Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/author/jsee/page/4/)
After lobbying by the nation’s postal unions – and questions from non-partisan auditors about savings claims – a key GOP-run House committee reversed course and voted June 25 to uphold 6-day mail service, including Saturday service.
By a 9-0 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Democratic President Barack Obama illegally made three “recess appointments” in 2011 to the National Labor Relations Board – virtually throwing out the hundreds of NLRB cases those appointees voted on.
As Minnesotans finally get to enjoy the Green Line, the construction workers who built it are basking in the satisfaction of a job well done. All told, Green Line construction created thousands of jobs, launching hundreds of new careers in several skilled construction roles.
On June 20, the National Labor Relations Board counted Hamline adjunct faculty mail-in votes, revealing a 72 percent majority in favor of unionization with SEIU Local 284.According to Adjunct Action, a project of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), adjuncts at Hamline University are the first within a Twin Cities private college to form an adjunct faculty union.Jennifer Beckham, an adjunct English professor at Hamline, said that she was thrilled, but not particularly surprised. She added that once the organizing group knew there would be an election, they remained confident throughout the process.“It has been heartening to see support from tenured faculty, students, and other staff,” Beckham said.St. Thomas adjuncts will be the next group to vote with their votes scheduled to be sent out on July 3.In a statement to the press, David Weiss, an organizing adjunct faculty member in the Religion department at Hamline, said, “I’m confident that our success today will help empower other workers, including adjunct faculty like ourselves at schools like St. Thomas, to change working and learning conditions in higher education.”Jhon Wlaschin, Ph.D. and adjunct psychology professor at Hamline, St. Thomas, and the University of Minnesota, called today a “historic day” and that he was “happy to be part of the first wave of adjunct unionization in the Twin Cities.”This was not Wlaschin’s first experience with unions.
In the first union-organizing election among faculty members at a private college in Minnesota, adjunct instructors at Hamline University in St. Paul voted to join Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.
Elected officials and union leaders joined business leaders in cheering the news that the Super Bowl will come to Minneapolis in 2018.
The renovated Union Depot has been – and continues to be – an engine for job creation and economic growth, according to a new study.
Adjunct professors at the University of St. Thomas, the third group of St. Paul college educators to file a petition to unionize with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are scheduled to have their ballots sent out on July 3.
The longer Minnesota’s minimum wage fight continues, the longer single mothers, seniors, people with disabilities, and those displaced by the recession struggle. Instead of paying workers fair wages, many businesses spend million lobbying to maintain poor wages and working conditions.One mother Minnesota 2020 interviewed who’s worked in fast food for a decade doesn’t make enough to provide her son the basics, like food and housing.
Work on the new $763 million Minnesota Vikings stadium — officially the “Minnesota Multi-Purpose Stadium” — will be an all-union job.Construction will involve an estimated 4 million work hours. At construction peak, some 1,300-1,400 workers will be on-site.The public authority which will own the stadium, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, required project contractor M.A. Mortenson Company to negotiate a “Project Labor Agreement” with the Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council.A Project Labor Agreement serve a public purpose by ensuring that the work on the project continues on schedule without any labor disputes.The 14-page agreement, signed Nov. 22, 2013, commits the unions to no strikes or slow-downs and commits the contractor no lock-outs during the construction of the stadium.The agreement also makes the job an all-union job by recognizing the jurisdiction of the two dozen Building Trades unions named in the PLA.Both parties to the agreement also commit to a grievance and arbitration process to resolve any issues or disagreements that may arise.“It’s the largest Project Labor Agreement in the history of the state,” said Dan McConnell, business manager of the Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council.He noted that the Council has entered into many PLA agreements with Mortenson in the past, including for the construction of Target Field.The PLA commits both parties to use good faith efforts to meet the diversity goals for the project workforce established by the MSFA: 32 percent minority and 6 percent female.Building Trades unions are gearing up to meet the diversity requirements, McConnell noted, putting training programs and strong safety programs in place. The PLA is a win-win-win for the Building Trades, Mortenson, and the MSFA, McConnell said. “It’s going to mean the project will be done by good quality contractors and hard-working union men and women.”Ironically, McConnell noted, “the first PLA we ever did was with the Metrodome,” which will be torn down to make way for the new stadium.