Minnesota

Minnesota Labor Is Reviving a Progressive-Era Tool to Improve Working Conditions

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During the six years Estela Tirado has worked in a salad restaurant in Minneapolis, she has had every job you can imagine: washing dishes, prepping food, working the cash register, and a combination of the above. Despite her hard work, she does not get sufficient paid time off to spend with her six-year-old son, Freddy, who likes to draw and go to the park, and spends the evenings doing homework. “If my son gets sick, I have to use PTO, but when he’s on vacation during summer time, and out of school, I don’t have hours for vacation,” she explains. This is just one issue Tirado is hoping can be rectified through the creation of a Labor Standards Board, which workers have been fighting to pass in Minneapolis for more than two years. With roots in the Progressive Era, such boards bring together representatives of workers, community members, and business, with the goal of boosting labor standards in specific industries.

Minnesota

Minnesota Workers Strike Down Shady Provision That Restricts Their Freedom of Employment

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. Michael Rubke, a desk attendant at La Rive condo complex in Minneapolis, is fighting for a union against a behemoth building management company, FirstService Residential of Minnesota, that has a near-monopoly on high-rise condos in the Twin Cities. It’s been a difficult battle so far. The unionization campaign is “at square one,” the 41-year-old explained over the phone after working an overnight shift. “They’re pretending we’re not there.”

But that lack of formal union representation did not stop Rubke and his colleagues throughout the Twin Cities from fighting for—and winning—statewide legislation this summer that improves the terms of their jobs, by beating back a little-known provision used to erode the job security of contracted workers.

International

These Teachers Want the Largest Union in the Country to Rescind its Biden Endorsement Over Gaza

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This article was jointly produced by Workday Magazine and The Nation. When Israel escalated its military operations against Gaza in October, Rahaf Othman was so distraught, she said, she “couldn’t think straight.” The 45-year-old Palestinian American, who teaches social studies at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Ill., recalled that she “started getting nightmares from my own experiences when I was in Palestine. I was functional at work, but barely functional. My brain was mush. I was getting traumatized every time I turned on my phone.”

“For the first month, people were asking me what we should do, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.” While in this state, she said she discovered that she could lean on some of her colleagues.

Minnesota

Billionaire Pohlad Family Accused of Using Anti-Worker Construction Contractors

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. The Minneapolis-based billionaire Pohlad family has a national profile, as the owner of the Minnesota Twins and the 75th-richest family in the United States. And the Pohlad Family Foundation has cultivated a progressive image for its stated commitment to “housing stability” and “racial justice,” with a special focus on reducing racial disparities. But the Pohlad family empire of dozens of businesses includes a real estate development firm called United Properties. The Minneapolis/St.