higher education. Some highlights include:

• More than 500 retail janitors, after a six-year campaign with the Twin Cities worker center CTUL, won their first union contract last February.

• Retail workers at three Minneapolis co-ops – Seward, Eastside and Linden Hills – voted to unionize in 2017, as did workers at Whole Foods Co-Op in Duluth.

• The Mayo Clinic’s move to outsource food-service work in 2016 sparked a flurry of organizing activity in Rochester. Some 250 workers have formed four separate bargaining units with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, which went from representing about 50 percent of Mayo’s food service staff to representing all of them.

• Adjunct faculty members at colleges and universities nationwide are forming unions to push back against a higher-ed model they consider unsustainable. In Minnesota, SEIU Local 284 helped adjunct faculty at Augsburg and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design organize in late 2016.

The BLS report also reflects renewed emphasis Minnesota’s public sector unions are putting on membership. With the U.S. Supreme Court likely to rule so-called “fair share” fees unconstitutional later this year, teachers and other public-service workers are scrambling to shore up support among their co-workers.

AFSCME Council 5, which represents over 40,000 public-service workers statewide, converted thousands of “fee payers” into full-fledged members last year, on top of organizing new units at seven different employers, bringing 225 new members into the fold.

Of course, an increase in union power isn’t just good for union members. “It’s no coincidence that as union membership increased in 2017, so did Minnesotans’ average wages,” McCarthy said. “Union workers set standards for wages and safety that benefit all working people.”

Nationally, the number of union members rose by 260,000 to 14.8 million. Union density remained unchanged at 10.7 percent.

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

Local organizer glimpses challenge of building worker power in South

August 28, 2017 by

Tastad-Damer outside Nissan’s Canton production plant on the day of the union election. (submitted photo)

Lured by generous tax incentives and low wages, foreign automakers have steadily increased their footprint in Southern states over the last two decades. Their employees earn less than union members at the Big Three domestic automakers, but attempts to organize workers in the South’s new, foreign-owned plants have almost always failed.

The most recent defeat came earlier this month, when workers at Nissan’s Canton, Miss., plant voted by nearly a 2-to-1 margin against forming a union.

The United Auto Workers devoted several years to organizing the Canton facility’s 3,500 workers (3,000 more contract workers at the plant were not eligible to join the union), and the UAW projected confidence as the Aug. 3-4 election approached. But in the weeks leading up to the vote, Nissan unleashed a “vicious campaign … of intense scare tactics, misinformation and intimidation,” UAW President Dennis Williams said.

Twin Cities-based union organizer Diana Tastad-Damer saw that campaign firsthand. An organizer on staff at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, Tastad-Damer spent 10 days on the ground in Mississippi, answering the UAW’s call for help reaching out to Nissan workers and drumming up support for the “Union Yes” campaign. When an organizer familiar with Walmart’s anti-union tactics sounds outraged, it gets our attention. Here’s our interview with Tastad-Damer, which has been edited for length and clarity.

UA: What kind of response did you get from workers you visited in advance of the election?

DT: They were pretty much half and half, but the company sent workers door hangers that said “No Trespassing UAW.” Quite a few people had those on the door, and I obviously didn’t talk to them.

UA: Sounds like door hangers weren’t the only stops pulled out by Nissan’s anti-union campaign.

DT: They had “Vote No” signs and signs that said “Union” with an X through it… Nissan threatened to take away people’s leased cars. They put up billboards, they aired radio ads and TV commercials talking about how many jobs they’ve brought to Mississippi and how people are lucky they chose Mississippi. Nissan even rented huge air conditioners leading up to the vote. They normally don’t have air conditioning in that plant, but for three weeks life was great for everyone.

UA: What kind of influence does this plant have on its surrounding communities, and how did that play out in the organizing campaign?

DT: Working at Nissan is one of the better paying jobs in Mississippi, and the plant employs over 6,000 people, even though half of those are temps. Even making $15 as a temp worker is more than double the state’s minimum wage of $7.25.

UA: So what were workers fighting for?

DT: It was less about wages because their wages were good money in the South. But they’ve seen their pension frozen, their health care premiums go up and their coverage drop. One worker brought his insurance card to the pharmacy, but they told him his account was frozen. It stayed frozen for about six months, and it wasn’t until at one of the captive audience meetings with management where he brought this up … and a day later an HR person went up to him and said it’s been resolved.

UA: What did you hear from workers voting no?

DT: A lot of workers told us Nissan doesn’t have to negotiate with the union, so I’m not going to risk losing my job and have them shut down the plant. What Nissan was telling them was that the plant would be shut down if they voted for the union. Of course, that’s illegal. (The National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against Nissan, which disputes the charges.) You can talk about having a voice, but these workers felt the pressure: managers constantly talking to them one on one, hour-long captive audience meetings every day until the vote.

UA: Did you sense something different about the challenge organizing poses in the South?

DT: A Levi’s plant down there is union, and some people drive three to four hours to go to work there because it’s one of the best paying jobs. But for some reason if you want to create a union, it’s a problem.

UA: What do you take back from the experience?

DT: Never trust the company unless it’s in writing and legally binding. The UAW thought they had Nissan in a corner to remain neutral because … Nissan is union in the rest of the world, just not in the U.S. But as soon as they filed, it was bam – hardcore union busting.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

Bernie Hesse: ‘Don’t do something out of charity, do it out of solidarity’

July 7, 2017 by

Bernie Hesse

He is gruff and often combative, principled and usually blunt. But above all else, Bernie Hesse is a trade unionist.

From his days as a grocery clerk to his current work as director of special projects for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, Hesse has made himself ubiquitous in St. Paul’s labor community. If you’ve walked a picket line or joined a get-out-the-vote effort sometime in the last two decades, chances are you’ve crossed his path.

Hesse worked the night shift at Lunds before taking a full-time job with his union in 2001, and he draws from a seemingly endless store of energy and dogged optimism about what working people can accomplish by coming together. It’s why news of his retirement, effective July 7, caught some – including this reporter – by surprise.

Hesse explained that decision and more in this interview, which has been edited for length.

UA: How did you end up working for your union?

BH: Bill Pearson (then president of UFCW Local 789) said he’d like me to start running some program around Walmart, around immigration and around organizing we were doing. Later, we took more of an active role in political and legislative action. Now, low and behold, it’s 2017, and there are some things we’ve been good at and some we need to be better at.

UA: Can you elaborate?

BH: I think we’ve raised awareness that you can work in retail and have a living wage. I think we’ve demonstrated that when we work with other groups we can raise the minimum wage, we can make sure people have a net to fall on or fall into when it comes to health insurance, and we’ve raised the bar for labor standards in Minnesota, for not just retail workers but a lot of service-sector jobs.

We also decided that if we were going to survive and thrive, we were going to organize cannabis, co-ops and canneries (food processing). We’ve got active campaigns going with all three now. But we haven’t figured out yet how to make that connection with Walmart workers or Target workers. We haven’t figured out how we can organize big-box retailers.

UA: Seems like that’s been the white whale for some time. Is it possible in this organizing climate?

BH: I don’t think there’s ever a good or a bad time to organize. When things are good, people are happy, so that’s not the right time. But when things are bad, people are afraid of losing their jobs. We just haven’t been able to build enough connections with workers for them to see us as a real option.

UA: That work of trying to make connections – whether in politics or union organizing – makes a lot of people uncomfortable. What’s your approach?

BH: When we talk about values, we have success. We’re in crisis, and I think people really will value the work we’ve done, whether it’s in making health care affordable or making sure kids have decent schools. That’s why even though we don’t represent workers in school districts, (Local 1189) still supports campaigns to fund these schools. We don’t represent people in transportation, but we support light rail and bus lines. We’re all in this together.

My disappointment with the movement of late is there’s too many groups going back into their silos. There has to be a rediscovery of what solidarity is. To me, it means making that sacrifice for another worker, even though that may not be your issue. Don’t do something out of charity, do it out of solidarity.

In this July 1997 file photo, Hesse, pictured second from left, dons a strawberry costume as a show of support for field workers’ organizing drive. He traveled to California that year as part of a Twin Cities delegation that joined a massive rally in support of strawberry workers.

UA: Is that something that’s changed since you began your union activism?

BH: People used to dive into campaigns more, even though it may not have been their sector. Some of the strikes we had in the 1980s, you had electricians standing with meatpackers standing with postal workers standing with retail clerks. As things have become more challenging, I see more of the bunker mentality. I challenge people on that.

UA: Is this as challenging a time for labor as you’ve lived through?

BH: We’re entering into a new reality, and it’s going to redefine what being a union member is. It’s no longer going to be just about paying your dues, it’s going to be about owning your local. We operate in Wisconsin, a Right to Work state, and we see it. People take ownership of their local when they’re challenged, and leaders emerge.

UA: For many local labor activists, you’re kind of the model for walking the talk. Who’s inspired you?

BH: Dale Johnson, one of our retired reps, taught me the importance of organizing. I always looked at Tom Laney back when he was at the Ford plant – he was a wild man – and all the guys down at P-9 for what they did. On a national level, I had the honor of meeting Tony Mazzocchi from the OCAW and Delores Huerta many, many years ago.

What always inspired me was when you had some organizing or other campaign going on because that just created this positive energy.

UA: Golf? Fish? What’s retired Bernie going to do?

BH: Certainly I’ll be wetting a line and wetting some other stuff. But I don’t have a lake cabin and I don’t golf, so I guess I’ll just have to stick around. There will be other causes or crusades I’ll be in on. And I look forward to the 2018 governor’s race…

I haven’t given up. I think this is the movement that lifts people up.

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

New worker center reaches out to poultry, packinghouse workers in Minnesota

June 12, 2017 by

Three state lawmakers – Reps. Rick Hansen (L), Tim Mahoney and Fue Lee (R) – open the new Hardman Avenue Workers Center at UFCW Local 1189’s hall.

The Hardman Avenue Workers Center, located at the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 hall in South St. Paul, opened with a celebration and free citizenship workshops for immigrant workers last week.

The goal of the initiative, Local 1189 organizing director Abraham Wangnoo said, is to “start teaching people what their rights are,” particularly people working in the state’s poultry and packinghouse industries, where employers are “constantly finding new immigrant worker groups to exploit.”

Far too often for people in the U.S. on temporary work visas, Wangnoo added, the only source of information about their rights on the job is their boss.

“If we don’t educate them, if we don’t bring them in and try to help them understand their rights and what working union means, then we won’t be able to organize – and the quality of these jobs will be forever poor,” he said.

While poultry and packinghouse workers are a focus of the Hardman Avenue Workers Center, its services – including pre-screening of immigration applications and documents, legal assistance and citizenship test flashcards – are available to workers in any industry.

“This is only the beginning,” Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen said. “We have great things to come for the worker center. We have great hope for helping our immigrant community obtain citizenship, stopping wage theft, helping poultry workers get justice throughout Minnesota and helping retail workers rise to the wages they deserve.”

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