www.opeiu12.org/news

For the Miscellaneous Sector Representative Position eligible members must work for one of the following employers: Carpenters Credit Union, Electrus Credit Union, St. Paul Federal Credit Union,

LELS-Clerical or Business Representatives, MAPE, Building Trades Credit Union, Pipefitters Steamfitters Credit Union, Reiter Tax Service,

Sundquist & Herland, Ltd, TruStone Credit Union, Sheet Metal Local 10 Control Board Trust Fund, Union Bank and Trust Company,

If you are a member who would like to be considered for either of these positions, please send a letter of interest to the Executive Board at eboard@opeiu12.org.

Letters of interest will be accepted until the position(s) are filled. Please include some background about yourself, the position you would like to be

Per Local 12's Constitution, "No person shall be elected or appointed to an office in or as an Executive Board member of this Union unless he/she has

been a member of this Union in continuous good standing for at least the preceding twelve (12) months in a unit under Contract with O.P.E.I.U. Local 12.”

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The Minnesota Senate, last week, passed legislation that would increase the state minimum wage to $7.75 per hour over three years.

This is in contrast to the House bill that increases the rate to $9.50 per hour over three years and preserves its value by tying future

increases to inflation. Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson issued the following statement in response:

“While it’s encouraging to see the Senate moving on increasing the minimum wage, we prefer the House version, which would make a

The minimum wage has continued to lose value over the last 40 years. If the minimum wage had retained its 1968 value - its peak purchasing

power - the minimum wage would be closer to $10.55 per hour. The House bill begins to restore the minimum wage’s value and ensures that

The Legislature is taking up bills that give SEIU home care workers and AFSCME child care providers the ability to bargain collectively with the state.

For years, home-based child care providers have been uniting to advocate for quality care parents can afford. Home care workers provide direct

support services to the elderly and people with disabilities to help them remain in their homes and live independent lives. Like all workers, child

care providers and home care workers deserve the right to have a voice on the job.

With negotiations in full swing, May 14 will be a critical time to join together for a powerful day of action demonstrating our support for fair and adequate

Thousands of Minnesotans have made their voices heard: we need to stop the foreclosure crisis and stand with homeowners NOW. Join Minnesotans

from labor, faith and community groups on Wednesday, May 15th at 11 a.m. at the Minnesota Capitol as we enter the final stage of this battle. We will

rally to ask our elected officials to stand with the thousands of Minnesotans, not the big banks, as we fight for strong foreclosure prevention legislation.

Fast food workers at more than 60 restaurants in Detroit walked off the job Friday. This may be the largest fast food strike in American history, involving

more than 400 workers from McDonald's, Long John Silver's, Burger King, Popeyes and KFC. Some locations were forced to shut down. At issue is workers'

Last week, the AFL-CIO hosted the first Youth Economic Forum in its Washington, D.C., headquarters. Young leaders in the labor movement gathered with

leaders of youth organizations to discuss ways to improve the economic reality faced by the millennial workforce. The goal of the forum is to produce a shared

The day consisted of group discussions on a variety of topics, from student loan debt to federal budget policy to workplace conditions, with a focus on issues

that directly affect the younger workforce. The discussions were led by representatives from the Roosevelt Institute, Generational Alliance, Young Invincibles

and Campus Progress—all organizations that educate and organize young Americans.

The forum’s main event was a speech by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and a moderated panel of experts that included Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.),

state Rep. Kevin Killer (D-S.D.), Domestic Policy Council member Portia Wu and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler.

Please come to an informal roundtable type discussion with Congressman Tim Walz and fellow union members on Wednesday, May 29, 10am, Carpenter’s

Union Hall (710 Olive Street, St. Paul) Space is limited, reserve your spot today! RSVP to (507) 388-5382, or email julie@timwalz.org

‘Untold Stories’ offers lectures, tours and performances on labor history

In celebration of labor history month each May, the Untold Stories series presents programs and talks on both local and national labor history topics. This year’s

Programs are sponsored by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library and co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service and many

The Labor Education Service is accepting applications for the 2013-2014 Minnesota Union Leadership Program, which begins in September.

Through six in-depth sessions scheduled over nine months, participants study the labor movement and discuss how to address the challenges facing unions today.

This program provides the opportunity for emerging and established union leaders to build relationships and network with others. Participants include union activists,

The application deadline is May 31. For a brochure and application materials, call 612-624-5020, or go to the LES website.

Weds., May 15 (10 AM) - Community Services/Education Committee, MN AFL-CIO

Thurs., May 16 (10 AM) - ALC/RLF Presidents & Staff, MN AFL-CIO

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Crystal Sugar labor dispute’s scars may linger

Article by: JIM SPENCER and Jim Adams
Star Tribune staff writers
April 15, 2013 - 9:31 PM

Now that one of Minnesota’s longest labor disputes has ended, union members and workers who replaced them for more than 20 months at American Crystal Sugar face a daunting challenge:

Working together.

Union and company officials will meet this week to discuss how and when hundreds of locked-out workers can return to their jobs. The company has promised to make a “good faith effort” to

start bringing union members back within 40 days, American Crystal Vice President Brian Ingulsrud said.

How long it will take the sugar beet processor to unify its workforce is anyone’s guess, labor experts said.

“There are losers all around in long lockouts or strikes,” University of Minnesota industrial relations specialist John Budd said.

Technical writer Susan Sylvester of Crookston is looking forward to returning to a post at American Crystal’s local factory. But she and others expect that friction might surface at the company’s

ive factories in the Red River Valley. That’s because the company expects to permanently hire hundreds of replacement workers to fill many of the 1,300 jobs union members held before the

lockout began on Aug. 1, 2011.

Union workers approved a new contract Saturday with 55 percent voting in favor of an offer that has been on the table for nearly two years. American Crystal workers rejected essentially the

same contract four times, initially by a 96 percent vote.

“There will be feelings there because you have to deal with these people who came and took our jobs,” said Sylvester, a board member for local 167G of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco

Workers and Grain Millers International Union. “If they didn’t [replace union workers], this would have been settled a long time ago.

“It will take a while for feelings to mend.”

The union local’s president, John Riskey, said Sunday that he expects his members to be professional with the workers who replaced them. But Monday, as workers passed through union offices,

feelings ran high. “One guy just walked out of here saying it’s going to be hard [to get along],” Riskey said.

Besides repairing relationships with replacements and supervisors, returning workers may also need to fix equipment run by novices in their absence, Riskey said. He noted that two workers have

been seriously burned in recent months by scalding liquids used in the process of turning sugar beets into sugar products.

“We’ll have to see what shape the factories are in,” Riskey said. “We definitely don’t want to put our people into an unsafe work environment.”

Ingulsrud said they won’t be. “We have tried to make all our factories safe places to work before, during and after the lockout.” He said the two burn cases are still under investigation.

Ingulsrud acknowledged that some tension between replacement workers and returning union workers may exist, but “our goal is to have a workplace where workers respect each other, and we

will work very diligently toward that goal.”

He said about 640 of the 1,300 locked-out workers have retired or formally resigned. They can reapply for jobs, and their experience will be a plus, Ingulsrud said. But they have no job guarantee

like the 660 union members who didn’t quit.

Those 660 will receive company letters allowing them to return to the jobs they had as of Aug. 1, 2011, Ingulsrud said. In rare cases where those jobs were eliminated, union workers will be offered

comparable jobs.

However, Ingulsrud thinks many of the 660 may not return because they found other work, leaving their American Crystal jobs open for some of the 1,100 replacement workers hired

during the lockout.

Asked what the company gained from the 20-month lockout, Ingulsrud said positive contract changes that include “giving us the ability to promote the most qualified employees.”

Before the lockout, promotions were based on seniority. Now, seniority will only be a factor when two job candidates are equally qualified.

The U’s Budd believes the lockout eventually worked in management’s favor because American Crystal had to make very few concessions to its final contract offer.

The length of the lockout also helped the company. If the lockout had been a short one, Budd explained, American Crystal would have been forced to fire most of the temporary replacements

to make way for returning union members.

But Budd cautioned that this victory came at a cost to the cooperative.

“Their profits clearly suffered,” he said. “Their payments to members were significantly lower than facilities without a lockout.”

Lingering bitterness by union workers forced to work beside replacements also could lead to morale problems going forward, Budd said.

University of California, Los Angeles, labor expert Chris Tilly agreed. While the lockout may have tilted the playing field more in the direction of management, it hardly counts as a foolproof labor-relations

strategy at American Crystal Sugar or anywhere else, according to Tilly.

“Twenty months is an awfully long time,” he said. “The problem with starving the other guy out is that you’re starving yourself, too.”

The new contract includes a 13 percent wage hike over the course of the agreement, which expires July 31, 2017. Union members, who previously paid minimal co-pays and deductibles, but no health insurance

premiums, will pay an average 20 percent of their health care costs, Ingulsrud said.

In American Crystal’s three Minnesota plants, replacement workers must legally join the union, Sylvester said. That is not the case in the company’s two North Dakota plants.

In Crookston, population about 7,500, replacement workers have lived in apartments or trailer homes, Sylvester said. But she doesn’t expect locals to spurn them now that the lockout has ended.

“In a small town where I live, we don’t want to hate our neighbors,” she said. “We want to get our community back together.”

jim.spencer@startribune.com • 202-383-6123

jim.adams@startribune.com • 612-673-7658

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http://www.opeiu.org/Home/tabid/37/ctl/ArticleView/mid/1886/articleId/351/Get-25-Dining-Certificates-for-Only-6.aspx

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Job openings in Southeast Minnesota are up 87 percent compared with three years ago, according to the updated Job Vacancy Survey from the Minnesota Department of

Minnesota had 4,600 job openings—the largest number of openings for any fourth

But only half of all Southeast Minnesota job openings are full-time. With 13,000

unemployed job seekers competing for 2,300 full-time openings, job seekers still

Forty-one percent of all openings are in the three largest occupational groups—sales and related, healthcare support, and food preparation and serving. These groups of openings

Over the last three years, job openings in the sales and related occupations rose 363 percent; on average, job openings in the nineteen other groups of occupations rose

66 percent. The sales and related occupations gained five and a half times more openings than the average for all other occupations in Southeast Minnesota.

• Only 40 percent of all openings require education or training beyond high school.

According to JOBS NOW’s Cost of Living research, a single person with no dependents

who works full-time in Southeast Minnesota must earn $11.46 per hour to meet basic

needs. In a family of four with both parents working full-time, each worker must earn

* The Southeast Minnesota Planning Region consists of the following 11 counties: Dodge, Fillmore,

** See http://tinyurl.com/763ux3d Figures for job seekers and job openings are from fourth quarter 2012.

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Every day, our nation's elected leaders make decisions that affect us as working families. Corporations spend millions of dollars in political

contributions to ensure that their interests are protected, but what about working people? We deserve to have our voices heard when it

comes to issues such as job creation, collective bargaining rights, health care and education. By joining together as union sisters and

brothers, our collective voice can be heard loud and clear in Washington, D.C. and at the state and local level. When we come together,

we are a strong force that can make a huge difference in moving America forward on the path to prosperity for all.

Keep in mind that without political leaders working to protect the interests of working people, we could lose everything that the labor

movement has worked so hard for and gained over the years, such as the 40-hour work week, paid overtime and holidays, pensions,

worker safety protections and the elimination of child labor. In fact, as we saw in Wisconsin, we could even lose the right to collectively bargain!

OPEIU has established the J.B. Moss Voice of the Electorate (VOTE) Fund, a political action committee (PAC) fund that ensures

OPEIU has the necessary funds to support pro-worker political candidates and to push for legislation that matters to us as working people.

In this regard, all OPEIU Local Unions must comply with Article XIX, Section 10 of the OPEIU Constitution regarding procedures for check-off

"Effective July 1, 2010, all Local Unions in the United States shall ascertain whether any employer(s) with which the Local Union has a

collective bargaining agreement allows its stockholders, executives, or administrative personnel to contribute to an employer Political Action

Committee Fund (PAC) through payroll deduction. Any employer which allows any such payroll deduction must be required to permit employees.

in the bargaining unit to utilize the same procedures for check-off of contributions to the J.B. Moss Voice of the Electorate Fund.

In all collective bargaining negotiations which begin on or after July 1, 2010, each Local Union in the United States must vigorously pursue

agreement with the employer(s) to a provision permitting checkoff of contributions to the J.B. Moss Voice of the Electorate Fund.

All Local Unions in the United States shall be required to use a standard form(s) approved by the International Union Executive Board for check-off

The International has prepared Form 35 and made it available to all Local Unions for this purpose. OPEIU also urges all Local Unions to include

a discussion of the J.B. Moss VOTE Fund on all membership meeting agendas, and to make Form 35 sign-up cards available at all meetings

Please sign up for the OPEIU J.B. Moss VOTE Fund today! Just $1 per paycheck can make a huge difference and ensure OPEIU members are

January 14, 2012. In the middle of 2004, Anita was diagnosed with a goiter. In April of 2005

they discovered it was thyroid cancer and not a goiter. Anita fought this disease through multiple

radioactive iodine treatments, beam radiation, and surgeries to get rid of tumors that had appeared

throughout her body. Time ran out, there were no other options or treatments. January 14, 2012,