Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/2002/01/)
As UFCW Local 789 opens bargaining for new grocery and meatcutters contracts, it’s not just the union workers at stores such as Rainbow, Cub, Byerly’s, and Kowalski’s on negotiators’ minds. It’s also nonunion workers at grocery stores being run by Target, Wal-Mart and Costco.
Unemployment compensation and dislocated worker programs will run out of money – leaving thousands of laidoff workers without assistance – unless the Legislature acts, lawmakers were told Wednesday.
The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry has honored the painting and wallcovering apprenticeship training programs in St. Paul and Minneapolis for their success in recruiting female and minority apprentices.
Buoyed by one NLRB victory against Novartis Corp., Teamsters Local 120 filed an election petition Jan. 18 to represent 270 workers at the St. Louis Park plant of the Swiss-based multinational.
The AFL-CIO is holding meetings for union members, members of their families and retirees to voice their concerns as the labor movement prepares for the 2002 elections.
The story of the financial collapse of Enron – a collapse that cost 5,000 workers their jobs and all Enron’s workers all their pension money – is still unfolding.
Robert Vigil is 47. He has worked for 23 years at Portland (Ore.) General Electric. Thanks to financial criminality by PGE’s corporate parent, Enron, Vigil doesn’t have a pension nest egg any more.
Saying a crisis in the steel industry is devastating Iron Range communities, leaders of the Minnesota Catholic Conference called on Congress and the Bush administration to approve restrictions on steel “dumping” and provide aid to workers and their families.
Workers at the downtown Holiday Inn RiverCentre and the hotel’s Mississippi Mud River Grille restaurant have the next six months to choose whether or not to unionize, under a labor peace agreement signed Jan. 22.
Gov. Jesse Ventura and the Minnesota Legislature must act quickly to aid those hit hard by the recession, particularly laidoff workers, the leader of the state’s labor movement said.