Skyway march targets tax-dodging corporations

December 8, 2017 by

St. Paul teachers and parents clogged the skyway system in downtown St. Paul yesterday. They marched from one corporate office to another, calling on Wells Fargo, US Bank, Ecolab and Securian to pay their fair share toward fully funded public schools.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 organized the skyway march. In ongoing contract negotiations with the St. Paul Public Schools, the union has proposed partnering with the district to seek additional revenue from corporations and large non-profits – health care companies and private colleges – that avoid paying local property taxes.

US Bank, Wells Fargo and Ecolab benefit from tax-increment-financing deals with the City of Saint Paul, reducing the amount of property taxes they pay to fund public schools. Ecolab, meanwhile, avoids paying taxes on over $2.1 billion in profits by using offshore tax havens, according to the union.

SPFT members called on corporations like Securian to pay their fair share toward the schools St. Paul children deserve during a march through St. Paul’s skyways last month.

The march culminated with a rally at Hamm Plaza, across from Ecolab. Speakers decried tax cuts for wealthy corporations at a time when funding for local schools is failing to keep pace with inflation – and as students’ needs continue to grow.

“I want restorative practices, not a school to prison pipeline,” said Kirinda Anderson, a parent of a child at Wellstone Elementary. “I want a counselor with a hug and social worker with a listening ear, not a cop with a gun in my kid’s school.”

Teachers noted that several of St. Paul’s corporate citizens chipped in to lure the Super Bowl to the Twin Cities next February.

“We need the large companies that are investing millions into the Super Bowl, including US Bank and Ecolab, to support public education in the same way,” SPFT President Nick Faber said.

Organizations supporting SPFT’s skyway march included Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and the low-wage worker center CTUL.

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

Teachers kick off contract campaign by targeting corporate tax dodgers

April 18, 2017 by

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gloves come off as orchestra musicians mark one year locked out of their jobs

October 1, 2013 by

web.orchestra-lockout3Since Day 1 the Minnesota Orchestra lockout has been taking a personal toll on musicians. Now, one year into the work stoppage, things are getting personal for the orchestra’s Board of Directors too.

Union musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-73, marked the one-year anniversary of the start of their work stoppage today, rallying outside Orchestra Hall downtown Minneapolis with patrons, community supporters and the president of their international union, who wasn’t shy about naming names.

In a fiery speech before a crowd of more than 200 people, AFM President Ray Hair called out 11 members of the board, and he identified most by their corporate employers, including Cargill, General Mills, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, United Health, 3M, Xcel Energy, Land o’ Lakes and the Star Tribune.

“Does that sound like a board that doesn’t have any money?” Hair asked. “Or does that sound like a bunch of bullies?

“I say no more groveling to these union-busters. These people and their companies are not worthy of our business.”

[Click here for Save Our Symphony Minnesota’s guide to calling or e-mailing members of the Board of Directors!]

Musicians voted unanimously last weekend to reject the orchestra’s latest contract proposal, which would have slashed salaries by about 25 percent over three years.

Signing bonuses of $20,000 sweetened the offer, but musicians did not budge from their stance that significant compensation cuts will damage the orchestra’s long-term artistic viability, limiting its ability to attract qualified musicians – and prompting current musicians to seek jobs elsewhere.

Musicians have presented management with counteroffers, including some that would cut their pay by as much as 8 percent. The also say they are open to a “play-and-talk” arrangement that would allow concerts to resume while contract negotiations play out.

Still, management has shown little interest in compromise, Tony Ross, a cellist and member of the musicians’ bargaining team, told the crowd. Ross said he’s lost count of how many different offers the union has presented to management.

“They come back and make the same offer over and over again,” he said.

The lockout, of course, is a deliberate strategy to inflict economic hardship on workers in the hopes of exacting concessions at the bargaining table. The Board of Directors, Hair said, appears committed to the strategy, regardless of its effect on the orchestra’s reputation. Management announced yesterday it had backed out of concerts scheduled next month at Carnegie Hall, and today Osmo Vanska, the orchestra’s renowned conductor for the last 10 years, resigned.

“I call it economic terrorism by the rich big shots in this town,” Hair said. “It’s management without music, that’s what it is. And it’s coming from managers who wouldn’t know the difference between a banjo and a bass drum.”

The unanimous contract vote indicates musicians, too, remain resolved as ever, although many musicians with the orchestra a year ago have taken positions elsewhere. The musicians maintain a list of “ghosts lost to the lockout” on its website.

Still, they are forging ahead with plans to stage a series of concerts in various venues this fall, beginning with performances Friday and Saturday at Ted Mann Concert Hall. Emanuel Ax, a Grammy-winning pianist, will be featured in a program slated to include Stravinsky’s “Suite from The Firebird” – a piece, Ross noted, about “rising from the ashes.”

“We want to serve our community because it is the community that owns this orchestra, it is not the management,” Ross said. “So if we have to play every other hall but (Orchestra Hall), we will until we can get back where we belong.”

Patrons and musicians gather for a demonstration outside Orchestra Hall organized by Save Our Symphony Minnesota last month.

Patrons and musicians gather for a demonstration outside Orchestra Hall organized by Save Our Symphony Minnesota last month.

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