Kohl’s refuses to hear from workers who keep its stores clean

  Executives at Kohl’s had no interest today in hearing concerns about working conditions maintained by cleaning subcontractors inside their department stores – not in Roseville, and not at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Milwaukee. That’s disappointing, workers said, given the pattern of OSHA violations recently exposed at one of Kohl’s cleaning contractors in […]

Still waiting on back pay, former workers spoil grocer’s grand reopening

When Fresh Seasons Markets in Victoria and Glen Lake closed a year ago, owner Tom Wartman failed to pay his employees the vacation and personal-holiday pay they had earned, their union alleges. Local 653 of the United Food and Commercial Workers has taken legal action to recoup workers’ pay, and the union’s Health, Welfare and […]

Shar Knutson: 2015 legislative session presents challenges, opportunities

The 2015 legislative session is nearly one month old, and Minnesotans are presented with a very different situation than we were in 2013 and 2014. While Gov. Dayton was reelected and a DFL majority remains in the Senate, Republicans now control the Minnesota House. With a DFL-controlled state government, Minnesota’s labor movement successfully advocated for […]

Delegates debated beer’s ‘intoxicating effects’ 75 years ago

This headline from The Union Advocate’s Feb. 16, 1939 edition immediately caught our eye: “Assembly Opposed To Defining Beer As Intoxicating.” Turns out, the headline was a bit misleading. The article reported that St. Paul’s central labor body, the Trades and Labor Assembly, passed a resolution opposing a bill before the Minnesota Legislature to define […]