Trump guts agencies key to keeping worksites safe

May 23, 2025 by

Don Mullin (L), executive secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council, draped a black sash over the cross bearing the name of Daniel Lee, who died on the jobsite in November when a structural column fell on him. Ironworkers Local 512 President Troy Sebion held Lee’s cross during the Workers Memorial Day ceremony on the Capitol grounds. Sebion called Lee his best friend and said Lee nominated him to serve as the union’s president. “He was the best,” Sebion said. “Good worker, good father, horrible golfer. I miss him.”

Local unions’ Workers Memorial Day observances took on heightened urgency this year, as the Trump administration sought to hollow out federal agencies critical to protecting workers from injury, illness and death on the job.

Workers Memorial Day falls on April 28, the date President Richard Nixon signed the Occupa-tional Safety and Health Act into law in 1971. Unions across the U.S. hold events to honor workers who died on the job and rededicate their organizations to fighting for safer workplaces.

But 54 years since the landmark, bipartisan law took effect, Trump and his billionaire backers are moving to dramatically – and recklessly, unions say – to scale back the federal government’s investment in workplace safety.

Most alarming to worker advocates is a two-thirds reduction in staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Health and Human Services Department that is dedicated to research that protects workers.

The agency’s recommendations are relied on by workers and employers throughout the world. Its work has informed life-saving regulations around asbestos, bloodborne pathogens, silica and black lung, and it tests and authorizes safety equipment relied on by American workers across most industries.

A coalition of unions has filed a lawsuit to restore staffing at NIOSH.

Meanwhile, workers in the Department of Labor, according to a report in The Guardian, have warned of widespread resignations that could cripple the federal government’s ability to investigate and enforce wage-and-hour and OSHA regulations.

Twin Cities Building Trades unions held a Workers Memorial Day ceremony at the Capitol on April 28.

If Trump succeeds in steering the federal government away from its responsibility to protect worker safety, labor leaders warn, it will put overwhelming pressure on unions and state and local agencies to pick up the slack.

“The realities of our present day are disturbing,” Dan McConnell, president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council, said during a Workers Memorial Day ceremony in St. Paul. “We must remember, while political leaders come and go, our movement endures, and our job remains unchanged.”

Held at the Minnesota Workers Memorial Garden on the Capitol grounds, the ceremony wove together solemn remarks from union leaders and state regulators about their commitment to safety on the job with a sobering reminder of what’s at stake in that work.

Dean Gale, business manager of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, offered an opening prayer from a podium placed before a row of five white crosses, each bearing the name of a union tradesperson who died in jobsite accidents or from work-related illnesses in the past year.

“Help us honor the legacy the fallen have built and left behind,” Gale said. “You can see it in the skyline.”

The names affixed to the crosses included James Baker III of Bricklayers Local 1, David Buck of Operating Engineers Local 49, Gregory E. Jeanette of IBEW Local 242, Daniel L. Lee of Ironworkers 512 and Zachary McDonald of Bricklayers Local 1.

McConnell said unions would never accept the loss of any worker to jobsite hazards “as merely the price of doing business.”

“We gather today, on Workers Memorial Day, to remember our fallen brothers, to re-center ourselves, to recognize that our work advocating for the safety of our members will never be done and to remind one another, even though we belong to different trades, the safety of our members depends on every member of every trade performing their job safely,” he said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Blissenbach: Aquatic plant removal bill honors memory of fallen workers

April 28, 2025 by

Minnesota Labor Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach speaks during local Building Trades unions’ Workers Memorial Day ceremony on the Capitol grounds.

From the first day on the job to the last, each and every worker, each and every shift, has the right to a safe and healthy workplace. Unfortunately, in Minnesota between October 2023 and March 2024, Minnesota OSHA (MNOSHA) investigated 10 workplace fatalities. We take time each April 28, Workers Memorial Day, to honor and remember all workers whose lives were cut short by a workplace injury, illness or disease.

Workers Memorial Day began in 1970 and, within the year, the first Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed, establishing federal OSHA. That first OSHA law – and every worker protection law enacted since then – has passed thanks to the power of the labor movement and concerned citizens, standing up to advocate for the right to a safe workplace and to protect working people.

Every year our agency meets with unions, businesses, trade organizations, medical professionals, workers’ advocates and individuals who share their ideas for improving worker safety. Our role is to listen, to learn from their experiences and to advocate for advancements in workplace safety laws and regulations.

This year I had the honor of meeting the parents of two young men who died in two separate workplace incidents while removing aquatic weeds in 2022 and 2024. I am grateful to these parents for their strength to fight for improved safety for employees who dive on the job.

After completing its investigations, MNOSHA’s compliance office issued citations to those employers for violations of the commercial diving standard. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Legislature introduced legislation designed to increase protections for workers using scuba-diving equipment to perform aquatic weed and plant removal. Called the Brady Aune and Joseph Anderson Act, the new legislation will align the efforts of MNOSHA Compliance and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to ensure employers permitted to perform this work have formally trained and certified scuba divers and use required standardized equipment.

As summer quickly approaches, Minnesota employers performing aquatic weed removal at lakes across the state will be tasked with implementing requirements to protect workers using scuba-diving equipment as a result of this new legislation.

When employers follow required safety standards, have proper controls in place and make safety and health programs a priority, our brothers, sisters and siblings are safer and our state is stronger. On Workers Memorial Day and throughout the year, we must work together to make sure employers embrace safety and health as a core value in their operations so that every worker goes home safe every day.

All workers – no matter their age or experience – have a right to a safe and healthy workplace. When I came to work for the Department of Labor and Industry, I wanted to make a difference in the lives of workers across Minnesota. I joined a workforce of more than 600 dedicated people working in service to all workers of Minnesota, ensuring safety and health in the workplace is a right, not a privilege. It is now more important than ever to protect the rights that exist for workers while advocating to advance safer working conditions that will save lives.

– Nicole Blissenbach is commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. Her column appears in the May 2025 issue of The Saint Paul Union Advocate.

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Grocery workers workers win historic raises, landmark safety language in new contracts

March 25, 2024 by

A Lunds & Byerly’s worker hands out samples at the deli counter inside the downtown St. Paul store.

Contract talks between east-metro grocers and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 are off to an encouraging start.

Within weeks of opening negotiations, workers at two retail chains have reached tentative agreements that include the largest wage increases ever for their bargaining units.

Local 1189 announced a tentative contract agreement covering workers at five east metro Lunds & Byerly’s locations March 14. Within a week, the union had another agreement covering workers at six Kowalski’s stores.

Both units were scheduled to take ratification votes in early April, as negotiations continued on contracts covering workers at three other chains: UNFI-owned Cub Foods, Jerry’s and Jerry’s Cub, and Festival Foods.

The first two settlements have set a high bar, and members of the worker-led bargaining teams credited a pro-labor climate, both locally and nationally, with giving them momentum to win big at the bargaining table.

“You see the headlines with the teachers and what’s happened with the auto industry,” Lunds & Byerly’s worker Zach Boling Green said. “Unions are kind of gaining traction in a way I haven’t seen before – and even the more veteran members haven’t seen before. I think that set the stage for this contract.”

Local 1189 members also pointed to the aggressive contract campaign taken on by grocery workers in their sibling local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663, last year. It included several strike votes and informational picketing – and led to historic gains in their contracts.

Claire Van den Berghe, Local 1189’s organizing director, said it was clear that Kowalski’s and Lunds & Bylerly’s were not eager for another round of contentious bargaining, and they could see that Local 1189 members were mobilizing for a fight.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work to prepare for bargaining,” she said. “The employers have clearly noticed, and I think they are anxious about having another big fight. So to head it off, they actually came with good proposals.

“We had built strong committees because we were expecting to have a big fight. They kind of pulled the rug out from under us.”

Gains in the new contracts include increased opportunities for full-time work, protections for meatcutters’ jobs, new language protecting workers from having to travel in dangerous weather and industry-leading wage increases.

Lunds & Byerly’s full-time workers will earn $4.50 per hour more by the end of the two-year contract, $3.50 for part-timers. At Kowalski’s full-time workers will se a $3.75 raise, $2.50 for part-timers.

The pacts also include new safety language, setting minimum staffing on night shifts and, for Lunds workers, creating a new, first-in-the-nation process to develop policies covering violent events in their stores – from prevention and response to accommodations for workers who experience a violent event.

“After events in Buffalo and El Paso, we know that grocery and retail workers, unfortunately, are sometime targets for this kind of violence,” Boling Green said. “We just wanted to ensure the union is present in those discussions around procedures and training.

“Whenever we can have a hand in those things, I think workers stand to benefit.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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AFSCME members picket Carter’s State of the City speech

April 19, 2023 by

Members of AFSCME locals 1842 and 2508 picketed outside the Oxford Rec Center.

Clerical and technical workers staged informational picketing outside Mayor Melvin Carter’s State of the City address April 18, putting their frustration over a slow-moving round of contract negotiations on full public display.

“We have felt disrespected at the table,” Como Park horticulturist Bryn Fleming said. “Management has shown up late while we’ve been present. It’s disappointing that this is moving so slowly.”

Fleming is a chief steward with Local 1842 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), representing the city’s technical workers. With the clerical union, AFSCME Local 2508, the unions represent about 1,000 workers in talks that began in December.

AFSCME members’ previous, two-year contracts expired New Year’s Eve, and after six mostly fruitless bargaining sessions, the unions will enter mediation with the city May 8.

Union members’ top priorities in bargaining include 6% annual wage increases, affordable health benefits and safety on the job.

AFSCME members staff the city’s offices, libraries, rec centers and other facilities. Many who work in public-facing positions have described an alarming increase in threatening and violent behavior that leaves them feeling unsafe and understaffed, Fleming said.

“Folks in libraries have experienced assault, verbal abuse,” she said. “For folks in rec centers, it’s the same thing. Safety is a big concern, and we’re really trying to have stronger language on that in our contract. We have seen some movement, but we’d really like to have better collaboration.”

The city’s demands, meanwhile, have included elimination of AFSCME members’ promotional rights, which give union members a first shot at interviewing for certain job openings. Union members also have balked at a proposal to eliminate grievances over civil service violations and, instead, shift the process to a commission controlled by the city.

Those are non-starters for AFSCME’s bargaining team, Local 2508 President Jen Guertin said.

“We are the lowest-paid union members in the city,” she said. “For us to be able to promote up to a higher-wage job, that right to take a test and go to the top of a list for an interview, that’s our career path.”

Members of three unions – the Tri-Council – who work in St. Paul’s parks, public works and water departments ratified a new, three-year contract in March that will raise wages by up to 26%. But they took the city to the brink of a strike to get a deal done.

“We’re not there yet,” Guertin said. “We’re going to try mediation, and I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.”

With a mediator involved, Guertin and Fleming said, talks stand a better chance of starting on time and ending when they stop being productive, if nothing else.

“We would set the meeting to start at 5 p.m., and management wouldn’t come into the meeting until 5:30 or 5:45 – on the regular,” Guertin said. “Then we would pass an offer across the table, and they’d leave us sitting there for six or seven hours before coming back to say we can’t get anything done. What’s the point?”

By picketing the State of the City, union members hoped to put Carter on notice that they’re holding him accountable for the city’s lack of urgency.

“When we say things like we’re scared to go to work or we feel unsafe, we’d like to see somebody do something about that,” Fleming said. “And when we say we can’t pay our bills, we’d like to see somebody pay attention to that.

“I would love to feel like the mayor actually respects the work that we do and respects how difficult it can be.”

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Workers turn out for a say in Metro Transit’s safety plan

February 10, 2023 by

Transit workers packed the Feb. 8 Met Council meeting.

Metro Transit bus and train operators packed Met Council chambers Feb. 8, demanding input into the agency’s plan to improve safety across the local transit system.

Council members were poised to approve that plan, finalized by Metro Transit in December, but they voted 7-5 to postpone any action for at least one week, giving management and union representatives time to chart a course for better collaboration moving forward.

“This huge turnout really proves an interest from workers to tell their side of the story,” Council Member Abdirahman Muse said.

The operators’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, was not involved in drafting the safety plan despite a new federal requirement – part of the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021 – that transit systems create labor-management safety committees to sign off on their plans.

Union leaders and council members acknowledged the newly formed committee got off to a “rocky start” last year, and it put the process at risk of missing a Dec. 31 deadline with the Federal Transit Administration.

ATU representatives offered to approach the FTA jointly with Metro Transit and request an extension, Local 1005 member Ron Kammueller said, so that frontline workers could have a voice in the safety plan.

“They declined and went to the FTA behind our backs unilaterally,” Kammueller said before the council meeting. “They claim the FTA granted them approval to mark this plan as approved by the (labor-management) committee. We’re here to say the process needs to back up and keep labor and management on equal footing.”

Council Member Deb Barber, chair of the council’s transportation committee, said the agency needed a plan on the books by the deadline to avoid risking federal funding. But she also emphasized that the plan is a “living document” and, at minimum, must be updated annually with input from the labor-management committee.

“Our goal and hope is that this is a continually updated document done in collaboration between Metro Transit and ATU,” Barber said. “This isn’t meant to be the end of the story; this is the start.”

Getting buy-in from the union won’t be an issue moving forward, Local 1005 Recording Secretary Miriam Wynn said. Safety is a growing concern among transit workers, over 70 of whom showed up for the Wednesday-night meeting in downtown St. Paul.

“We have facility workers who are just in the line of duty, trying to clean the platforms, and they are being held at gunpoint, being held at knifepoint,” she said. “It’s really bad out there.”

The FTA issued a special directive to Metro Transit last October in response to increasing safety risks faced by transit workers. The directive noted that Metro Transit is one of nine agencies nationwide that accounted for 79% of all transit worker assaults reported to the National Transit Database between 2016 and 2021, “with no clear downward trend in assaults” over that period.

But the safety plan Metro Transit produced last year lacked the sweeping changes needed to stem those increasing risks to workers and riders, Wynn said.

That’s why union members need a seat at the table.

“It is our lives, we’re the frontline workers, and there are things that should be in this plan – like ways to mitigate assaults, there’s nothing in there that speaks to that,” Wynn said. “Not even to speak to the drug use on the trains and on the buses that are affecting our operators? Those are the things that we want to see in this plan.”

Met Council Member Raymond Zeran, former political director of the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 292, said he hoped the urgency ATU members brought to the council meeting carries over to the labor-management committee’s efforts to settle on a safety plan “that everyone’s buying into.”

“Pack your lunch,” he told union members. “Get this done.”

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Unions honor fallen tradespeople on Workers Memorial Day

April 28, 2022 by

Twin Cities Building Trades councils observed Workers Memorial Day with a ceremony on the Capitol grounds today, remembering union tradespeople who died from workplace injuries and illnesses over the past year and rededicating their organizations to the cause of safer worksites.

“Every worker, regardless of their language, their gender, their skin color, their age or their citizenship status, has the right to be safe and healthy on the job,” Minnesota Labor and Industry Commissioner Roslyn Robertson said in remarks during the ceremony, held in the Workers Memorial Garden.

Standing along a stone memorial wall, union leaders and family members held 12 white crosses with the names of fallen union members: Neil Boser of Laborers Local 563; Gerald Peterson, Eric Raddatz, Dean Sinwell and Robert Vogelsberg of Operating Engineers Local 49; Duane Peterson, Craig Hansen, Robert Winczewski and Eric Dennis of Glaziers and Glassworkers Local 1324; George Kisel and Gary Newman of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34; and Donald Hopper of Painters Local 1962.

Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council President Joe Fowler chimed a bell as each name was read over the loudspeaker, and a black sash was draped over each cross.

Another cross held the name of longtime Carpenters union member and volunteer Darrell Ray, who died April 19. Ray was a fixture of the trades’ Workers Memorial Day ceremonies, usually as the person ringing the memorial bell.

Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough, a longtime member of Glaziers Local 1324, encouraged those gathered to imagine a Workers Memorial Day when that bell remains silent and “there are no more crosses” marking the deaths of construction workers.

“Memorials like this remind us of the work that’s yet to be done,” McDonough said. “And who’s going to do that work if it’s not you and me standing together in solidarity?”

Labor Commissioner Roslyn Robertson speaks during the Workers Memorial Day observance.

Robertson said upholding labor rights is an important part of making sure workplaces are safe.

“We must listen to the voice of the workers because it’s those workers who really know how to do their jobs safely,” she said. “We have to encourage those workers to be able to stand up when they see unsafe practices taking place.”

The annual day of reflection comes each year on April 28, the anniversary of the creation of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971. Across the country and throughout the world, working people pause to remember workplace fatalities and commit to improving safety on the job.

An annual report from the AFL-CIO, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” found that U.S. workplaces have much room for improvement when it comes to safety. Using 2020 employment data, the report found that hazardous working conditions led to 340 deaths every day that year, a rate of 3.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers.

The fatality rate was three times higher in the construction industry in 2020, and nearly four times higher among transportation and warehouse workers. More than a third of fatalities occurred among workers ages 55 and over.

Cohlton Boser (L) and Talyre Boser hold a cross for their father, Neil Boser, a member of Laborers Local 563 who died in a workplace accident last August.

Minnesota saw 67 workplace fatalities in 2020, according to the AFL-CIO report; 28 came as a result of transportation incidents.

Overall, employers reported nearly 3.2 million work-related injuries and illnesses in 2020, according to the report, and musculoskeletal disorders continued to make up the largest portion injuries, at 21%.

Latino and Black workers remained at greater risk of dying on the job than other workers, the report found.

Researchers also said underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses is widespread, estimating the true tally of work-related injuries and illnesses at between 5.4 million and 8.1 million each year.

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, is calling on both OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to enact stronger job safety and health protections, for Congress to increase resources for job safety agencies and for workers to have a real voice on safety and health in our workplaces without the fear of retaliation or intimidation.

“That’s tens of thousands of families losing a parent, a child, a sibling, every single year,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said. “Latino and Black workers specifically remain at greater risk of dying on the job than all workers. That is, frankly, unacceptable.”

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Roslyn Robertson: ‘Every fatality crosses my desk, and my stomach just cringes’

April 26, 2022 by

Commissioner Roslyn Robertson (mn.gov photo)

Each year on April 28, the labor movement observes Workers Memorial Day, when union members pause to remember workers killed or injured on the job – and to recommit to the fight for safe workplaces.

It’s a mission shared by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI), led by Commissioner Roslyn Robertson since January 2021. Robertson, who has more than 30 years of experience working in the agency, discussed the state’s efforts to promote safe workplaces and more in this Union Advocate interview, edited for length.

UA: What message do you want working people to hear this Workers Memorial Day?

RR: A renewed commitment to supporting workers. COVID changed the world of work to the point that right now it is a worker’s market; there are significantly more job openings than the number of skilled workers who can fill those positions. So I think one of the messages workers should hear this Workers Memorial Day is a debt of gratitude. I’m personally faced with many, many challenges, even at the state level, to find the right fit for the available openings, and I hear that in every arena that I find myself in. But as a regulator, I think the message workers need to hear is they are appreciated, they are supported, they are needed and they are valued in the workplace.

UA: Workers have faced new and unfamiliar risks during the pandemic. What lessons have we learned?

RR: Safety and health in the workplace are as important today as ever. COVID showed us that work is not in any way immune – as a matter of fact, the mere work environment can pose life-threatening hazards to the worker. So prioritizing safety and health is paramount.

We also know that safety pays, that a safe workplace is a profitable workplace. If employers are not doing all they can to control the known hazards, then the disruptions in the workplace could very easily affect their bottom line. Injuries negatively impact more than just that single worker. It can negatively impact the psyche of the workers around that individual, the confidence those workers have in their employer. When you couple that with the significant number of job openings, this should be the motivation for today’s employer to keep workers as safe as possible.

UA: As we look at means of protecting workers from injuries, what’s the importance of a union contract?

RR: Again, COVID has shown just how fragile some of our systems are, and having representation is even more important today than it could have been years ago. This should be an opportune time for unions to expand their reach. Many employees have learned through COVID just how vulnerable they are. Unions promote good safety, health and benefits to workers, whereas those employees who are not represented are really at the mercy of an employer. This is really the time for unions to toot their horns.

UA: What’s behind your passion for promoting and expanding registered apprenticeship?

RR: I started my career in the apprenticeship unit, so I learned how registered apprenticeship creates highly skilled workers that are capable of earning a very decent wage. But my passion for apprenticeship goes even further because my son went through a registered apprenticeship program. Over the years, I always sort of took him along to events. I remember taking him to an apprenticeship graduation ceremony when he was in 10th grade, and I said, that guy there will be earning whatever the journey-level wage rate was for an electrician at the time. My son was just floored.

UA: And how does apprenticeship factor into keeping worksites, particularly in the construction industry, safer?

RR: The first thing an apprentice learns is safety. When you start off prioritizing safety and incorporate that into every single process you do, all of a sudden, they don’t know how not to do it. That really yields some good results, and the commitment to safety training continues throughout their career. Every serious injury crosses my desk, every fatality crosses my desk, and my stomach just cringes. We can never take safety for granted, and we do that by making it a standard part of every training curriculum. That is what you find with union registered apprenticeship.

UA: A recent report brought to light some alarmingly high rates of injury at Amazon warehouses in Minnesota. Is that on the department’s radar?

RR: Amazon warehouses are definitely on our radar. The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires state regulators … to investigate any complaints, and there have been a small number of complaints, which is a bit shocking. But Labor and Industry have received complaints against an Amazon warehouse in Shakopee.

Here’s what really bears a bit more explanation. We have conducted a number of investigations at Amazon’s warehouse, however we can only assess the situation for what it appears when we’re there. Many of the injuries that have been subsequently reported through the workers-compensation system are injuries sustained over a period of time. So when you go out and you do an inspection, you can’t see the body changing. Musculoskeletal injuries, injuries based on repetitive motion, they are a bit harder to observe. It’s not like an electrical hazard or a noise hazard or a physical hazard. It looks very different, and it continues to challenge us on appropriate ways we can address it.

UA: Will that require targeted legislation?

RR: Maybe it will. I don’t have language in mind, but I do know this is an issue being debated across the nation. How do you handle the types of injuries that are occurring either because of the line speed or repetitive motion? It’s a serious situation. We’re going to have to bring some well-informed folks to the table in order to figure out a workable solution, one that will improve the safety for workers but also give the employer some space at the table to talk about the uniqueness of their business. It’s a big deal.

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House bill targets high injury rates in Amazon’s MN warehouses

February 18, 2022 by

Tyler Anderson, who works in Amazon’s Shakopee warehouse, told lawmakers the company’s relentless productivity rates create a dangerous culture of “fear and paranoia” among workers.

Responding to disproportionately high rates of injury at Amazon warehouses here, Minnesota lawmakers last week introduced legislation that would put the facilities under new scrutiny when it comes to ensuring workers have access to break time and advance notice of performance quotas that could result in discipline. 

“It’s our job as legislators to ensure all Minnesota workers return safely to their families,” said Rep. Rob Ecklund (D-International Falls), chair of the House Labor, Industry, Veterans and Military Affairs Finance and Policy Committee. “This bill will help ensure accountability is in place so employees have the information they need to be safe on the job.” 

Ecklund, Rep. Emma Greenman (D-Minneapolis) and other DFL lawmakers co-authored the measure, House File 2774, after a report issued in December by the National Employment Law Project backed up the accounts of local Amazon workers who, at protests and other actions in recent years, have described an unrelenting pace, frequent injuries and generally poor working conditions.  

The NELP report cited Amazon’s own data showing 11.1 injuries annually per 100 full-time-equivalent warehouse workers between 2018 and 2020. That’s more than twice the rate of injuries at non-Amazon warehouses, which averaged 5.2 per 100 full-time workers during the same time frame.  

Amazon’s Shakopee facility is particularly dangerous, researchers noted, with an injury rate in 2020 that was higher than any industry in Minnesota. 

Irene Tung, a senior researcher at NELP, said most injuries reported in Amazon warehouses were severe muscle strains, which can have lifelong effects. The injuries are also “completely preventable,” Tung said, if workers are allowed enough time to recover between repetitive tasks. 

But local warehouse workers, some of whom testified at the bill’s first committee hearing Feb. 10, said rest and recovery too often fall victim to Amazon’s “rate” – company-speak for the productivity quotas warehouse workers must meet. 

Tyler Hamilton, who has worked at the Shakopee facility for over four years, compared Amazon’s rate to a computer algorithm, but with human inputs. The result is a culture of “fear and paranoia” among workers, he told lawmakers. 

“You’ll overreach, you’ll cut corners, you’ll do things to improve your rate,” Hamilton said. “When you’re rushed, when you under stress, that weighs on people.” 

Mohamed Mire, a warehouse worker since 2017, said the struggle to meet Amazon’s rate feels like “we are fighting against a machine, but we cannot win because we are human.” 

The proposed legislation would require Amazon and other warehouse employers to spell out for their workers what their productivity quotas are and what the consequences will be if they fail to meet them. The measure would also require at least two days’ advance notice of changes to the quota and give workers the right to request information gathered by the employer to track their performance.  

The bill would prohibit warehouses from disciplining workers for failing to meet a quota that does not account for legally allowed breaks. And it would require the Department of Labor and Industry to open an investigation if a warehouse’s injury rate exceeds the industry average by more than 30%. 

Greenman called the measure appropriate, given Amazon’s growing footprint in the state. It’s only fair, she said, to expect the company live up to the standards other warehouse employers in Minnesota are already meeting.   

“When we as lawmakers hear from workers and read reports like this – about injury rates at a single company that are double the rate of others in the industry in Minnesota – we should take notice, we should ask questions and we should listen to what those workers are telling us,” Greenman said. 

The measure cleared its first hurdle in the House, advancing out of Ecklund’s Labor Committee. 

Amazon workers are organizing locally with the Awood Center, a worker center in the Twin Cities’ East African community. 

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Report exposes human cost of Amazon’s business model in Minnesota

December 15, 2021 by

Workers protested outside Amazon’s MSP1 warehouse in Shakopee in December 2018. (UA file photo)

Amazon workers this week echoed the findings of a new report that paints a troubling picture of labor conditions and inequities at the retailer’s Minnesota warehouses, prompting one state lawmaker to pledge action in the coming legislative session.

In analyzing data from six Amazon facilities, researchers from the National Employment Law Project found injury and turnover rates well above the industry average, disparities between the earnings of Black and white workers at some warehouses and work arrangements designed to thwart union organizing.

But Tyler Hamilton, who has worked at the MSP1 facility in Shakopee for four years, said the data “doesn’t surprise those of us who have worked inside those warehouses. We see it every day.”

Hamilton and others active in the Awood Center, a worker-led organization that focuses on issues affecting members of Minnesota’s East African communities, held a virtual press conference Monday to share their reactions to the report, released Dec. 8.

Rep. Emma Greenman, a DFLer from Minneapolis, pledged to hold hearings on Amazon’s labor practices after the Legislature reconvenes in January. She said she is authoring legislation to ensure warehouse workers are provided adequate breaks, safety protections and a voice on the job.

“As Amazon expands here in Minnesota, the Legislature needs to take a look at the human cost,” Greenman said.

RATE DRIVES INJURIES

Workers on the press call targeted the bulk of their frustrations at Amazon’s “rate” – a benchmark for productivity each of them must meet to avoid facing discipline. Dad Ali, a four-year Amazon veteran, recalled appealing to his managers, as they pushed the rate higher and higher, with a traditional Somali saying that humans aren’t horses and shouldn’t be whipped to move faster.

“You’re expected to work like a machine,” Ali said, speaking through an interpreter.

The driving pace, workers and researchers say, is behind Amazon’s abysmal safety record in Minnesota, where Amazon employees are more than twice as likely to be injured as other warehouse workers.

Citing Amazon’s own data, the NELP report found 11.1 injuries annually per 100 full-time-equivalent warehouse workers between 2018 and 2020. At non-Amazon warehouses, that rate was 5.2. The Shakopee facility is particularly dangerous, researchers noted, with an injury rate in 2020 that was higher than any industry in Minnesota.

Irene Tung, a senior researcher at NELP, said most injuries reported in Amazon warehouses were severe muscle strains, which can have lifelong effects. The injuries are also “completely preventable,” Tung said, but that would require easing up on work rates and allowing time to recover between repetitive tasks.

That’s not the Amazon model.

“What makes working at Amazon so much more dangerous than working at other Minnesota jobs is the excessively rapid pace of work, enforced through a distinctive disciplinary system that Amazon has pioneered, which combines intensive electronic monitoring with frequent discipline and termination,” Tung said.

“When everybody’s paranoid about getting written up for not going fast enough, injuries happen,” said Emali Pettey, who worked for Amazon from 2020 to 2021. “That’s what happened with me.”

Workers at Amazon’s Shakopee facility went on strike in July 2019.

THE RUNAROUND

Suffering an injury on the Amazon warehouse floor, Minnesota workers said, is the start of a drawn-out process that too often results in greater injury, unpaid medical bills or lost wages. Speaking through an interpreter, Fardowso Yusuf said the process is known among Amazon workers like her as “the runaround.”

“When I got injured, I was sent home and my injuries were deleted out of the system,” Yusuf alleged. “I couldn’t find any record, and I didn’t receive any payment.”

Yusuf and other workers said they confronted managers with reports from their personal physicians, only to be “told they don’t accept that kind of report,” Yusuf said. Ali said he asked for a reduced workload after his doctor diagnosed him with spinal disc injuries, only to be told by a manager “to go back to work.”

“They don’t take it in a serious manner,” said Ali, who still feels the effects of his injury. “Amazon will give you the runaround until you give up, until you put your hands up and get no results. If you don’t speak [English] that makes it even harder for you.”

TROUBLING DISPARITIES

Indeed, NELP researchers raised questions about Amazon’s disproportionate employment of Black and East African workers in Minnesota. Greenman, a member of the House committee on labor, said those practices should draw greater public scrutiny in light of “Minnesota’s shameful racial inequities.”

In Scott County, where Amazon accounts for the overwhelming majority of warehouse employees, Black warehouse workers take home 37% less, on average, than white warehouse workers. Amazon doesn’t make public average pay rates by race, but Tung said the data suggests Black workers in Scott County are being segregated into lower-paying jobs.

What is clear from the report is that Amazon is not living up to its promise to create high-quality jobs for Minnesotans at its warehouses. If Amazon were, Tung said, its annual turnover rates – which reached 170% at the Shakopee facilities – would not be glaringly higher than other warehouses, which average 61% per year.

Greenman called the Amazon business model “jarring” and said it falls short of Minnesota’s standards.

“It’s a model that uses and discards workers at an alarming rate, with little regard for their health, their economic security, their well-being and the impact it has on our local communities,” she said.

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

St. Paul Park refinery picks fight with Building Trades unions, too

March 25, 2021 by

Pipefitters Local 455’s (L to R) Troy Heidrich, Dan Clark and Jacob Bear demonstrate outside the Marathon refinery in St. Paul Park.

Teamsters aren’t the only union members Marathon is looking to replace with nonunion, out-of-state workers at the St. Paul Park refinery.

They aren’t the only ones fighting back, either.

Earlier this month, several Building and Construction Trades unions began setting up banners around the refinery, publicly shaming Marathon for turning its back on Minnesota contractors and tradespeople – and for putting the safety of St. Paul Park and surrounding communities at risk.

Although some of the banners are within shouting distance of locked-out Teamsters’ picket lines, the two disputes are not connected. Both reflect a troubling disregard for community safety on Marathon’s part, however.

“Marathon has been going down this pathway for a long time,” Don Mullin, executive secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council, said. “They’ve been taking on efforts to be anti-organized labor because that’s the way they do it in other states.”

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 110’s Matt Walker, Dick Schmitt and Nick Rosenberg;
Ironworkers Local 512’s Ted DeSantell (L) and Nate O’Reilly
Laborers Local 563’s Sarah Monkey, Stephen Cruz and Jade Monkey, Sarah’s daughter

The dispute heated up this year after Marathon informed a union contractor there was no work forthcoming at the refinery, despite a scheduled maintenance turnaround beginning in late April. Turnarounds involve dangerous work, Mullin said, and can mean hundreds, even thousands, of jobs for tradespeople at a refinery like the one in St. Paul Park.

But rather than trust that work to highly skilled tradespeople who live and work in the area, Marathon is cutting costs by bringing in workers from across the country.

Not only does that undermine Minnesota’s labor standards, Building Trades unions say, it calls into question the safety of work being done at the refinery, located near homes and businesses in St. Paul Park and Newport.

Mullin accused Marathon of scraping the “bottom of the barrel” for tradespeople, bringing them in from Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky and elsewhere. He said unions are taking a stand because Minnesota deserves better, and he encouraged members of the public to do the same.

“It’s disgusting what Marathon is doing,” Mullin said. “We need to write Marathon or call them and tell them this is the wrong way to handle their business. They need to be a good community partner. Right now they’re not.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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