Janitors set new strike deadline, accuse cleaning contractor of wage theft

May 20, 2015 by
CTUL member Maricela Flores speaks at a press conference announcing a class-action lawsuit seeking unpaid wages for workers who cleaned Macy's and Herberger's stores in the Twin Cities.

CTUL member Maricela Flores speaks at a press conference to announce a class-action lawsuit seeking unpaid wages for workers who cleaned Macy’s and Herberger’s stores in the Twin Cities.

Janitors who clean big-box and department stores in the Twin Cities announced two key developments in their campaign for better wages and working conditions today, setting a new strike deadline and filing a class-action lawsuit to recoup wages allegedly lost to wage theft.

Members of with the Twin Cities worker center CTUL took legal action in Hennepin County against cleaning contractor Capital Building Services Group, alleging janitors who clean Macy’s and Herberger’s stores were paid less than minimum wage and did not receive overtime pay, among other offenses.

Eight current or former Capital employees joined the class action, which could grow to include other workers as the lawsuit advances. Several plaintiffs gathered for a press conference to announce the suit outside Macy’s store on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.

Leyla Yusuf, a former Capital employee, said the company did not provide paycheck stubs with information on wages, hours and overtime to its employees. When she suspected she was not being paid in full, she demanded to see a pay stub.

“The reason I got fired is because I asked for my check stub,” Yusuf said through a translator. “I spoke up, and I’ll never be silenced. We are here to get it right.”

Strike deadline set

The lawsuit comes roughly seven months after CTUL reached a historic agreement with Target Corporation on a policy to ensure safe conditions, fair wages and basic protections for all workers inside Target’s Twin Cities stores – even those who work for other companies, like subcontractors.

Target’s influence in the local retail market sparked hope that the policy would have a ripple effect throughout the industry. Instead, workers say the two contractors that service area Target stores, Carlson Building Maintenance and Prestige Maintenance USA, are not abiding by the policy – and it’s holding back progress for all cleaning workers as a result.

Maricela Flores and Jose Cabrera, CTUL members who work for Carlson, reported being required to work seven days per week – a violation of Target’s Responsible Contractor Policy.

“I don’t have enough time to rest,” Cabrera said. “I don’t have time to spend with my family. Although Target created the new policy, we still have not seen necessary changes.”

The subcontractors also have failed to respect workers’ union rights, CTUL organizer Merle Payne said. “We’ve had a number of meetings where we’ve tried” to establish a pathway to organizing, Payne said. “But the companies aren’t really meeting in good faith.”

Now, CTUL members are giving Carlson, Prestige and six other contractors, including Capital, until June 9 to get serious about those meetings, or else they will call a strike. Fifteen retail chains, including Macy’s, Herberger’s, Target, Kohl’s and Sears, could be affected by the work stoppage.

Short-term, high-visibility strikes are gaining popularity among low-wage workers in the Twin Cities as a strategy for putting pressure on employers and attracting more support. If janitors walk off the job June 9, it would mark their fifth strike in the Twin Cities over the last two years.

“It’s too long that we’ve been waiting, too long that our petitions have gone without an answer,” Luciano Balbuena, a Kimco Services employee who cleans Home Depot stores, said through a translator. “If we don’t get a response, we’re going on strike June 9.”

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

May 14, 2015 by
Rosalia Morales, wearing a black sweatshirt, confronts a manager in Kohl's Roseville store about working conditions at the company's cleaning subcontractor Kimco.

Rosalia Morales, wearing a black sweatshirt, confronts a manager in Kohl’s Roseville store about working conditions at the company’s cleaning subcontractor Kimco.

 

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 the Twin Cities, Kimco/Eurest Services.

Kimco workers, organizing with the Twin Cities low-wage worker center CTUL, were denied entry to Kohl’s shareholder meeting despite obtaining shares of stock in the company.

“Kohl’s is treating them the same way they treated us here,” CTUL organizer Veronica Mendez told a delegation of workers and supporters who entered the Roseville store this afternoon to share their concerns, but left after a manager called the police.

CTUL-Kohls2Speaking inside the Roseville store, Kimco worker Rosalia Morales urged Kohl’s to follow Target’s lead and adopt a Responsible Contractor Policy to ensure safe conditions, fair wages and benefits for everyone working inside Kohl’s stores.

In an agreement reached with CTUL last year, Target pledged to do business with contractors that do not force janitors to work seven days a week, allow formation of safety committees made up of at least 50 percent workers and provide protections for workers to join a union without fear of retaliation.

In her 14 years with Kimco, Morales received just one 25-cent raise from the company – that is, until she and her co-workers began organizing with CTUL.

“Recently they gave me a 75-cent raise, but that’s only because of my co-workers, all of us, coming together to support each other,” Morales said through a translator.

Luul Mohamoud, a Kimco worker who cleans inside Kohl’s, explained her decision to travel to the shareholder meeting in a written statement:

As a single mother of two teenage boys, I can barely survive on $9.00 an hour and I can’t take care of our health without any paid sick days. I have suffered injuries at work that my supervisors don’t attend to. I decided to travel to Milwaukee for the Kohl’s shareholder meeting to ask their President to meet with me and my co-workers about the unfair wages and working conditions we face cleaning their stores. It’s time for Kohl’s to adopt a Responsible Contractor Policy.

CTUL’s organizing effort at Kohl’s ramped up after Kimco settled a wage-theft case with workers who supervised cleaning inside Kohl’s and other department stores in Minnesota last month. Meanwhile, the company has faced multiple OSHA violations across the country over the past six years, according to CTUL.

“Kohl’s is a corporation that holds a lot of power, the same way Target does,” Mendez said. “Target took a leadership role by entering into a Responsible Contractor Policy. Kohl’s has that same power.”

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

May 6, 2015 by
Workers hold informational picketing outside Victoria's Market, formerly Fresh Seasons Market.

Workers hold informational picketing outside Victoria’s Market, formerly Fresh Seasons Market.

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 Pension Fund trustees are suing Fresh Seasons to recover benefit contributions never paid.

In the meantime, Wartman has teamed with local investors who own the Victoria and Glen Lake properties to reopen the stores under new names: Victoria’s Market and Glen Lake’s Market.

It’s a move Wartman’s former employees aren’t watching silently.

As the stores opened their doors this month, workers and their supporters were on hand to distribute fliers denouncing Wartman’s failure to pay them what they’re owed, Local 653 President Matt Utecht said in a public letter.

“If Tom Wartman wants the stores to reopen with community support, he should start by doing right by those community members who used to work for him,” Utecht said.

Click here to read Utecht’s full letter.

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Shar Knutson: 2015 legislative session presents challenges, opportunities

January 30, 2015 by
web.MNAFLCIO-Conv-knutson

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson

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 a minimum wage increase, fair taxes, education investments and expanding collective bargaining rights. While the Republican House majority might not be interested in helping empower working people, that’s no reason for labor to sit on the sidelines.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO is going to continue being a strong advocate for working people this year. We are advocating for a Shared Prosperity and Job Creation agenda. These are issues that matter to all workers, regardless of whether or not they have a union card.

Ending wage theft. A shocking number of workers are denied the wages they are owed for the work they perform. Unscrupulous employers often pay less than what was agreed, force workers to perform duties off the clock, cheat state and local governments out of legally required taxes and insurance contributions and sometimes withhold pay altogether.

Workers deserve the wages they earn. The Legislature can fight wage theft by passing legislation that:

  • Establishes formal procedures to enable victims of wage theft to recover unpaid wages and damages.
  • Increases the penalties for those responsible for committing wage theft.
  • Provides greater protection for workers who stand up for their rights – protecting them from employer retaliation.
  • Makes it easier for wage-theft victims to get legal representation.

Paid family leave and earned sick days. We all get sick. But not all of us can stay home when we are contagious. In cities and states without earned sick days standards, two of every five workers don’t earn a single day of earned sick leave. Many of them work on the front lines of public health and food safety – in restaurants, retail and even health care.

We support the passage of two types of leave this session:

  • Earned sick and safe leave, usable by employees with little or no advance notice, to recuperate from illness, seek medical care, care for family members or deal with the consequences of domestic violence.
  • Longer-term leave such as paid family leave.

Fair scheduling. The retail, service and health care sectors are now the fastest growing industries in our state. The increase in the minimum wage has and continues to be a great boost for these workers, but it’s just one step in developing secure, family-wage jobs. Full-time positions with stable schedules are also vitally important. Minnesota workers need scheduling standards that support families and help make their lives predictable.

Reforms should include requiring employers to provide adequate notice of schedule changes, maintain consistent and agreed-upon hours and offer full-time opportunities.

Comprehensive, long-term multi-modal transportation funding. Minnesota cannot grow and attract good jobs when our infrastructure is wearing out and transit options are woefully inadequate. Too many of our roads and bridges have exceeded their lifespans and are in desperate need of repair.

Workers need safer roads and better public transportation to get to jobs. Our seniors and people with disabilities need options to live independently.

We are also working with our affiliates and allies on:

  • Investing in quality learning environments, engaging students and improving educational outcomes.
  • Keeping Minnesota on strong fiscal footing by protecting progressive revenue sources.
  • Funding Child Care Assistance Programs (CCAP).
  • Ensuring retirement security.
  • Strengthening long-term care funding.

In addition to this Shared Prosperity and Job Creation agenda, the Minnesota AFL-CIO will support a range of issues that address income inequality, economic opportunity and tax fairness, as well as legislation championed by our affiliated unions.

– Shar Knutson is president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest federation of labor unions.

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

February 3, 2014 by

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 so-called “three-two beer” – beverages with 3.2 percent alcohol content or less – as intoxicating.

Unions joined the brewing industry in opposing the measure, which would have placed limits on the sale of beer “for the benefit of the hard liquor interests.” Whiskey distilleries, The Advocate reported, were not nearly as unionized as breweries, which were “practically 100 percent union throughout the nation” at the time.

“Proponents of the motion declared that such a law would drive hundreds of places out of business by reason of high license fees with consequent curtailment of employment in the brewing industry,” The Advocate reported.

We’ll drink to that.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

75 Years Ago: Café owner accused paper of libel

The Advocate’s coverage of wage theft at a St. Paul eatery drew charges of libel from the establishment’s owner in February 1939.

Workers at Gentile’s Café, a union shop on Payne Avenue, signed sworn affidavits in support of The Advocate’s reporting, the newspaper reported in its Feb. 9 edition.

The affidavits confirmed owner Charles Gentile had forced employees to endorse the backs of their paychecks without seeing the amount on the front. Gentile would then cash the checks himself and return a different amount to the employees, “holding out whatever he thought the employee would approve through fear of losing his or her job.”

The claims of libel were strange, given that Gentile had already reached a settlement with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, which called for the café to pay $350 in back wages to its workers.

Just because Gentile had made things right with his workers, The Advocate argued, did not change the facts of the story.

“In publishing the story … the Union Advocate followed its usual course in giving publicity to an affair of vital importance to organized Labor,” The Advocate reported. “Such publications are made for the sole purpose of serving as a deterrent to others against chiseling on union agreements.”

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

25 Years Ago: Spotlight on child labor

The Union Advocate put a spotlight on child labor in its Feb. 20, 1989 edition, reporting on a speech delivered by Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, at the University of Minnesota.

“Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse and the California Raisins can bring smiles to the faces of American youngsters. But in developing countries, these toys represent misery for the young girls and boys who spend long hours toiling to produce them,” Union Advocate Editor Barb Kucera wrote.

Gray’s speech detailed long hours, low wages and sweatshop conditions endured by children working in Asia’s developing countries, particularly China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

“An average work week for a 12-year-old girl in such a factory runs from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The girl receives a one-hour lunch break and often sleeps right on the factory premises in makeshift dormitories housing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of children.

“During the Christmas rush to get toy orders to the United States, the young workers have been ordered to put in 24-hour shifts,” Gray said.

International political pressure, he added, would be crucial to eliminating child labor, as it can help bring about the economic change that he called “the only real solution to the problem.”

“The real solution to child labor is prosperity,” Gray said. “The key is for Mom and Dad to have a job.”

100 Years Ago: Contractors pushed for ‘open shop’

St. Paul Carpenters Union Local 87 ramped up its efforts to strike an agreement for labor peace with the city’s Master Builders association in February 1914, and The Advocate’s Feb. 27 edition documented an exchange of letters between the two sides on its front page.

Representatives of the contractors’ group, however, declined the union’s offer to meet and negotiate a new agreement, prompting charges from the union they were pushing for an “open-shop” system.

Local 87 leaders warned the contractors – and the public – that such a push would be met with stiff resistance. “It is manifest that the Carpenters’ union is opposed to any disturbance in building trades activities in St. Paul this year, and if any upheaval or unpleasantness should come the Master Builders’ association will be wholly responsible for it.”

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