(C) Minnesota Reformer
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Strikes, settlements and civil disobedience during labor’s ‘Week of Action’ • Minnesota Reformer [1]
['Max Nesterak', 'More From Author', '- March']
Date: 2024-03-08
Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news from Minnesota and beyond. This week: Labor’s ‘Week of Action’ in review; Uber and Lyft minimum pay passes again; Evergreen Acres dairy farm denies everything; court interpreters suspend strike; and 3M rejects it was indifferent to safety after two worker deaths.
‘Week of Action’ in review
More than 4,000 commercial janitors and nearly 1,000 nursing home workers went on strike early this week as part of a coordinated labor protest by several unions and advocacy groups that’s been years in the making.
The campaign — called “What Could We Win Together?” — included demonstrations across the Twin Cities metro area by thousands of workers and aimed to produce a kind of general strike to increase pressure on employers in otherwise scattershot campaigns by teachers, public works employees, janitors, security guards, airport workers and bus drivers.
The strike by janitors at 100 buildings across the metro lasted three days while janitors at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport struck for two days. They are seeking higher wages and a pension for the first time. Nursing home workers at 12 facilities struck for 24 hours on Tuesday as they seek a $25 minimum wage; it was the largest nursing home strike in Minnesota history, according to SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa President Jamie Gulley.
A Wednesday protest in support of about 1,000 union airport service workers, who are largely unable to strike because of the Railroad Labor Act, culminated in 15 people being arrested at the MSP airport for civil disobedience. Those arrested, including SEIU Executive Vice President Neal Bisno, were blocking part of the departures lane at Terminal 1. The workers want better health care benefits, which they say are unaffordable.
On Thursday, dozens of non-union construction workers, who are members of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), marched on Solhem Companies headquarters to demand the developer agree to an independent monitoring program. Two groups of workers on the developer’s Edina apartment project, called The Fred, say they’ve been shorted tens of thousands of dollars in wages. One group filed a lien on the property and were able to recover $41,000 while another filed a complaint with state regulators, according to CTUL. Solhem said in a letter to Edina council members that “no ‘wage theft’ has occurred to our knowledge on any Solhem project.”
Most of those workers who authorized strikes settled contracts in the past two weeks. The St. Paul Federation of Educators — including 3,700 teachers and hourly school workers — called off a strike set for March 11 after reaching a tentative agreement on Tuesday. The details have not been announced.
More than 400 Minneapolis city public works employees, unionized with LIUNA Local 363, voted to accept a new contract that raises wages nearly 30% over the next three years. It’s the biggest increase for the local ever, according to the union.
About 2,000 security guards and 600 retail janitors who had authorized strikes reached tentative agreements with about 20% pay raises, according to SEIU Local 26 President Greg Nammacher.
More than 2,000 bus operators and Metro Transit workers who had authorized a strike ratified a new contract last month that will increase wages 13% by August 2025. The new starting hourly wage for bus and train operators is $27.59 an hour.
Who’s left are the commercial janitors, nursing home workers, airport service workers and some 4,500 Minneapolis public school teachers and hourly workers, who are currently in mediation and have not yet taken a strike vote.
Uber and Lyft minimum pay passes, redux
The Minneapolis City Council on Thursday approved identical minimum pay rates for Uber and Lyft drivers as the ones vetoed by Mayor Jacob Frey last year. Frey said he’ll veto them again, but he would support slightly lower rates that he said would double driver pay. The difference this time around is voters gave progressives a larger majority on the council and the measure passed with a veto proof 9-4 majority.
After the vote, the companies renewed their threats to leave the city and possibly the state if the ordinance takes effect on May 1, saying the rates — 1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute — are so high they’ll make the service unaffordable to the many low- and moderate-income users.
The ordinance’s authors say the rate is what’s needed to ensure drivers earn the city’s minimum wage of $15.57 an hour after their expenses. But the companies say the city’s calculations are based on flawed assumptions and don’t take into account demand dropping from higher prices.
The state’s Department of Labor and Industry released a first-of-its-kind report on Friday based on more than 18 million Uber and Lyft trips taken in the state in 2022, which gives a clearer picture of drivers’ earnings. No state or city has conducted such a large analysis of Uber and Lyft data, according to Lyft.
The report says drivers in the Twin Cities will make Minneapolis’ minimum wage if they’re paid at least 49 cents per minute and 89 cents per mile (or $1.20 per mile to cover more comprehensive benefit expenses.)
The Minneapolis council knew of the report’s imminent release. But after voting to delay implementation a month, they decided not to wait to see what’s in the report.
“Rip the Band-Aid off,” said the ordinance’s lead author Council Member Robin Wonsley. “Just do it.”
Dairy farm denies having ‘Jungle’-like conditions
A Minnesota dairy farm being sued by Attorney General Keith Ellison for allegedly stealing more than $3 million in wages from hundreds of workers — while charging them for squalid living quarters in barns and garages — denied the allegations in a court filing, asking a judge to dismiss the complaint.
Ellison filed suit in January against Evergreen Acres owners Keith Schaefer and his daughter Megan Hill in one of the largest wage theft cases in his office’s history. Ellison compared the conditions at Evergreen Acres to Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” alleging workers put in 12-hour days, six or seven days a week, while some workers were charged rent to sleep in the same bed as others working opposite 12-hour shifts.
Schaefer and Hill, in their response filed in district court on Feb. 29, deny virtually everything in the complaint, including that many of their workers are unauthorized immigrants largely from Mexico. (Although they admit they have employed hundreds of workers over the past three years, and many were recruited from Mexico by current employees.)
Court interpreters suspend strike
Non-union contract court interpreters suspended their unprecedented strike after seven weeks on Feb. 25, saying they would resume work while asking state lawmakers to appropriate more money to the judicial branch.
The interpreters began their strike in January, demanding they have the same buying power they did in 1997, when they made $50 an hour. That would be over $96 an hour in today’s dollars, but interpreters made $55 an hour until Jan. 8 when new rates increased their pay to $65 an hour.
More than 125 court interpreters, who are independent contractors, signed a letter to the state court administrator in support of the work stoppage, which forced the courts to triage cases and postpone some hearings.
Sally Nichols, a Spanish interpreter, said without pay increases the courts will continue to struggle to uphold the state law entitling court participants with limited English or hearing ability to interpreters at no cost.
“Even though the work stoppage is officially over, unofficially, it’s not completely over,” Nichols said.
She said she hasn’t taken work in Minnesota for more than a year because of the low rates. Most of her work is in Wisconsin, where she can earn about $135 an hour working remotely. She said many sign language interpreters, who saw their rates decline under the new payment structure, have not returned.
In a letter to interpreters before the strike, Minnesota Court Administrator Jeff Shorba said the courts haven’t been given enough money by the Legislature to pay for raises, but that the Judicial Branch will ask for $1.5 million in additional funding this year. That could increase payment rates to $75 an hour for certified language interpreters.
Was 3M indifferent to safety?
Star Tribune’s Mike Hughlett spoke with the husband of a woman who was killed while working at 3M’s factory in Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin — the second fatal accident at a 3M factory in 15 months.
Trisha Jones — a great cook and “workaholic” — worked at the factory for 23 years, and was planning to open her own cafe after she retired. But on May 9, Jones was setting up a plastic extrusion machine when she was caught between the plastic and the machine’s rollers, suffering traumatic head injuries. A worker at 3M’s plant in Alexandria died in a similar fashion in 2022.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued two “willful” safety violations against the Maplewood giant, signaling intentional disregard or indifference to employee safety. 3M is contesting the citations, though it did pay for Jones’ funeral and made many changes at the plant, according to her husband.
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