As momentum for $15 builds in St. Paul, so does concern over corporate interference

March 23, 2018 by

Earlier this month Kiara Ivy stepped outside the hardware store in St. Paul where she works as a cashier, and found an organizer waiting for her with a clipboard and a question.

Would she support raising St. Paul’s minimum wage to $15?

Ivy, who earns $9.65 an hour, didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“I had heard a lot of talk about raising the minimum wage, but didn’t know it was happening here,” she said. “I tend not to get my hopes up a lot, but it sounds so nice.”

Ivy was one of 539 low-wage workers who signed up to support a $15 minimum wage during a five-day organizing blitz earlier this month. It’s given the 15 Now campaign a jolt of momentum – and an even deeper well of public support – as the issue moves up the city’s agenda.

Working America’s Alisa Tennessen, who coordinated the blitz, said it also provided a glimpse of who is working for poverty wages in the capital city, as many supporters filled out surveys on what $15 would mean for themselves and their families.

“The answers are heartbreaking,” Tennessen said, noting “an astonishingly high number of people who talked about food – healthier food, more food, more food for their families.”

Ivy, in fact, met with a reporter on her way home from the food shelf. The 18-year-old shares a one-bedroom apartment in St. Paul with her mom and a roommate, chipping in $100 a month for rent and $50 each week for food, despite working only 25 hours per week.

Raising the wage to $15 in St. Paul, she said, would “mean I could finally move out on my own and still be able to help my mom out.”

Local elected officials in St. Paul, including Mayor Melvin Carter, have signaled support for giving workers like Ivy a raise. City Council President Amy Brendmoen said in February the plan is to “have an ordinance in front of us by fall.”

By that time, however, St. Paul may no longer have the authority to pass its own minimum-wage law.

As they did last year, corporate special interests and Republicans in the Legislature are trying to pull the rug out from under Ivy and other workers fighting for $15, pushing a bill that would bar local governments from raising employment standards in their communities – and strip newly won earned sick and safe time benefits from 150,000 working people in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the local preemption measure last year, but Republican majorities in the House and Senate have quietly brought it back to life this legislative session.

Brad Lehto, chief of staff for the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said one of Republicans’ first moves after the 2018 session began was to send the preemption bill (House File 600) back into conference committee.

“Whenever they see fit, they will convene the committee and pass it back to the House and Senate, where it already passed once,” he said. “Will they do that? I would think so. When? I think late in the session.”

Lehto and other Capitol observers anticipate the GOP will try to use preemption as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the governor.

Earlier this month, as 15 Now activists fanned out across the city during the organizing blitz, union groups like the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation began holding phone banks, connecting union members statewide with Gov. Dayton to urge him to stand firm on protecting local control again this year. [Click here to find a phone bank near you.]

Unions aren’t alone in the fight, either. Lehto said nearly 80 Minnesota cities have passed resolutions supporting local control.

“We’ve told (lawmakers) over and over, if you would pass a higher minimum wage, if you would pass paid family leave, if you would pass earned sick and safe time, then we wouldn’t have to do this on the local level,” he added.

As debate over the minimum wage and local control plays out this spring, Ivy will begin work at a second job as a personal-care attendant, earning about $12 per hour. (Roughly a quarter of St. Paul workers surveyed by 15 Now work two jobs to make ends meet.)

For Ivy, it means more money to help pay the bills, but less time to pursue her long-term goals – a car of her own, a college degree and a life in New York.

“I want to be in New York, and I want to be a psychiatrist,” she said. “I dream about it, but I haven’t started anything yet.” Earning $15, she added, “would help me to save more to get there.”

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White House summit lifts up Minnesota workers’ success stories

February 9, 2016 by
Renee Brand, who works at the New Flier bus plant in St. Cloud, introduces Labor Secretary Tom Perez at the Worker Voice Summit in Minneapolis. "I'm living proof manufacturing is alive in the U.S.," the CWA member said.

Renee Brand, who works at the New Flier bus plant in St. Cloud, introduces Labor Secretary Tom Perez in Minneapolis. “I’m living proof manufacturing is alive in the U.S.,” the CWA member said.

 

When President Obama called a Worker Voice Summit at the White House last October, he pledged his administration would hold regional summits across the country in 2016 to continue the conversation about common issues working people face on the job.

The first of those summits took place in Minneapolis today – and with good reason, U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez told area workers, business owners, union leaders and elected officials gathered at a community center in south Minneapolis.

Minnesota is “ground zero,” Perez said, for successful and innovative strategies that serve as a model for workers looking to gain a meaningful voice on the job.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez stops for a photo with an AFSCME member at the Worker Voice Summit.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez stops for a photo with an AFSCME member at the Worker Voice Summit.

Perez pointed to faculty at the University of Minnesota who will vote soon on forming a union, retail janitors who won a historic agreement with Target to improve standards in their industry and SuperAmerica workers organizing outside the margins of a traditional union drive.

“Workers need a seat at the table,” Perez said. “We need to build bigger tables rather than taller fences in this country.”

Since Obama took office at the height the Great Recession, his administration has shepherded a recovery that’s succeeded on many fronts. The unemployment rate recently dipped below 5 percent, and the auto industry has come “roaring back,” Perez noted.

But wage growth has been sluggish, and while the economic recovery succeeded in creating new jobs, many lack traditional, full-time schedules and benefits like paid sick time and family leave.

The Worker Voice Summit, Perez said, is an effort to tackle the “unfinished business of ensuring this wind that is at our back results in prosperity for everyone, not just for a few people at the top.”

Local workers participated in a panel discussion led by Department of Labor Office of Policy head Sharon Block (L). They include SuperAmerica co-manager Tara Lee Johnson (R) and Maricel Flores (second from left), who cleans a Target in Shakopee.

Local workers participate in a panel discussion led by the Department of Labor’s Sharon Block (L). They include SuperAmerica co-manager Tara Lee Johnson (R) and Maricela Flores (second from left), who cleans a Target in Shakopee.

To do that, summit organizers are lifting up best practices for organizing workers in the new economy, and a panel discussion held after Perez’s keynote speech today highlighted several local success stories.

Tara Lee Johnson, a SuperAmerica co-manager from St. Cloud, talked about her leadership in putting pressure on the convenience-store chain to improve its hiring practices and working conditions. High turnover rates make it difficult to organize a traditional union, she said, but with support from two union-backed community outreach initiatives, Working America and the Greater Minnesota Worker Center, workers won a meeting with the company’s president to discuss their concerns.

“They’ve given us a voice,” Johnson said of Working America and the worker center. “They’ve educated us about our rights.”

Target janitor Maricela Flores, a member of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, appeared on the panel with a corporate vice president. They recounted the series of meetings that led to agreement on a Responsible Contractor Policy that stipulates scheduling and safety requirements Target’s cleaning contractors must meet – and provides workers with a pathway to collective bargaining.

Flores said she hopes other retailers follow Target’s example and take a collaborative – rather than adversarial – approach to dealing with workers’ concerns. She noted that CTUL members who clean Macy’s stores in the metro plan to strike Feb. 18 unless the company agrees to a meaningful dialogue about working conditions.

“Each and every one of us are human beings, and we deserve respect,” she said. “We deserve to have a voice on the job.”

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, whose district includes Minneapolis, drew a connection between elevating workers’ collective voice and addressing the region’s alarming economic disparities between white workers and people of color.

“We’re proud of our state and proud of our town,” Ellison said. “But we’ve got to do something, and conversations like this are part of the solution.”

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SuperAmerica workers’ concerns fall on deaf ears

November 18, 2015 by

web.MySAJustice-bullhornSuperAmerica continues to stonewall workers looking to meet with corporate leadership to discuss concerns about low pay, favoritism and poor working conditions.

Workers from the St. Cloud area, organizing with Working America and the Greater Minnesota Worker Center, brought their campaign to the Twin Cities yesterday. Joined by allies in the labor movement and students from St. Cloud State University, they demonstrated outside a SuperAmerica store in St. Paul and staged a brief sit-in at the company’s headquarters in Woodbury.

But they didn’t get the meeting SuperAmerica President Jack Helmick they’ve been demanding for months.

SA workers and supporters march outside the store on Lexington and I-94 in St. Paul.
Workers are calling for higher wages, fair scheduling, broader access to management jobs and improved safety standards.
The demonstration in St. Paul continued for about 30 minutes in a steady rain.
James Quaye, a student at St. Cloud State who works at an SA, delivers a petition and letter to the store manager in St. Paul.

“The community has spoken,” said David Wakely, statewide program director for Working America. “After today’s action, SuperAmerica can’t continue to ignore the requests of working families in the Twin Cities.”

Workers delivered a petition to the Minnesota-based convenience store chain outlining their demands, including two week’ notice of their schedules, improved workplace safety standards and a commitment to putting more women and people of color on the track to management positions.

Speaking at a day of action among low-wage workers in Minneapolis last week, Makaida Garrett, a mother of five who has worked at a Super America in St. Cloud for about a year, said she said she earns just $9.50 per hour and was recently passed over for a management-track job.

“There are many women and people of color who work at this company but are not properly represented in management,” she said.

Garrett and other SuperAmerica workers marched alongside striking food service workers and janitors on the picket line last week, and several janitors and fast-food workers returned the favor yesterday, protesting in the rain outside the gas station at Lexington Avenue and I-94.

Working America is the community affiliate of the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO. More than 259,000 Minnesotans are active Working America members. The Greater Minnesota Worker Center (GMWC) is focused on creating systemic change and social justice for low-wage workers in the St. Cloud area.

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Striking workers revive campaign for Working Families Agenda

November 10, 2015 by
Striking workers and their supporters rally outside a McDonald's and Super America in Northeast Minneapolis.

Striking workers and their supporters rally outside a McDonald’s and Super America in Northeast Minneapolis.

 

Fast-food workers and retail janitors from 70 Twin Cities stores joined a nationwide strike today, rallying early this morning with other low-wage workers in support of a $15 minimum wage, paid sick days and other policies in the stalled Working Families Agenda.

Workers in 270 cities planned to join the strike, which mostly targeted fast-food employers. Organizers said it was the largest strike of the Fight for $15 campaign to date – a sign of growing support for workers’ demands of $15 and union rights.

Locally, striking workers also included retail janitors, who, like fast-food workers, are organizing with the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, a Spanish acronym for Center for Workers United in the Struggle. Home care workers, bank workers, childcare providers, temp workers and Black Lives Matter activists bolstered their ranks on early-morning picket lines outside McDonald’s and Macy’s in Minneapolis.

Steven Suffrage, who works at a fast-food restaurant in Minneapolis, fires up the crowd.

Steven Suffrige, who works at a fast-food restaurant in Minneapolis, fires up the crowd.

Guillermo Lindsey, who works at a McDonald’s in Roseville, said he and other strikers are among “thousands of low-wage workers in  Minneapolis and in the nation who have taken bold action for change in their communities.”

The strikers seized on the nationwide events as an opportunity to renew pressure on the Minneapolis City Council to pass the Working Families Agenda – a $15 minimum wage, paid sick time, fair scheduling and increased enforcement of wage theft.

Mayor Betsy Hodges and a majority of council members recently backed away from their support of sick time and scheduling ordinances. Workers planned to march from a picket line outside Macy’s on Nicollet Mall to City Hall to serve notice that the fight was far from over.

“Seattle is getting $15. New York is getting $15,” 16-year fast-food veteran Steven Suffrige said. “Why can’t we get $15?”

Recent polling indicates the public is on Suffrige and other low-wage workers’ side. Among likely voters in Minneapolis, according to a poll conducted by Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, 82 percent support raising the minimum wage to $15 now or over time, and 91 percent support fair scheduling and paid time off for illnesses or family emergencies.

By delaying action on the Working Families Agenda, strikers said, city officials are further denying justice to low-wage workers, many of whom are women and minorities.

“I work seven days a week,” said striking worker Michaela Hudson, who cleans the Macy’s in Ridgedale Mall. “I don’t get a day off; I don’t get any benefits.”

DSC_0217 (2)Lena Gardner, a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis, said the average worker of color in Minneapolis earns $28,000 annually, compared to $74,000 for the average white worker. “They want our bodies to control for their profits, but they don’t want our lives to matter,” Gardner said.

In addition to targeting fast-food restaurants and retail cleaning contractors, the strike took aim at Super America. The Minnesota-based chain of gas stations has come under fire from workers in St. Cloud, organizing with Working America and the Greater Minnesota Worker Center, for its hiring practices.

Workers have been asking the company for a meeting about the issue for months, said Makaida Garrett, a mother of five who has worked at a Super America in St. Cloud for about a year. Meanwhile, she continues to earn just $9.50 per hour and was recently passed over for a management-track position.

“There are many women and people of color who work at this company but are not properly represented in management,” Garrett said. “We are no longer asking for that meeting; we are demanding that they meet with us.”

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Workers: Fair scheduling measure would restore work-life balance

February 20, 2015 by
Hourly workers listen as Rep. Rena Moran (second from left) describes her bill to bring balance to the state's work scheduling laws.

Hourly workers listen as Rep. Rena Moran (second from left) explains her bill to bring balance to the state’s work scheduling laws.

Pushing back against an upswing in reports of Minnesota workers struggling to meet their employers’ increasingly irregular scheduling demands, a coalition of worker-advocacy groups today unveiled legislation to bring fairness to the state’s workplace scheduling laws.

The House bill, authored by DFL Rep. Rena Moran of St. Paul, would require employers to provide hourly employees with their work schedules 21 days in advance, compensate workers whose shifts are cancelled within a 24-hour window and guarantee workers have access to adequate rest between shifts.

“This bill would make sure that employees who are forced to make themselves available to an employer’s scheduling needs are compensated accordingly and able to count on at least a minimum income every payday,” Moran said at a press conference in St. Paul earlier this week.

[Click here to take action in support the fair scheduling bill by e-mailing your state lawmaker.]

Several low-wage, hourly workers who stand to benefit from the legislation joined Moran, including members of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, Minneapolis-based Neighborhoods Organizing for Change and Working America, the AFL-CIO’s outreach initiative to non-union workers with more than 280,000 members in Minnesota.

Andy Barno-Iversen, a member of Working America, explains the toll "clopening" – working consecutive closing and opening shifts – takes on workers and their families.

Andy Barno-Iversen describes the toll “clopening” – working consecutive closing and opening shifts – takes on workers and their families.

Scrambling to get hours

Workers took turns at the podium venting their frustrations with practices gaining popularity among fast-food, retail and other service-sector employers, from “just-in-time” scheduling that allows managers to call in staff on a moment’s notice to “clopening,” Andy Barno-Iversen’s term for back-to-back shifts that ended late and began early the next morning.

Barno-Iversen described working full-time at a Minneapolis co-op grocery while also studying at the University of Minnesota. Twice each week, he would get home from work at 10 p.m. after closing the store, then go back to work by 4:30 a.m. the next day to open.

“I was exhausted,” the Working America member said. “I ended up dropping out of class because my academic performance suffered so badly. My work performance suffered.”

His department has since eliminated “clopening,” Barno-Iversen said, “but thousands of Minnesota retail workers, students and families do have to deal with those scheduling issues… To amend that is just a simple act of consideration.”

Other hourly workers recalled watching their paychecks shrink after their employers switched from conventional scheduling to on-call, “flex,” or “just-in-time” scheduling.

CTUL member Bobby Brown said his hours at a McDonald’s in Bloomington have dried up to the point where his last paycheck was $14. Ronda Jama, a wheelchair agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, used to work four days per week; now she works two – and waits “on call” in case AirServ, her employer, makes more hours available.

“It changed the cycle of our life,” Jama said. “It’s hard because we are on call right now. They call you whenever they want you.”

Bobby Brown's last paycheck from McDonald's amounted to $14.

Bobby Brown’s last paycheck from McDonald’s amounted to $14.

Both Jama and Brown earn minimum wage, $8 per hour. The employers most likely to utilize aggressive scheduling practices, Working America State Director Bree Halverson said, are also most likely to pay low wages.

“Unpredictable hours make economic mobility and achieving the American Dream even harder, especially if you’re already struggling to get by,” Halverson said. “Minnesota families need 21st-century scheduling policies that keep up with the changing nature of today’s workplace.”

‘Freedom and stability’

Moran’s proposal to bring fairness to workers’ schedules is another variation on an encouraging theme at the Capitol this session, with lawmakers looking to provide workers – and their families – with the stability and security they need to ensure a healthy work-life balance.

The day after advocates unveiled the scheduling bill, House DFLers rolled out their Working Parents Act, pulling together earned sick and safe time, wage theft, paid family leave and scheduling bills into an all-inclusive measure.

Moran called scheduling fairness “one brick in a road to a better life.”

“This bill is an important first step toward bringing more freedom and stability to employees who work hard, who want to receive hourly wages and who need to plan for their future and the future of (their) families,” Moran said.

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How do your wages stack up? New analysis pinpoints cost of living in Minnesota

January 29, 2015 by

cost_of_livingAs debate swirled at the State Capitol in recent years over whether – and how much – to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage, lawmakers found themselves confronted with a question their own experts could not easily answer.

How much do workers need to earn to meet their most basic costs?

To zero in on an answer, the Legislature charged the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development with conducting a study.

DEED’s Labor Market Information Office devised a plan to break down the cost of living not only statewide, but by county and region, taking into account geographic disparities in seven cost categories: transportation, housing, child care, health care, food, taxes and other necessities.

Now the results are in, and DEED’s new Cost of Living tool, available on the department’s website, sheds light on the challenges and difficult decisions Minnesota’s working families face.

The results, said John Clay, a research analysis specialist for DEED who devised the study’s methodology, don’t “represent a middle-class income. It also does not represent a poverty-level income. Rather, it’s a basic income that meets health and safety needs.”

The annual cost of meeting those needs in the seven-county Metro Area is $25,932 for a single worker without children, according to the new tool. Given a 40-hour workweek and year-round employment, a worker would require wages of $12.47 per hour to reach that annual income level.

In other words, even with the scheduled increases in the state’s minimum wage – up to $9.50 per hour next year for most workers – the Metro Area’s lowest-paid jobs are leaving workers without the resources necessary to meet their basic costs.

Those costs go up, of course, with family size. A single parent of one child in the Metro Area requires full-time wages of $24.97. For a two-parent family raising one child, the living-wage breakdown looks like this:

  • $21.16 with one full-time worker in the family.
  • $15.69 with two full-time workers.
  • $17.92 with one full-time worker and one part-time worker.

Not surprisingly, DEED’s analysis found the state’s highest cost of living in the Metro Area.

But there’s good news for Twin Cities workers: the median hourly wage paid by metro employers in the second quarter of 2013 (the most recent wage data available) was $19.92, almost $2 higher than the statewide median wage. Basically, that means half of Metro Area workers earn more than $19.92 per hour, and the other half earn less.

“At first look, it’s a good sign for the Twin Cities labor market that the median wage is above the cost of living for most families,” Clay said. “But is that enough that most people should be meeting their basic needs? That’s an open question.”

It’s an open question, in part, because for many workers – particularly in low-wage sectors heavy on part-time jobs – wages are just one factor determining their income. Increasingly, these workers report difficulty getting the hours necessary to piece together an income that will meet their basic needs.

Bree Halverson is statewide director of Working America, an organization of workers without the benefit of a union on their jobs.

Bree Halverson is statewide director of Working America.

Bree Halverson, statewide director of Working America, an organization of workers without the benefit of a union at their jobs, said with minimum wage in the rear-view mirror, a “fair scheduling bill” is the next challenge for lawmakers looking to ensure the state’s economic recovery benefits all workers.

Working America members, Halverson said, report “getting called as few as two or three hours before their shift and told, ‘Don’t come in.’ Or it’s the opposite, and they’re called that day and asked, ‘Can you come in?’

“That leaves the worker to scramble to find child care at the last minute, or to try making up the hours they were counting on with another job.”

More than 250 employees of AirServ who work at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport signed a petition earlier this month asking their employer for more reliable scheduling. Halverson said “flex” and “standby” scheduling have long been practices used by employers in the hospitality industry, but are on the rise now in the retail and service sectors.

Halverson recounted one member’s story of being required to work later than usual at his job, which pays $8.50 per hour. By the time he finished work, the bus that took him there had stopped running, and he faced a $20 cab ride home.

“We need employers to start scheduling more people full time, for 40 hours per week,” Halverson said. “And part-time workers deserve a schedule that they can depend on.”

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Visit the Labor Pavilion at the Minnesota State Fair!

August 22, 2014 by
Ken Young of Sheet Metal Workers Local 10 puts the finishing touches on a copper rose at the Labor Pavilion on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Ken Young of Sheet Metal Workers Local 10 puts the finishing touches on a copper rose at the Labor Pavilion on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Heading to the great Minnesota get-together? Stop by the Labor Pavilion for live music and entertainment, interactive exhibits and several opportunities to take action in support of working Minnesotans.

The Labor Pavilion is open daily throughout the fair at the corner of Dan Patch and Cooper, 1657 Dan Patch Ave.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO coordinates daily programming at the pavilion, featuring professional entertainers who are members of the Twin Cities Musicians Union, the Screen Actors Guild and other unions. The Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Labor Pavilion blog provides a guide to programming.

Individual unions and labor organizations also host kiosks on the pavilion. Here’s a rundown of some of this year’s offerings:

• Trades demonstrations

Several Building Trades unions are putting their crafts on display at the Labor Pavilion. That includes members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 10, who craft copper sheets into roses – complete with prickly thorns – from their Labor Pavilion kiosk. The roses are awarded to fairgoers who answer a trivia question correctly.

Operating Engineers Local 49 hosts a “sandbox simulator,” offering kids (or adults) an opportunity to try their hand an excavator – on a much smaller scale, of course; and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers power a laptop at their kiosk with a solar panel attached to the roof.

web.StateFair14-postal• Stop Staples

Twin Cities Letter Carriers and Postal Workers are co-hosting a kiosk to promote the nationwide boycott of Staples. All four postal unions have backed the “Stop Staples” campaign, prompted by the U.S. Postal Service’s pilot program to place service counters inside Staples stores.

The counters are not staffed by sworn USPS employees, but by Staples employees who, when working full time, earn about $18,000 per year – and receive minimal training on how to handle the mail.

At the Labor Pavilion kiosk, supporters can sign a postcard to Staples executives pledging to join the boycott. They also can read a heavily redacted copy of the agreement between the USPS and Staples.

Active and retired members of AFSCME Council 5 support transportation funding at the Fair: (L to R) Tony Peterson, Judy Schultz and Christine Main.

Active and retired members of AFSCME Council 5 support transportation funding at the Fair: (L to R) Tony Peterson, Judy Schultz and Christine Main.

• Moving Minnesota

Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are using the fair to make a public case for new investments in the state’s transportation infrastructure.

Visitors to AFSCME Council 5’s kiosk can sign up to support Move MN, a coalition of more than 200 non-profit and union organizations pushing for long-term, sustainable transportation investments, including roads, bridges, transit, bike and walk connections.

“Our infrastructure is in such bad shape,” Council 5 retiree Tony Peterson said. “We want a permanent solution for the whole state of Minnesota – not just another makeshift solution or quick-fix. We need lawmakers to act now to support Minnesota 20 years down the road.”

Jess Alexander demonstrates Working America's "scheduling puzzle."

Jess Alexander demonstrates Working America’s “scheduling puzzle.”

• The scheduling puzzle

Last year at the fair, unions and Working America, an organization for workers who do not have the benefit of a union on the job, used the State Fair to ramp up their successful campaign to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage. This year, Working America is making the transition to a new campaign to give more workers access to paid-sick days and fair scheduling.

“Raising the wage doesn’t help if you don’t get enough hours, or you don’t get paid on days when you’re not working because you’re sick,” said Jess Alexander, an organizer for Working America in Minnesota.

An interactive display at the Working America kiosk allows fairgoers to visualize their “scheduling puzzle” using blocks that represent time spent on work, family time, sleep, etc.

Linda Leighton, a descendent of one of the leaders of the 1934 Teamsters strike, is enlisting support for a historic monument in Minneapolis.

Linda Leighton, a descendent of one of the leaders of the 1934 Teamsters strike, is enlisting support for a historic monument in Minneapolis.

• Remembering Teamsters’ strike

The Remember 1934 Committee, which hosted an 80th anniversary commemoration of the historic Minneapolis Teamsters strike earlier this summer, is using the Labor Pavilion to continue its efforts to put a plaque on the site where two strikers were killed.

Linda Leighton, granddaughter of strike leader Ray Dunn, staffed the Remember 1934 kiosk on the opening day of the fair. She said the goal is to raise $5,000 to place a historic marker at 3rd Street and 6th Avenue North in Minneapolis.

• Patient safety campaign

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association are enlisting supporters for their Safe Patient Standards campaign at the fair. Molly Henderson, a nurse at United Hospital in St. Paul, said unsafe staffing levels continue to threaten patient care at hospitals across the state.

“We’re here letting people know that this campaign isn’t really about us as nurses, it’s about you, as the public,” Henderson said. “It’s about caring for patients, keeping them safe. And we can’t do that if there isn’t the right number of nurses to care for the number of patients in the hospital.”

St. Paul Firefighter Dominic Novak, a member of Fire Fighters Local 21, demonstrates how not to put out a grease fire at the Labor Pavilion.

St. Paul Firefighter Dominic Novak, a member of Fire Fighters Local 21, demonstrates how not to put out a grease fire at the Labor Pavilion.

web.StateFair14-49ers

Tom Sundly of Operating Engineers Local 49 gives Bloomington 10-year-old Tyler Kauffman a crash course in using the controls of a model excavator.

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New endorsements give shape to Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2014 political push

June 18, 2014 by

mnaflcioThe state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, added to its list of endorsed candidates for state and federal offices yesterday, as Labor’s 2014 political push continued to take shape locally.

Most notably, the Minnesota AFL-CIO backed 55 DFLers running for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

The DFL Party will look to defend its 12-seat majority in the House in balloting Nov. 4. Members of the Minnesota Senate, where the DFL also controls a majority of seats, will not stand for re-election until 2016.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO also announced yesterday its endorsement of Minnesota Rep. Steve Simon for Secretary of State, incumbent U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson in the 7th Congressional District and Sharon Sund in the 3rd District.

Earlier this year the state AFL-CIO endorsed Gov. Mark Dayton and his running mate, Tina Smith, along with six DFL candidates for federal offices: Sen. Al Franken; Reps. Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Rick Nolan and Tim Walz; and Mike Obermueller, Rep. John Kline’s opponent in the 2nd District.

Minnesota AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Steve Hunter said the federation and its 1,000-plus affiliate unions will work to get the state’s 300,000 union members – and 250,000 members of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, Working America – to the polls in support of labor-endorsed candidates this fall.

“When the Minnesota AFL-CIO endorses a candidate, it means that working people can count on that person to be their voice when they are elected to office,” Hunter said. “We look forward to electing these candidates to office and working with them to continue building a better Minnesota and country.”

In the East Metro, endorsed House candidates include incumbent Reps. Barb Yarusso (District 42A), Peter Fischer (43A), Leon Lillie (43B), Sandra Masin (51A), Laurie Halverson (51B), Rick Hansen (52A), Joe Atkins (52B), JoAnn Ward (53A), Dan Schoen (54A), Will Morgan (56B), Erin Murphy (64A), Rena Moran (65A), Carlos Mariani (65B), Alice Hausman (66A), John Lesch (66B), Tim Mahoney (67A) and Sheldon Johnson (67B).

Other East Metro candidates endorsed yesterday include Paul Gammel (32A), Laurie Warner (32B), Greg Pariseau (38B), Tim Stender (39A), Tom DeGree (39B), Kay Hendrikson (53B), Don Slaten (54B), Denise Packard (57B), Amy Willingham (58A), Marla Vagts (58B) and Dave Pinto (64B).

The federation noted it expects to add to the list of endorsed candidates in the coming weeks and months.

capitol

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Panel explores new approaches to building a better economy

May 6, 2014 by
Anne Winkler-Morey holds a picture of Mary Vojtko, the late adjunct professor at Duquesne University whose death last year drew national attention to declining wages, hours and benefits for adjuncts nationwide.

Anne Winkler-Morey holds a picture of Mary Vojtko, the late adjunct professor at Duquesne University whose death last year drew national attention to organizing efforts by adjuncts nationwide.

Cantaré Davunt nodded her head as Anne Winkler-Morey talked about struggling to make ends meet as an adjunct professor. To Davunt, the challenges adjunct faculty face – low wages, unreliable hours, few opportunities for advancement – sounded all too familiar to her experience as an associate at Walmart.

Davunt and Winkler-Morey joined a panel discussion in St. Paul last week that explored new employment trends and offered a glimpse into how seemingly different workers – like college faculty and retail clerks – are waging similar battles to turn their low-wage jobs into middle-class careers.

“I’ve always been a believer that making change, the only way you can do it is by getting your hands dirty,” Davunt said, explaining why she’s become active in OUR Walmart, a growing collection of associates nationwide who are organizing to improve working conditions at the world’s largest retailer.

But it isn’t just retail workers like Davunt who are feeling the squeeze.

Although the economy continues to regain jobs lost during the Great Recession, the bulk of those gains are coming in low-wage industries. According to a report released last month by the National Employment Law Project, there are nearly 2 million fewer jobs in mid- and higher-wage industries nationwide than there were before the recession took hold, while there are 1.85 million more jobs in lower-wage industries.

What’s more, temporary is becoming the new reality for an increasing number of workers forced to settle for part-time or temporary employment. In Minnesota, employment in the economy’s “employment services” sector, which includes subcontractors and temp agencies, is up 42 percent since November 2009. The uptick in temporary hiring, in fact, drew scrutiny from a state legislative committee last year.

Given these employment trends, how can workers expect to make ends meet? That’s the question moderator Michael Kuchta, former editor of The Union Advocate, posed to panelists.

“Not all workers are letting this get shoved down their throats,” said Kuchta, a member of the planning committee for the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s “Untold Stories” labor-history series, which sponsored the event April 29 at the St. Paul Labor Centre. “Workers are responding to the changing economy, responding to a middle class that is shrinking.”

Cantaré Davunt, a Walmart associate, borrows adjunct professor Ann Winkler-Morley's visual aids during a panel discussion on low-wage jobs.

Cantaré Davunt, a Walmart associate, borrows adjunct professor Ann Winkler-Morey’s visual aids during a panel discussion on low-wage jobs.

One way is via worker centers, including the Twin Cities-based Centro de Trabajaderos Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), or Center for Workers United in Struggle.

Like most worker centers, CTUL emerged in response to allegations of employer misconduct voiced by members of a distinct community. In CTUL’s case, organizer Ruth Schultz said, the allegations came from Latino workers cleaning big-box retail stores.

Over the last five years, CTUL has broadened its mission from helping individual workers fight wage theft and other employer abuses to the “next level” of building solidarity and working on legislative issues that affect its members, Schultz said.

Currently, CTUL is leading a campaign to hold big-box retailers, particularly Target, responsible for ensuring fair employment practices in their stores. Most workers who clean big-box stores are employed by subcontracting firms, often fly-by-night operations based in other states, making it difficult both to organize workers and to hold employers accountable.

“We’re not a traditional union, where there is one employer,” Schultz explained. “CTUL is really in the leadership of where worker centers are going, in looking at how we raise the wage floor – not only for our members, but for all low-wage workers.”

The recent – and successful – campaign to raise the state’s minimum wage saw CTUL working hand in hand with another group reaching out to non-union workers in Minnesota, Working America.

Although more broad in its approach than CTUL, Working America is another way workers are pushing back against recent employment trends. Backed by the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, Working America sponsors door-to-door canvassing in neighborhoods across the state, signing up members, polling workers about the issues that matter to them and building grassroots campaigns around the results.

Minimum wage was one of those issues, said Brianna Halverson, Working America’s statewide director. Now, with victory secured, the group is building a new campaign to ensure all workers have access to earned sick time.

“We’re constantly hearing stories from our members about the imbalance of work life and home life,” Halverson said. “We heard that even if a workplace had paid time off or some other policy, people felt like it was frowned upon to actually use it. That’s why we’re working on a campaign right now around the issue, and we’re hoping to move it next year at the Capitol.”

Of course, Working America and worker centers like CTUL are not meant to supplant traditional unions, but to fill in the gaps in industries or employment models – subcontracting, temp agencies – where organizing is particularly difficult.

Workers, including adjunct professors like Winkler-Morey, still look to unions as a way to gain a voice on the job and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Adjuncts at Hamline University and contingent faculty at Macalester College filed for union elections last month.

Winkler-Morey, who teaches primarily at Metro State University, hopes it’s a vote she gets to take someday. Already, she’s seen her “middle-class profession become a low-wage profession,” as the share of adjunct faculty – professors on the “poverty track” instead of the tenure track, she quipped – at colleges and universities has increased from 25 to 75 percent during her career.

“It’s a mystery,” Winkler-Morey said. “Why is tuition going up and up and up, and class sizes are going up and up and up, and the number of low-wage instructors is going up? What’s happened?”

history-tour

The panel discussion on low-wage organizing was part of “Untold Stories,” presented annually by The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library. Click the image for more information on the labor-history series.

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Minimum-wage victory showcases potential of labor-community partnerships

April 29, 2014 by
Surrounded by legislative supporters and members of the Raise the Wage Coalition, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill increasing the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2016 – and indexing it to inflation.

Surrounded by legislative supporters and members of the Raise the Wage Coalition, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill increasing the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2016 – and indexing it to inflation.

On April 14, Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill gradually raising Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2016 and indexing the wage so that it keeps pace with inflation beginning in 2018.

The bill signing was a victory for more than 350,000 workers statewide who are expected to see a raise as a result of the bill. But it also marked a victory for the coalition of unions, religious groups and other non-profits that united to push the minimum-wage hike across the finish line.

“We’ve seen what an impact we can make when we come together,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said after the bill-signing ceremony in the Capitol rotunda. “It felt good.”

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, was one of several union groups that took a leadership role in the Raise the Wage Coalition, which united more than 70 diverse organizations behind a minimum-wage increase.

After DFL majorities in the House and Senate failed to agree on a minimum-wage bill last spring, unions and labor federations pledged to invest energy, resources and political capital into seeing a meaningful increase pass before the 2014 session gaveled to a close. They made the commitment despite the fact, as Knutson pointed out, “the vast majority of Minnesota’s union workforce makes well above the minimum wage.”

“The labor movement is committed to improving the lives of all working people,” Knutson said. “Like Paul Wellstone said, ‘We all do better when we all do better.’”

RaisetheWageWeb_0A step toward ‘enduring partnerships’

Unions’ leadership role in the Raise the Wage Coalition reflected local action on a nationwide directive put forth at the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles last year. Known as “Resolution 16,” the directive calls on state and local labor federations to build “enduring partnerships” with community groups that share values and goals with the labor movement.

With the minimum-wage campaign, Minnesota unions backed up the AFL-CIO’s talk with action, said St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper, whose office coordinated 96 volunteer shifts on behalf of the minimum-wage push this year.

“Building a movement for economic justice isn’t possible unless we look beyond our own unions and reach out to our allies in that struggle,” Kasper said. “Whether it’s fighting Right to Work or defending prevailing wage, our position will only be stronger if we have members of the broader community behind us, but we can’t expect their support if we don’t step up when they need us.”

‘Speaking with a collective voice’

Labor’s role in the minimum-wage victory was not lost on the non-profit and faith-based organizations that joined the Capitol celebration April 14.

“It’s really inspiring seeing labor behind a broad, social justice issue like the minimum wage of concern to the community, not just their own members,” said Doran Schrantz, executive director of ISAIAH, a faith-based member of the Raise the Wage Coalition. “Seeing labor really throw everything, all their political might and muscle, behind this was really inspiring.”

The non-profit group A Minnesota Without Poverty had been organizing in support of a minimum-wage increase since 2008, coordinating events like one last year in which activists handed out ketchup bottles at the Capitol, urging lawmakers to “catch up to the cost of living.”

“We were doing our own thing,” Executive Director Nancy Maeker said. “We knew there were others working on the issue, and we were appreciative. But it didn’t seem like there was a lot of coordination among those groups.”

That changed last fall, when A Minnesota Without Poverty accepted an invitation to join the Raise the Wage Coalition. Maeker said she quickly realized the power of “speaking with a collective voice,” and she appreciated the “organizational wherewithal” union groups lent to the campaign.

“I was pretty positive toward labor to begin with, but I didn’t know labor would be interested in collaborating on an issue like minimum wage,” Maeker said. “That’s the part I was most appreciative of.”

Organizers of the Raise the Wage Coalition held a press conference before delivering thousands of postcards to state senators from supporters of a $9.50 minimum wage.

The Raise the Wage Coalition held a press conference before delivering thousands of postcards to state senators from supporters of a $9.50 minimum wage earlier this year.

Doing what labor does best

After lawmakers failed to pass a wage hike in 2013, Raise the Wage Coalition members realized they needed to engage the public to make their campaign successful in 2014. “It wasn’t just a campaign that could happen here under the (Capitol) dome,” Schrantz said. “We really needed to engage the wider community.”

Grassroots campaigning – knocking on doors, phone banking – is labor’s strong suit, and labor federations like the St. Paul RLF joined Working America, the AFL-CIO’s outreach initiative to non-union workers, in a leading role.

“We came out of last session knowing we needed to mobilize and mobilize big,” Working America State Director Bree Halverson said. “At Working America in Minnesota, we kept the conversation going all year-round.”

Working America began door-to-door canvasses across the state around the minimum wage June 1, 2013, Halverson said. By April 4, canvassers had knocked on 100,239 doors, engaged 43,172 Minnesotans in conversations about the issue and generated 4,000 letters or phone calls to lawmakers asking them to support the coalition’s bill.

As it turned out, Halverson said, it wasn’t a tough sell for most Minnesotans.

“People got it,” she said. “Even if minimum wage didn’t affect them directly, it was important to their kids who were struggling to find good employment after college, or it was important for their community because if people were making better wages, then their whole community would be stronger.”

Working America and other coalition members, like Jewish Community Action, proved critical in generating support in areas where unions don’t have a lot of membership or haven’t been traditionally active politically.

“Some of the senators that needed to be moved, that needed to hear a strong voice for social justice were from areas that Jewish Community Action had a base,” JCA organizer Rachel English said. “JCA played an important role in making sure more of the suburban senators heard from their constituents that this is an important social justice issue to them.”

Toward a economic justice for all

While lawmakers, union leaders and other coalition members celebrated the minimum-wage victory, they were also quick to point out that work remains in building a more economically just Minnesota.

“Our work is not done,” Speaker of the House Paul Thissen said. “There are still lots and lots of Minnesotans struggling to remain in or get into the middle class.”

Are there initiatives members of the Raise the Wage Coalition can unite around in the future? Some members think so.

“I would love for this coalition to keep working,” English said. “You can see the kind of impact it had up on Capitol Hill.”

English pointed to provisions left out of the minimum-wage bill – language to strengthen the 40-hour workweek and protect guest workers – and the inclusion of a “training wage” that, she fears, could incentivize employing teenagers at a lower wage than adult workers.

Halverson agreed: “Minimum wage is just the first step, I feel, to some really great stuff going forward,” she said. “It’s exciting.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to work on issues together in the future that are going to help workers in Minnesota. It may not be the Raise the Wage Coalition, but there are relationships we’ve as a labor movement made that we’re going to have for a very long time.”

“I’m proud of the work we did to pass minimum wage,” St. Paul RLF President Kasper said. “I’m even more excited about the prospect of continuing to build a better Minnesota with the new friends and allies we gained during the campaign.”

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