Peterson: Support candidates who support union workers

October 23, 2024 by

When Vice President Harris chose Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate this summer, it put Minnesota in the spotlight. Americans digging into Walz’s record are getting a fresh look at what the governor and labor-endorsed majorities in our Legislatures – the so-called “trifecta” – have accomplished in just two years. They are seeing what can happen when elected leaders like Gov. Walz, leaders who share our union values, put working people and their families first: historic investments in infrastructure and public education, expanded family leave benefits, and the programs that help crack down on wage theft. And they’re inspired to see a state moving forward, not backward.

And make no mistake about it, Donald Trump and JD Vance want to take the country backward. It’s all spelled out in their Project 2025 Agenda, which would threaten our union contracts, limit our freedom to join a union and undercut our wages. Trump and Vance may claim to be on workers’ side, but Trump proudly stands with greedy, union-busting CEOs like Elon Musk – and he even praised Musk for firing striking workers. Trump and Vance claim to care about union members, but they are really just in it for themselves and their rich friends. They want to cut our pay, eviscerate our retirement, take away our health care and destroy our unions, just so they can dole out more tax giveaways to the wealthy and well-connected. Harris and Walz have walked on picket lines with workers. Trump crosses them.

Under Gov. Walz’s leadership, our state has become the gold standard for state governments aiming to do right by workers, and it’s exciting to see the governor celebrate his pro-worker, pro-union agenda on the campaign trail. The governor and labor majorities in the Legislature have been bold since taking power in 2023, delivering on campaign promises to guarantee workers have paid family and medical leave benefits and expand access to earned sick and safe time. Minnesota has banned anti-worker noncompete clauses and anti-union captive audience meetings. New laws have strengthened protections for meatpacking and warehouse workers, improved wages and working conditions in nursing homes and expanded collective bargaining rights for educators, university workers and others.

Now, many of the legislators who helped put Minnesota on the path to being the best state for workers are on the ballot. Labor’s majorities in the State House and in the State Senate, thanks to a special election, are at stake on Nov. 5. Lawmakers who had our back at the Capitol need union members to have their backs at the polls. That’s why union volunteers across the state, working through our regional labor federations and the Minnesota AFL-CIO, are leading the way to mobilize tens of thousands of voters. We’re knocking doors, making calls and talking to co-workers about the need to defend the progress we’ve made in Minnesota – about the need to elect labor-endorsed candidates up and down the ballot.

With so much at stake, it truly is one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, and union members are well positioned to make a difference. People all over the country are realizing unions are the single best tool we have to stand up to the historic inequity and corporate greed we are up against. Every day, more workers are seeing past the lies and the well-funded anti-union campaigns from corporate America and deciding to come together. Unions are more popular with the public now than at any time since the mid-1960s. By talking to friends, family members and co-workers, union members can cut through all of the misinformation and focus on what matters this election – our freedoms, our union rights, racial and economic justice, and our democracy. So please vote on or before Nov. 5, and find out how you can get more involved in the Labor 2024 campaign at aflcio.mn/labor2024.

– Kera Peterson is president of the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, which brings together over 100 affiliate unions representing members in Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties. 

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Bill Moore: To act together, we’ve got to get together

December 17, 2014 by
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Bill Moore is president of the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO.

“GOP tightens grip on white working class,” read the headline on an Oct. 31 Wall Street Journal story datelined Aitkin, Minn. The story reported how Democrats have been losing their hold on rural Congressional districts with largely white populations, where incomes lag the national average and college graduates are relatively sparse. The authors quoted men breakfasting at Aitkin’s Birchwood Café who said they formerly were Democrats, but planned to vote for Stewart Mills over Rep. Rick Nolan in the 8th District Congressional election.

Rick Nolan won that election. But he didn’t win in House District 10B, and labor champion from the Aitkin area, Rep. Joe Radinovich, lost his seat. So the question remains: Why does the GOP, which opposes affordable universal health care and livable wages and would prefer privatization of Social Security and Medicare have any kind of grip at all on working class voters? And why did so many working people in Greater Minnesota – not just around Aitkin – vote against their own economic interests, or not vote at all?

It wasn’t for lack of communication with labor voters. By all accounts, the Minnesota Labor 2014 program generated more home visits, phone calls, mail and worksite conversations than ever before. And the DFL voter communication program was as strong as it’s ever been. But smaller memberships in rural districts mean that, however vigorous the labor effort, there may not be enough union voters to turn the tide. Same for the DFL.

But there’s more to the story. I don’t think enough people, whether in Greater Minnesota, the suburbs or the cities, belong to organizations where they think and act together on issues of common concern relating to their economic life.

Many people belong to congregations where they reflect, pray and act on matters of faith – more often than not, relating to sexuality and marriage. NRA chapters bring folks together around their Second Amendment rights, and Legion and VFW posts focus on veterans’ issues. But there are nowhere near as many citizen organizations addressing bread-and-butter economic issues. Our unions do that, drawing workers together to deliberate, decide and act to make life better at work and in their communities. But if you don’t belong to a labor (or farmers’) union, where do you reflect and act together with co-workers and neighbors to assure a just reward for work, workplace safety, good health care and education, a healthy environment, decent transportation and a secure retirement for all? And where do you get accurate information about these and other matters?

Many complain about negative TV, radio and newspaper ads and the deluge of viciously false mailers in some districts. But, if people aren’t receiving more accurate information somewhere else, on a regular basis – not just during campaign season – it’s easy to see how they could be swayed or, at least, confused or discouraged from voting.

On the radio the other day, Sister Simone Campbell, one of the Nuns on the Bus, described recent conversations she had with people who were confused and discouraged by negative political advertising, felt alienated from politicians and weren’t going to vote.

“It’s that alienation, separation, division that’s driving people apart,” she said. “We’ve gotta get into community so we’re connected to each other; so that there is an antidote from all of the money, all of the negativity, all of the ferocious stuff.”

Getting into community and connecting with each other: That’s called organizing. As union members and retirees, helping workers connect in unions is our focus. But, where that’s not timely or possible right now, we need to help form other kinds of democratic citizen organizations where working people can join together to learn and act to free themselves from the GOP grip.

– Bill Moore is president of the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO. This column originally appeared in the council’s newsletter, “The Gopher Retiree.”

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Richard Trumka: The choice we face Nov. 4

October 23, 2014 by
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (right) will speak in Minneapolis Feb. 20.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (right).

Almost no one in America is satisfied with the imbalance of our economy. We’re working harder and harder for less and less.

This isn’t a partisan opinion. All across this country, in poll after poll after poll, we hear self-described Democrats, independents and Republicans say, “We want an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.” Three out of every four voters think we should raise the minimum wage. Nearly 70 percent of working-class Republicans say, “It shouldn’t be this hard to support a family.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. The economy is not the weather. It doesn’t simply happen to us, nor does it change in two days – or two hours, depending on where you live.

Here’s the good news. A growing number of people have begun to realize that our economy is shaped by rules created in Washington by elected officials, rules that pick winners and losers, rules that have picked working people to lose again and again and again for a long time.

[Click here to join other East Metro union members who are helping get out the vote for labor-endorsed candidates.]

Yet those who keep rigging the American economy for the rich and powerful have noticed the changing American electorate, too, and they have turned up the pressure to divide working people and to go after the things we hold most dear.

Working families face politicians backed by right-wing billionaires who want in the name of “free markets” to gut Social Security, prevailing wages, Medicare and Medicaid, job safety, gender equity, decent public education funding, public lands and practically everything else working families rely on.

These politicians think nothing should blunt the cold, hard edge of the marketplace. If you’re too young, too old, too poor, too sick, too anything, it’s just tough luck.

Here’s the really bad news. These far-right politicians know their values are not majority values, and that’s why they scheme to shrink our democracy, to cut back our ability to exercise our rights as Americans. That’s what voter ID laws do. That’s what restrictions on absentee ballots and early voting do. That’s what gerrymandering does.

These politicians use division to win elections. Sometimes they say public workers are the problem. Or they claim immigrants are the problem. Or skilled construction workers. Or welfare recipients. Or retirees. Or union workers. Everyone except the millionaires and billionaires, whose compensation has tripled over the past 30 years, while the rest of us are lucky if we’ve broken even.

Here’s the choice we face. We can decide not to be pushed to the bottom. We can choose to elect leaders who will restore fairness to our economy and invest in the things that matter to us, things like education, jobs, infrastructure and our future. Better yet, those investments can be made by doing away with tax cuts for people who don’t need our generosity, like the billionaires and CEOs who routinely avoid contributing to our country’s bottom line.

Don’t misunderstand me. This is not about political parties. Not every Democratic politician is a champion of working families. Nor is every Republican an enemy. But these days, too many Republicans are right-wing extremists.

All across Minnesota, and as we’ve seen from fast food workers and Walmart workers and even some self-described Tea Partiers, a new kind of populism is on the rise. It’s not an easy thing to define, but it is very real, and it is reshaping and will reshape America. As working people, the election this fall is an excellent opportunity for us to shape this change.

Working people want raising wages. It’s a popular idea. Imagine a world where the gap between the rich and the rest of us starts to shrink. Imagine the boost to manufacturing when millions of working people have the money – not the credit but the money – to purchase the things we want and need.

Imagine it, but don’t dream it’ll pick up like a fresh breeze. We’ve got to make it happen.

So what will you do? It is up to each of us to help bridge the gap for those who share our values but who don’t yet see how our interests coincide, who don’t yet see that jobs and rainfall are fundamentally different. We can create jobs, and, together, we can register and educate more working-class voters. We can turn frustration into stubborn action.

We’ve already started. Let’s keep doing it. All of us together.

– Richard Trumka, who comes from a small town in Southwest Pennsylvania, is the president of the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, the AFL-CIO.

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Hamline adjunct faculty members vote to join union

June 20, 2014 by

In the first union-organizing election among faculty members at a private college in Minnesota, adjunct instructors at Hamline University in St. Paul voted to join Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

Eligible faculty members at Hamline cast their ballots by mail earlier this month. A vote tally took place this morning at the Minneapolis office of the National Labor Relations Board, with 72 percent voting in favor of forming the union.

The victory at Hamline is a shot of momentum for the SEIU’s Adjunct Action organizing campaign both nationally and locally. In voting to form a union, Hamline faculty members joined instructors at Northeastern University, Georgetown University and a growing number of institutions across the U.S.

Closer to home, St. Paul is becoming a hotbed of adjunct union activity. In addition to the 83 Hamline instructors who joined SEIU today, about 300 adjunct instructors at St. Thomas University are scheduled to vote by mail in an organizing election next month.

Contingent faculty members at Macalester College petitioned the NLRB for an election in May, but they have since pulled that petition. No election is scheduled, although organizing continues.

Jhon Wlaschin, an adjunct psychology instructor at both Hamline and St. Thomas who has been active in both organizing drives, said the overwhelming victory at Hamline is proof of a strong appetite for collective bargaining among part-time faculty members.

“It’s confirmation that there’s a lot of other people in my situation, that are trying to earn a living teaching and finding it very difficult, finding that being an adjunct is kind of an isolating lifestyle,” Wlaschin said. “We don’t really know each other, we don’t feel like we have any voice, like we don’t have any future.

“Now we can join together, get to know each other, hear each other’s issues, work together to maybe make teaching a viable living and career in higher education. That’s all very exciting and encouraging.”

Economics 101

While Hamline, like most colleges across the country, has steadily increased its reliance on non-tenured teaching staff, adjunct faculty members at the school have not seen a pay raise in 10 years, adjunct English instructor Jennifer Beckham said. The “vast majority” of adjunct instructors, she said, earn $4,000 per course and do not qualify for benefits like health insurance or a retirement plan.

“I’ve asked for a raise,” Beckham, who has taught at Hamline the last nine years, remembered. “I was told that they don’t do raises, that nobody would receive a raise and as long as there was parity with other institutions in the area, there would not be raises.”

Even those instructors who teach courses at multiple institutions report struggling to afford basic necessities like rent and health insurance, Beckham added. Many instructors are paying off loans they took out in order to gain the degrees necessary to teach at a post-secondary institution.

“I have multiple advanced degrees,” Beckham said. “Most adjuncts have a Ph.D. I think most people, by the time they have the qualifications to do the work we do, are at a stage where you need to be having some kind of stability.

“Many adjuncts delay starting families because the work we do does not sustain our families. Many people won’t be able to retire.”

A new model

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Wlaschin knows that from experience.

Before becoming a psychology professor, Wlaschin said, he worked in the film industry in New York. Jobs were temporary, and he bounced from employer to employer as work on one film ended and another began. But because Wlaschin was a member of the Stagehands union, his employers paid into a health and welfare fund maintained by the union.

“It would be great to have a citywide contract, like what we had in the film union,” Wlaschin said. “A union might advocate for a kind of agreement among the different universities to contribute to greater benefits like health care or maybe even a 401k.

“If Hamline or St. Thomas wants to keep adjuncts as part-time workers, it’s still within our rights to try to cobble together a full-time living.”

A citywide contract will require a lot more organizing, Wlaschin and other adjunct instructors acknowledged. But today’s election results were a step in the right direction.

“As adjuncts, we shoulder a huge economic burden in higher education institutions,” Beckham said. “Pushing for our teaching to be valued more, I think, is a small step, but if this is a step back toward more emphasis on teaching and education, then that’s a good thing.”

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Bobby Kasper: Support school levies on Nov. 5 ballot

October 30, 2013 by
Bobby Kasper

Bobby Kasper

Garrison Keillor, the great Minnesota author and radio personality, put it best: “Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.”

At the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, we’re putting Keillor’s words into action, working in support of five levy referendums in East Metro suburbs that have been endorsed by our delegation of 100-plus local unions. No matter where you live, if there’s a school levy question on your ballot Nov. 5, voting “yes” is the right thing to do for Minnesota’s students, teachers and communities.

Earlier this year, Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL majorities in the Legislature succeeded in increasing the per-pupil funding formula that provides the majority of funding for our school districts, and the state recently paid back most of the money borrowed from school districts in order to end the Republican-led state government shutdown two years ago. Still, the state funding formula has lagged behind the rate of inflation for decades, and operating levies have been a lifeline for districts looking to maintain their educational offerings.

Project1_Layout 1What’s more, levies equip districts with the tools they need to strengthen their schools in ways that reflect local priorities. In Stillwater, voters will decide whether to approve $16.2 million in annual funding for the community-driven “Bridge to Excellence” plan, as well as initiatives to increase school safety and security. In White Bear Lake, voters will be asked to extend funding for library books, science equipment and technology for teachers and students. Voters in the Chisago Lakes School District have an opportunity to restore programs cut from previous budgets, including art classes and middle-school Spanish classes.

At the Regional Labor Federation, we are proud to support the teachers, parents and community groups working at the grassroots level to pass school levies in Stillwater, White Bear Lake and Chisago Lakes, as well as the Lakeville and Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school districts. We have reached out to union members in these districts, urging them to vote “yes.” We are also working to elect labor-endorsed candidates for school board across the East Metro. These candidates not only will support levy referendums when necessary, but will act as good stewards of funds raised when levies pass.

All children deserve a world-class education. Their futures depend on it, and so does the economic future of our region. The Twin Cities area is known across the world for its educated, highly skilled workforce. It’s a big reason that Minnesota boasts 19 Fortune 500 companies, more than 48 other states. When you vote “yes” on your local school levy referendum, you show your support for kids, for teachers, for attracting the jobs of the future to the region and for maintaining our state’s high quality of life.

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, representing more than 100 affiliate unions and their members throughout the East Metro area.

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Locked-out musicians reject SPCO’s contract proposal

October 31, 2012 by

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra voted unanimously today to reject a contract offer from management, prolonging a work stoppage that began Oct. 21.

Management’s proposed reductions to current musicians’ salaries and benefits are unacceptable, union members said. They warned even bigger proposed cuts to future musicians’ compensation would undermine the orchestra’s quality and artistry.

Lynn Erickson, SPCO member and spokesperson for the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, said the SPCO would be “unable to identify any qualified artistic consultant who would support the proposed reductions.”

Kyu-Young Kim, an SPCO violinist and member of the musicians’ Negotiating Committee, called the contract proposal an attempt by management to divide current and future orchestra members.

“Management again fails to realize that an orchestra functions as a team, and that none of us in the SPCO have any interest in selling our present or future colleagues down the river,” Kim said.

Kim pointed to a letter made public Oct. 25 in which SPCO management said it planned to reduce the pay of highly paid “principal players” significantly less than those who receive the base pay.

SPCO management has said it is looking to cut $1.5 million from its annual budget in contract negotiations. Musicians have presented management with a counter-proposal that, they say, would save the SPCO more than $700,000 over the course of three years – while continuing to live up to the orchestra’s high artistic standards.

“Our goal is to preserve the artistic excellence of the SPCO in a fiscally responsible way, for our supporters and for this community,” Erickson said. “We want to resume negotiations as soon as possible and hope that a mutually agreeable solution can be quickly achieved.”

The proposal rejected today also would give management the ability to terminate musicians at any time with no recourse, the musicians said.

Click here for more information on the Musicians of the SPCO and their lockout.

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