Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/author/michael-moore/page/7/)
Nearly 200 Teamsters, along with community members and elected officials, are collectively resisting the company’s efforts to replace staffing at the Marathon oil refinery in St. Paul Park.
Teamsters report that Union employees offered to return to work last week. In a move the Union calls astounding and incredibly reckless, Employees were denied entry when they went to work.
COVID-19 testing is fast, safe and open to anyone free of charge at 21 community testing sites across Minnesota. That’s the message state health officials want union members – and all frontline workers – to hear as more businesses, schools and other gathering places begin reopening to the public. As a small group of union leaders toured the testing site inside St. Paul’s Roy Wilkins Auditorium today, state officials emphasized that testing remains critical to containing the coronavirus outbreak. And containing the outbreak is critical to keeping Minnesota schools and businesses open.
Members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 have authorized a strike, held informational picketing and, most recently, petitioned the governor – all in an effort to shift their contract talks with Metro Transit into higher gear.
“It’s just another effort to destabilize the VA because, ultimately, they want to privatize the VA,” AFGE District 8 Vice President Gregg James said. “There are trillions of dollars available if millions of veterans have to go downtown to ge their care.”
“It just shows that they’re so disconnected from working people,” said Hallas, one of 40 people still working at the plant through March. “They have no idea what’s going on, and they’re willing to use workers as props.”
Professional and clerical workers at Augsburg University put the Minneapolis school on notice yesterday that they have organized a union with Local 12 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
Don Slaten has been volunteering in support of his union’s political program for years. Never has he seen a campaign season like this one, marked by social distance, early voting and a highly polarized voting public. “It’s just unreal,” said Slaten, a retired member of Machinists Local Lodge 459 who became active in local politics in the mid-1980s. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
In an election cycle with no playbook, Minnesota’s unions have adjusted their approach to politics. Physical distance is now baked into the Labor 2020 campaign strategy, with phone and text banks taking the place of most door-to-door canvassing.
With hundreds of jobs at stake, union nurses and health care workers are sounding the alarm on M Health Fairview’s plan to slash services at two St. Paul hospitals and close 16 clinics across the region.
In a ceremony held on the floor of Ironworkers Local 512’s apprenticeship training center today, Gov. Tim Walz signed into law a $1.88 billion package of infrastructure investments that will create thousands of jobs for union tradespeople across Minnesota.