On right to work and prevailing wage, it’s Walz … or Wisconsin

October 24, 2018 by

Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor, is pictured speaking at a union rally in 2016.

When Tim Walz addressed delegates to the Minnesota Building Trades’ annual convention in Duluth over the summer, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor did not mince words, giving the labor leaders and union stewards a message to take back to their union halls.

“People will tell you, ‘I’m not into politics,’” Walz said. “You tell them too damn bad because politics is into you.

“The choice is Walz or Wisconsin when it comes to organized labor. It’s that simple.”

Walz was referencing the string of attacks Wisconsin union members saw on their wages, benefits and freedom to join together after Republicans, led by Gov. Scott Walker, seized total control of the state’s government eight years ago.

It began with Act 10, which gutted the collective bargaining power of teachers and other public-sector workers in 2011. Four years later Walker signed a right-to-work bill, weakening the bargaining power of all unions.

And last year, Wisconsin Republicans unleashed a pair of attacks on union tradespeople and their quality of life. One law banned local governments from entering into project labor agreements, which establish fair wage and benefit standards on construction projects. Another repealed the state’s prevailing-wage law, which builds fair wages into the public construction bidding process.

But it hasn’t just happened in Wisconsin.

“We’ve got to keep Minnesota from going the way of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico – all states that since 2012 have gone right to work, have banned project labor agreements and have eliminated prevailing wage,” said Tony McGarvey, government affairs liaison for District 82 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

Already, the effects of Wisconsin’s anti-worker agenda are noticeable even here in Minnesota.

In Rochester, where construction of a Destination Medical Center has helped create a booming job market for tradespeople, Painters Local 681 rep Scott Parker said he sees an “influx of union workers coming over from Wisconsin,” where they would earn less for doing the same work.

“If we go right to work, where do we go? North Dakota? South Dakota? Wisconsin? Iowa?” Parker said. “We are an island surrounded by right to work. Where will I go to make the money I’m making now?”

Prevailing wage: A case study

No issue better represents what’s at stake for construction workers in this election than prevailing wage.

Minnesota’s prevailing wage laws establish wage floors in regions across the state that contractors must agree to meet in order to win bids on publicly funded construction projects. The principle behind the law is that workers should be able to afford to live in the area where they find work.

Opponents argue that repealing the law would save taxpayers money, and as a former state legislator, it’s an argument Carly Melin, now executive director of the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council, has heard plenty of times.

“We know repealing prevailing wage doesn’t save the public any money,” Melin said. “The contractor still makes the money, it’s just the workers who see less of it in their paychecks.”

The vast majority of peer-reviewed academic studies on prevailing wage support Melin’s claim, according to a report issued earlier this year by researchers at the nonpartisan Midwest Economic Policy Institute and Colorado State University-Pueblo.

The report concludes that if Minnesota joins its neighbors in repealing prevailing wage, tradespeople stand to lose their wage advantage and more. “Minnesota’s prevailing wage law supports self-sufficient construction workers,” the report’s authors, Frank Manzo and Dr. Kevin Duncan, concluded.

By comparing data from seven Upper Midwest states, the report found Minnesota tradespeople are doing better than their counterparts in Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin – states without strong (or any) prevailing wage laws. Because Minnesota still has prevailing wage on the books, construction workers here see 5.2 percent higher incomes, are more likely to have health and pension benefits, and are less likely to rely on food stamps.

Threat to apprenticeship

In fact, rather than driving up public construction costs, the researchers found Minnesota’s prevailing wage law actually delivers significant value to the state in terms of workforce development.

By setting a higher wage floor, the law guarantees local union contractors a fair shake at publicly bid construction projects. And when Building Trades union members are working, a portion of their wages are deducted to help fund their unions’ apprenticeship training programs, which provide world-class training opportunities to thousands of Minnesotans without any government funding.

Without prevailing wage, the authors conclude, Minnesota contractors who participate in apprenticeship training programs would lose more bids to “fly-by-night contractors from neighboring states with low wages, resulting in fewer training opportunities (not to mention shoddier infrastructure).

That’s the reality Building Trades union members are now facing in states like Wisconsin and Michigan – labor strongholds where “we never would have thought they would repeal prevailing wage,” Melin said. And it’s a threat Minnesota’s Building Trades unions are hoping to keep at bay by electing Tim Walz governor Nov. 6.

“If it can happen in Wisconsin and it can happen in Michigan, then it can happen in Minnesota,” Melin said. “We have a lot at stake.”

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Walker’s anti-union Act 10 dealing major blow to WI public schools, report finds

November 20, 2017 by

Working people from Wisconsin and Minnesota came together in Hudson, Wis., to protest Act 10 in February 2011. (file photo)

A new analysis of Wisconsin’s public schools reveals several alarming trends since the state adopted legislation stripping teachers and other public service workers of most collective bargaining rights in 2011.

“Gov. Scott Walker and Republican elected leaders in Wisconsin said that Act 10 would benefit schools and families alike,” said David Madlan, co-author of the report. “They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Instead of improving public schools, Act 10 has led to a sharp decline in teachers’ wages and benefits and a troubling uptick in teacher turnover, according to the report.

Madlan and his co-author, Alex Rowell, found that by the 2015-16 school year, the average Wisconsin teacher was earning nearly $11,000 less than before Act 10 passed, when adjusted for inflation.

Unsurprisingly, teachers have been leaving the profession – or finding jobs in other states – at a higher rate since Act 10, and data collected by the state’s Department of Public Instruction shows an influx of less experienced teachers into Wisconsin’s public schools.

“We have seen turnover like we’ve never seen before,” Shelly Moore Krajacic, an English and drama teacher in Ellsworth, Wis., told reporters on a conference call unveiling the report’s findings last week. “It’s difficult for the students and for the teachers to develop teamwork and process.”

Academic research into teacher longevity backs up Moore Krajacic’s experience. “The research is pretty clear that experience and stability of teachers is an important factor in the quality of education a school can provide,” Madlan said.

Commissioned by the nonpartisan Center for American Progress Action Fund, the report serves as a warning to lawmakers in neighboring states considering similar measures.

Last year the Minnesota Legislature moved to weaken teachers’ tenure rights and loosen the licensure process, making it easier for “under-qualified instructors to remain in the classroom for several years in a row,” Rep. Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul) said.

With the Supreme Court expected to deal a major blow to public-sector unions in a decision on Janus v. AFSCME next year, advocates for public schools worry that what’s happening in Wisconsin could spread to states like Minnesota – and spread quickly – if teachers’ collective voice is weakened.

“Our general approach in Minnesota has been to work with public-sector unions in order to create services that work well for the public, and we think over time that’s paid off,” Mariani said. “We watch with a lot of concern what’s happening in our neighbor state.”

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In Minnesota, public-sector workers building power from the inside out

February 19, 2016 by
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MAPE Local 801 member Victoria Hopwood speaks at a forum at the East Side Freedom Library about threats to public-sector unions.

They may no longer be on the brink of a Supreme Court-imposed Right-to-Work rule, but Minnesota’s public-sector union members aren’t celebrating. They’re organizing.

“What we got was a reprieve, not clemency – and surely not a pardon,” Education Minnesota attorney Meg Luger-Nikolai warned a standing-room-only audience of activists last night at the East Side Freedom Library, site of a forum on Friedrichs v. CTA .

In oral arguments last month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared in agreement on the case. Most observers predicted a 5-4 decision to overturn the 40-year precedent allowing public-sector unions to collect fair-share fees from workers who benefit from a contract but choose not to join the union.

While Justice Antonin Scalia’s death Feb. 13 may have changed Friedrichs’ short-term fate, the legal attacks on working people – bankrolled by big-moneyed, right-wing special interests – will only keep coming.

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

Bill Barry is author of “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.”

“Some people are breathing a sigh of relief, thinking we’re all set,” Maryland-based labor educator Bill Barry said. “We’re not all set.”

That message already seemed to have registered with the public-sector union members who spilled out from the library’s stacks last night.

The forum, planned before Scalia’s death, was billed as an opportunity to share strategies for maintaining strong unions if fair-share fees become illegal – a likelihood public-sector unions here have been anticipating since Scott Walker’s assault on collective bargaining in Wisconsin six years ago.

As members discussed how their unions might adapt to survive, there was no talk of letting up just because the Supreme Court’s makeup is in flux. Some even appeared to welcome the challenge.

“I think we can survive and thrive with a new membership-driven union,” said Carol Nieters, whose union, SEIU Local 284, represents 9,000 school support workers. “I think we can turn on its head what others think they can pull apart.”

Barry, who taught at the Community College of Baltimore County, preaches a similarly proactive approach in his latest book, “Closing Up the Open Shop: A Guide to Internal Organizing.” It offers up case studies from around the country in how workers have overcome Right-to-Work laws to build powerful unions.

“We’ve got to revive ourselves,” he said. “It’s no good talking about a problem without talking about solutions. We’ve got to go forward, and if we do it now, it’s going to make a stronger, better, more aggressive union.”

Barry advocated training and empowering stewards to do work often handled by union staff, engaging new members on Day 1 of employment and moving more of the union’s processes – like grievance filings and contract negotiations – into the open.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

Panelists included (L to R) John Westmoreland of AFSCME Council 5, Brian Aldes of Teamsters Local 320, Carol Nieters of SEIU Local 284 and Ellen Olsen of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

After Barry’s presentation, a panel of activists offered glimpses into their own unions’ internal organizing efforts.

John Westmoreland, a former prison guard who’s now assistant director of AFSCME Council 5, acknowledged that fair-share fees “made us lazy” in the past, but he said Friedrichs has sparked a new campaign to sign up 94 percent of the workers Council 5 represents.

“We’re engaging them where they work, everybody coming in the door,” Westmoreland said. “Once we complete this campaign, I won’t have to worry about the Supreme Court justices anymore.”

It’s a lofty goal, but one public-sector union members – and, likely, all union members at some point – will need to meet to keep a strong voice on the job.

“We should make a commitment,” East Side Freedom Library director Peter Rachleff said at the close of the forum. “We’re all going to come back here in six months and see how it’s going.”

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Holding steady in Minnesota, union density plunges in Right-to-Work Wisconsin

January 28, 2016 by

BLS LogoUnion members made up 14.2 percent of Minnesota’s wage-earning and salaried workforce last year, a membership rate unchanged from 2014, according to an annual report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A similar trend played out nationwide, as the union membership rate held steady at 11.1 percent of the U.S. workforce.

But the story was much different in Wisconsin, where total union membership dropped to 223,000 last year, down 83,000 from 2014. Union members made up just 8.3 percent of the workforce in 2015, down from 11.7 percent in 2014.

In 2009, the year before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took office, Wisconsin had 385,000 union members, accounting for 15.2 percent of the state’s workforce.

Since taking office, Walker has teamed up with Republican majorities in the Legislature to pass a Right to Work law and Act 10, which included draconian restrictions on public-sector workers’ union rights, including a provision that requires local unions to hold annual recertification elections.

Both measures substantially weakened unions’ bargaining power and likely contributed to a 45-percent drop in union density statewide over the last six years.

“It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Minnesota has … a higher unionization rate, higher median income and a better workplace safety record than any of our neighbors,” said Bill McCarthy, president of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO. “Higher union density means a higher standard of living for all working people.”

Meanwhile, the wage advantage enjoyed by union members nationwide remained strong in 2015. Median weekly earnings among union members who worked full time last year were $980, compared to $776 for non-union workers.

The advantage was even greater among some minority groups. Black union members, for example, earned 30 percent more than black non-union workers. And Hispanic women union members earned 44 percent more than their non-union peers.

Union membership continued to pay off in certain industries as well, most notably in construction, where union members’ median weekly earnings were $356 more than non-union workers.

The BLS reported Minnesota had a total of 363,000 union members in 2015, but unions represented an additional 22,000 workers. This group includes so-called “fee payers,” who elect not to pay union dues but are covered by the benefits of a union contract.

In Minnesota, fee-payers account for 5.7 percent of workers who benefit from collective bargaining agreements. In Right-to-Work Wisconsin, where unions are barred from charging fair-share fees, that ratio jumps to 11.9 percent.

Public-sector unions’ ability to collect fair-share fees is under scrutiny by the Supreme Court in Friedrichs v. CTA. Many experts expect the court’s ruling, expected before the end of June, to establish Right to Work across the public sector in all 50 states.

The BLS generates its annual report on union membership using results of the Current Population Survey, a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households nationwide. BLS data was released the same day that Gallup ranked Minnesota with the highest job creation index in the nation.

“As we continue to lead the nation in job creation, Minnesota’s labor movement is committed to ensuring these new jobs are family-sustaining jobs,” McCarthy said.

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Nurses approve contracts with five Twin Cities hospital systems

January 20, 2016 by

web.MNAvote-scene

Nurses from five Twin Cities hospital systems voted yesterday to ratify union contracts that will protect their pension and health benefits and provide 2 percent raises in each of the next three years.

The new contracts won’t go into effect for more than four months. Negotiations between the Minnesota Nurses Association and the hospitals – Children’s, Fairview, HealthEast, North Memorial and Methodist – proceeded quickly after the two sides agreed to wages-only bargaining.

The process appeared similarly routine for nurses filing in and out of the northeast Minneapolis hotel where the MNA staged balloting. But for one Fairview Southdale nurse, casting her ballot was a selfie-worthy experience.

“I took tons of pictures and sent them to my mom,” Emma Sonney said after participating in her first union-contract vote. “I’d never been a union member before I took this job two months ago. So it’s pretty exciting.”

Fairview Southdale nurse Emma Sonney, who moved to Minnesota from Wisconsin last year, casts a ballot in a contract vote for the first time in her life.

Fairview Southdale nurse Emma Sonney, who moved to Minnesota from Wisconsin last year, casts a ballot in a contract vote for the first time in her life.

A fifth-generation nurse born and raised in Wisconsin, Sonney relocated to Minnesota last year after reading an article that ranked the state’s working conditions for nurses second in the U.S.

The move paid off when Sonney landed a job in Southdale’s perianesthesia unit. She was surprised to find nursing scrubs and a locker provided, as well as supervisors who insisted she take breaks and eight-hour shifts that ended on schedule.

Already, her wages are higher than her father’s, even though he’s been working as a registered nurse since finishing his military service.

For Sonney, the choice between working in a strong union state like Minnesota or a Right to Work state like Wisconsin is an easy one.

“There’s no advocacy in Wisconsin anymore, whether you’re a nurse or someone else,” she said. “When I get to work, I want to know I’m going to be at least somewhat protected. That’s what a union contract provides.”

Strong union contracts protect patients too, MNA President Mary Turner said, by empowering nurses to speak up when they see conditions that undermine patient care, like unsafe staffing levels.

Safe staffing was the biggest sticking point in negotiations between nurses and Twin Cities hospitals in 2010, when MNA members briefly went on strike for safe patient care. Nurses eventually won contract language establishing site-based, labor-management committees focused on the issue.

“We really thought our hospitals were going to step up and work with us on staffing,” Turner said. “We’ve been trying to move things forward in our collaborative committees, but things seem to be only getting worse.”

Safe patient care remains the top priority, Turner said, but nurses are using their collective voice to advocate for safe staffing levels at the Capitol rather than at the negotiating table. Last year, nurses turned in more than 2,000 “Concern for Safe Staffing” forms to state regulators during the union’s annual lobbying day.

Meanwhile, the shift in focus has freed MNA negotiators to focus on protecting and building on the benefits and working conditions that make Minnesota a destination for job-seeking nurses like Sonney.

“Everything in our contract, nurses before us have worked extremely hard to get,” Turner said. “We don’t take that lightly.”

The newly approved contracts cover about 7,000 nurses in the Twin Cities. MNA also represents about 5,000 nurses who work in facilities owned by Allina Health, which opted out of metro-wide talks.

Negotiations between nurses and Allina management will begin at a later date, according to the union.

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With Fast Track vote looming, Minnesotans join ‘last-ditch effort’ to sway Wisconsin rep

June 10, 2015 by
Union members from Minnesota and Wisconsin stand together against Fast Track and the TPP outside Rep. Ron Kind's Eau Claire offices.

Union members from Minnesota and Wisconsin stand together against Fast Track and the TPP outside Rep. Ron Kind’s Eau Claire offices.

 

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – In a showing of cross-border solidarity, fair trade activists from Minnesota bolstered the ranks of local activists protesting today outside the offices of U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a lead proponent of legislation that would “fast track” more bad trade deals that threaten U.S. jobs.

Fast Track, or “trade promotion authority,” passed the Senate last month, and the bill could draw a vote in the House as early as tomorrow.

That means labor and environmental activists are in full campaign mode, urging lawmakers like Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, to reject the measure, which would limit Congress’ ability to influence trade agreements negotiated in secret, like the 1,000-plus page Trans-Pacific Partnership.

[Click here to tell your member of Congress to vote NO on Fast Track.]

“It covers 40 percent of the world’s GDP and 800 million people, and all we know about it has come through leaked documents,” said Bruce O’Brien of Altoona, Wis. “It’s a big deal, and it’s not just about trade. It’s about our sovereignty.”

Current proposals in the TPP would allow multinational corporations to challenge local ordinances governing food safety, setting wage and lending standards or establishing “buy-local” procurement policies – and to do so in extrajudicial trade tribunals.

web.RonKindFastTrack-marchingUnion members from Wisconsin said they’ve reached out to Kind with concerns that Fast Track would pave the way for more NAFTA-style, job-killing trade agreements.

“Labor standards, environmental rules – we can’t control those things in other countries,” AFSCME Local 1914 member Judy Gattin said. “American labor can’t compete with child labor.”

Don Stuttgen, a retired Communications Worker, said he’s urged Kind to “keep our businesses here in the U.S. Don’t give away all our jobs.”

But so far those concerns haven’t moved Kind out of the “yes” column on Fast Track. Today’s action, demonstrators said, is a reminder that they aren’t giving the congressman a pass.

“We’ve got to do things like this to make our voice heard, to hold him accountable,” O’Brien said.

A delegation of about 15 Minnesotans, including several members of the Communications Workers of America and activists from the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, traveled here today to support the Wisconsin action.

“I think it’s important for union members to stand in solidarity, even if it’s across state lines,” CWA Minnesota State Council President Mona Meyer said. “This is an international trade deal that will affect everybody.”

Meyer said Minnesota’s DFLers are solidly opposed to Fast Track, and activists were looking for ways to help out elsewhere.

“We’re taking a stand for all Americans, all working families,” she said. “It’s worth our last-ditch effort to see if we can help flip a yes to a no.”

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AFSCME members defend public service during Council 5’s Day on Hill rally

March 25, 2015 by
David Ruth, a mental health worker in Cambridge, calls for safe staffing levels at the state's hospitals and group homes during AFSCME Council 5's Day on the Hill rally.

David Ruth, a mental health worker in Cambridge, calls for safe staffing levels at the state’s hospitals and group homes during AFSCME Council 5’s Day on the Hill rally.

 

“Everyone in this room is an expert in public service,” AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide told nearly 1,000 members of the union during its Day on the Hill rally yesterday. “You’ve forgotten more than (politicians) will ever know.”

After the rally, held at a downtown St. Paul hotel, union members bused to the Capitol, where they met with their legislators to pitch the union’s priorities this session, including:

• New revenue for a long-term, comprehensive investment in the state’s roads, bridges and transit options.

AFSCME members, MnDOT worker John Gaither said, see the disrepair of the state’s infrastructure every day. “We’re here to tell you the need is urgent,” Gaither said.

• Staffing up for safety at state-run prisons and mental health facilities.

David Ruth, who works at a state facility in Cambridge, listed the injuries AFSCME members have suffered on the job, from sexual assault to being stabbed in the eye with a pen. “We as staff expect some level of danger at our jobs, but we are not willing to risk our lives,” Gaither said.

AFSCME members get fired up during Council 5's Day on the Hill rally.

AFSCME members get fired up during Council 5’s Day on the Hill rally.

Other priorities include reinvesting in public services to support Minnesota’s quality of life, protecting retirement security and defined-benefit pensions and passing the Working Parents Act.

The rally’s theme – “Minnesota Rising!” – played to the difference between Minnesota, where Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL legislators have expanded collective bargaining rights and raised taxes on the wealthiest to protect public services, and other Midwestern states. Any mention of Wisconsin, where Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker recently signed Right to Work into law, drew jeers from the crowd.

AFSCME Local 8 President Angela Marlow, a child support agent, told members she used to work in Wisconsin; now she works for Ramsey County.

“Remember that bumper sticker that read ‘Escape to Wisconsin?'” Marlow asked. “Well I escaped from Wisconsin to work in Minnesota.”

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Good Luck: WI health care workers form union on same day Walker signs Right to Work

March 10, 2015 by
Health care workers celebrate their organizing win at United Pioneer Home in Luck, Wis.

Health care workers celebrate their organizing win at United Pioneer Home in Luck, Wis.

More bad news for working families came out of Wisconsin yesterday, when Gov. Scott Walker approved so-called “Right to Work” legislation. But there was good news, too.

Nursing home workers in the small town of Luck, Wis., about 70 miles northeast of the Twin Cities, voted to form a union in election results certified by the National Labor Relations Board yesterday.

As a result, 57 certified nursing assistants, dietary workers, housekeepers and laundry workers at United Pioneer Home now are represented by Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a union headquartered in St. Paul and Duluth.

The organizing drive began in January, after a handful of United Pioneer Home workers approached the union with concerns about insufficient staffing levels and workplace safety. Abraham Wangnoo, director of organizing for Local 1189, said workers reported being afraid to approach management with their concerns and were frustrated with the lack of respect supervisors showed them on the job. One worker who spoke up to management, he said, was dismissed as “just a maid.”

“People wanted a voice,” Wangnoo said. “When they had concerns, they wanted to be heard. This was a way they thought they could use one voice to speak about issues that affect their jobs and the (nursing home) residents’ lives.”

The organizing drive progressed quickly, and workers voted 25-14 in favor of union representation.

Now, United Pioneer Home becomes an early test of whether newly organized unions can survive in post-RTW Wisconsin. The new law allows workers to benefit from a collective bargaining agreement without paying for the cost of representation, making it illegal to collect fair-share fees from workers in an organized workplace who choose not to join the union.

When Local 1189 members and United Pioneer Home agree on a first contract, it will cover all 57 workers eligible to vote in the NLRB election, including those who voted against unionizing. All 57 will enjoy the benefits of the new contract, from grievance procedures and job security to safety protections and compensation increases.

But the cost of negotiating and servicing the new contract will fall entirely on the workers who choose to join the union and pay dues to Local 1189.

By gutting the resources unions rely on to represent workers, RTW generally undermines the appeal – and bargaining power – of organized labor in states that pass the law. But Wangnoo said Local 1189, which represents more than 650 workers in western Wisconsin, isn’t about to pull up stakes.

“We’re going to continue to do the best we can to be the best we can, so people really do see the value in what workers have done in organizing a union,” Wangnoo said. “We want them all to know that it pays to belong.”

That task becomes more difficult over time, as workers active in an organizing effort retire or take other jobs.

Wangnoo said Local 1189’s bargaining units in Wisconsin have elected union stewards who are dedicated to the kind of service and outreach work necessary to bring new members into the fold. Already, some workers who voted against the union at United Pioneer Home have expressed an interest in being involved in negotiations, he said.

“Our representation is what we’re going to count on for keeping the good, strong union density in these places that we need to maintain strong contracts,” he said. “I believe our record will speak for itself, and people will see the value in membership.”

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A governor who will ‘go all Scott Walker’ on Minnesota? No thanks, unions say

October 31, 2014 by

UA layout_UA layoutJeff Johnson, the Republican nominee for governor, doesn’t have much executive experience, but the former state legislator provided a glimpse of his leadership style May 15, telling a Tea Party group he would “go all Scott Walker on Minnesota” if elected.

“I don’t know exactly what that means,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson responded, “but I know it isn’t good.”

Since being sworn into office in January 2011, Walker and Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton have taken their states in wholly different directions.

Dayton, a DFLer whose re-election campaign has broad union support, never wavered from his vision for a better Minnesota. He pledged to reverse a trend of dwindling support for public education, balance the state’s budget responsibly by raising taxes on the rich and grow the economy from the middle class out.

Dayton delivered on those promises, with help from pro-worker majorities elected to the Legislature two years ago.

“Gov. Dayton and the DFL majority have created an economy that works better for everyone,” said Eliot Seide, director of the state’s largest union of public employees, AFSCME Council 5. “More Minnesotans are working than ever before. We are the third-best state to make a living. Our economy is the fifth fastest-growing in the nation.”

So what does Johnson see in Walker’s Wisconsin worth replicating here?

To get a sense of what a Johnson administration might mean for union families, we’ll analyze the different approaches taken by Minnesota and Wisconsin on four key issues over the last four years:

• Collective Bargaining. One of Walker’s first moves as governor was to strip most public employees of their bargaining rights. Walker’s so-called “Budget Repair Bill” passed a Republican Legislature despite a series of pro-union protests that drew more than 100,000 to the Capitol in Madison.

“Imagine waking up one day without a contract, without collective bargaining rights, without a voice on the job,” said Eliot Seide, director of the state’s largest union of public employees, AFSCME Council 5. “That’s what happened to AFSCME members in Walker’s Wisconsin, and it could happen here if union members don’t vote.”

Dayton and DFL legislators, by contrast, expanded collective bargaining rights to more Minnesota workers, passing legislation last year that removed barriers to organizing for child-care providers and home-health workers who are paid with public funds.

Already, the new law has extended the benefit of a union to more than 20,000 home-care workers. After voting to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota in August, they currently are negotiating their first union contract with state regulators, marking the first time workers in the low-wage, female-dominated field have had a real voice in the terms of their employment.

“We can’t let Jeff Johnson and his Tea Party extremists take us down Walker’s road to ruin,” Seide warned.

• Education. In addition to slashing teachers’ benefits and bargaining rights, Walker cut state funding for public school districts in Wisconsin by $834 million in his first year in office. That’s roughly the amount of new funding the state has funneled into public schools during Dayton’s four years in office.

Stephanie Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, called Walker’s first education budget “the largest cut to schools in state history.” With 73 percent school districts in Wisconsin cutting staff or programming as a result of the budget cuts, she added, “our children are paying the price.”

Education Minnesota President Denise Specht, who leads the state’s largest union of school employees, warned that Johnson would lead Minnesota down a similar path.

“Walker has been a disaster for Wisconsin students, so it’s baffling why someone running for office in Minnesota would choose him as a role model,” she said. “Wisconsin is now investing $1,000 less per student than in 2008, which means the Wisconsin workforce will be at a competitive disadvantage for decades.”

Walker also has expanded Wisconsin’s private-school voucher program, which Specht called “out of control.” According to published reports, the voucher program has funneled $139 million from state coffers into failing private schools over the last 10 years – funds that could otherwise have supported public school districts.

Minnesota, meanwhile, is on the opposite track.

As a candidate, Dayton pledged to reverse a decade-long trend of dwindling support for Minnesota’s public schools. With help from pro-worker majorities elected to the Legislature two years ago, he signed bills to repay more than $2 billion borrowed from school districts, reduce class sizes and guarantee statewide access to all-day kindergarten.

That progress is at risk if Johnson is elected governor, Specht said

“If you’re in a working family that cares about the education of your children, there’s something you should know when you hear someone say he wants ‘go all Scott Walker’ on your state,” Specht said. “You should know that is a threat you can’t ignore.”

RLF-GE_Layout 1• Wages and Economic Security. Dayton and DFL legislators earlier this year raised Minnesota’s minimum wage for the first time in a decade, and they passed the Women’s Economic Security Act, a nation-leading initiative to eliminate the gap between what women and men earn for doing comparable work.

Johnson has sent mixed messages about whether, if elected, he would move to block scheduled increases in Minnesota’s minimum wage in 2015 and 2016. But he has pledged to roll back a provision of the law that would trigger automatic increases, tied to the rate of inflation, beginning in 2018.

That stance puts Johnson in line with Walker’s Wisconsin, where median household income has fallen in each of the last four years – and by 5.1 percent since 2009, according to the American Community Survey. Data released last month by the Census Bureau shows Wisconsin’s median household income fell by 0.4 percent between 2012 and 2013, to $51,467.

Minnesota, meanwhile, saw a 1.6 percent increase in household income between 2012 and 2013, to $60,702. It marked the state’s second consecutive year of significant income growth.

Given the growing disparities between the two states, it’s no surprise workers in Wisconsin are looking west with envy.

“Wisconsin is dead last in the Midwest in job growth,” Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt said. “Wisconsin is missing out on economic opportunities and growth because Gov. Walker refuses to raise the minimum wage for workers or accept federal funds to expand health care access. Wisconsin workers make $5,000 less a year than Minnesota workers. Wisconsin workers can’t afford four more years of Gov. Walker.”

• Taxes and Economic Growth. Walker’s approach to economic growth is narrow: lure businesses to Wisconsin with tax cuts, incentives and “Open for Business” signs along the border. But as Bloomingdale notes, “tax cuts for the rich and rewarding out-of-state donors has gotten Wisconsin nowhere.”

Indeed, Wisconsin has been slower to recover from the Great Recession than Minnesota. Wisconsin’s per-capita Gross Domestic Product has increased just 3.4 percent since 2010, compared to 5.1 percent growth in Minnesota.

Why? Dayton and DFL legislators have taken a broad, long-range approach to job creation, investing in education, job training and infrastructure, and backing public-private ventures like the Mall of America expansion, the Vikings stadium and Rochester’s Destination Medical Center.

Walker declined federal funding to build a high-speed rail line through his state. And Wisconsin continues to fall behind in infrastructure investments, with 71 percent of the state’s roads in poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, compared to 52 percent of Minnesota roads.

“Gov. Dayton and House DFLers have Minnesota on the right path,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said. “We can’t afford to let Jeff Johnson turn us around.”

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Author sees reason for hope in Wisconsin recall campaign

May 8, 2012 by

John Nichols’ book “Uprising” provides an insider account of the union protests that swept across Wisconsin last year.

Progressive writer John Nichols energized and entertained during a May 2 lecture at the Carpenters Union Hall in St. Paul, providing a first-hand, insider’s account of union protests that swept across Wisconsin last year, sparking a renewed interest in grassroots democracy and progressive activism nationwide.

Nichols, a Wisconsin-based writer for The Nation magazine and author of the new book “Uprising,” appeared in St. Paul as part of The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s annual labor-history series, “Untold Stories.”

(That series continues tonight at 7 p.m. with “Czechs & Paychecks: Working-class History of West 7th,” a panel discussion at the CSPS Hall, 383 Michigan Street; and tomorrow with a post-show discussion following the Guthrie Theater’s presentation of “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been,” a play about Langston Hughes’ appearance at the McCarthy hearings. Click here for more information.)

Nichols brought a roomful of about 30 people back to the winter of 2011, when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Republican majorities in the State Legislature outraged union members across the state with plans to strip teachers, nurses and other public employees of most of their collective-bargaining rights.

The governor’s plan was mean to address a budget “crisis” the Republicans created by handing out $140 million in tax breaks to corporations after sweeping into power during the 2010 elections. The so-called “budget-repair bill” eliminated public employees’ ability to deduct dues out of their paychecks, forced them to hold elections every year to “reconstitute” their unions and stripped them of their ability to negotiate for health insurance and pension benefits.

According to Nichols, Democratic lawmakers and many union leaders responded by throwing up their hands and warning union members to brace themselves for bad news.

But one local union of graduate-level teaching assistants from the University of Wisconsin decided to fight back. The union’s decision to protest inside the State Capitol, crowding the hallway outside Walker’s office, was a “light-bulb moment” for angry public employees across the state, Nichols said.

“Suddenly, everybody watching the TV news saw people protesting,” Nichols said. “And if you have an ongoing protest, it’s something people can join.”

And join they did. Emboldened by the demonstrators, Democratic state senators fled the state, preventing a vote on the union bill and forcing Walker and Republican lawmakers to face the public backlash and outrage it had created. Students and workers occupied the Capitol for 18 consecutive days, “assembling and petitioning for the redress of grievances, as they had been taught to do in school,” Nichols said.

“People weren’t waiting for politicians to solve their problems. They were demanding their basic rights, demanding their basic freedoms. That’s what Wisconsinites did.”

Although Walker’s attacks on public workers and their unions eventually passed into law, protests outside the Capitol drew hundreds of thousands of people, sowing the seeds of grassroots democracy that have now grown into a political effort to recall Walker, his lieutenant governor and four of his closest allies in the Legislature.

More than 1 million Wisconsinites signed onto the Walker recall, the highest percentage of a state’s population ever to petition for removal of a leader. The state is holding a primary election today to determine Walker’s opponent in the June 5 recall election.

Nichols said he remains hopeful the recall will succeed, pointing to Walker’s sliding poll numbers. “We will be told again and again that we’ve been defeated, that we have to accept what we are told, that we can’t win this fight,” he said. Then Nichols offered the advice of Wisconsin’s former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold: “This fight isn’t over until we win it.”

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