Bluestem Prairie

ACS lockout update: BEET the Lockout initiative launched for school supplies; more news

As the lockout of union workers continues, families are feeling the pinch as school children get ready to return to the classroom. The Load the Truck/BEET the Lockout initiative has been created to help them out.

Meanwhile, the Crookston City Council is writing a letter to, the head of the union writes, and . In the Cities, the Star Tribune reports that the biggest test of management's wager  has yet to come, as the sugar beet harvest has yet to begin.

The Crookston Times reports in Load the Truck/BEET the Lockout initiative launched:

Organizers of Load the Truck/BEET the Lockout said many families in the area are affected by the American Crystal Lockout. Since school is right around the corner, some are having a hard time trying to get school supplies for their children. The community can help by donating money or any type of school supplies (i.e. backpacks, pencils, pens, erasers, two pocket folders, crayons, school box, glue, scissors).

Starting today, there will be a Load the Truck booth next to the local union headquarters on Main Street (former Rock's Jewelry building) where donations can be brought. Several businesses in Crookston will also have donation jars.

There will also be a Picnic in the Park fundraiser on Saturday, Aug. 27, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Highland Complex, with all proceeds going toward Load the Truck/BEET the Lockout. For $1.50 you'll a hot dog, chips, drink and a cookie.

Bluestem has contacted friends in the labor movemnt to see if there's a way that people who live outside of the Valley can help out.

Elsewhere in the Times, City Editor Natalie Ostgaard reports in City open to writing simple, impartial letter on Crystal situation:

Although the Crookston City Council stopped short of fully supporting a request to send out letters urging both sides to resolve the American Crystal Sugar labor dispute, council members and Mayor Dave Genereux did agree that he would draft and sign a simple, impartial letter to the union and company management.

A large group of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union members employed by American Crystal attended the council's Monday night meeting to ask – like they're doing in other cities in which they have a strong presence – that the council send a letter to both company management and the union urging both sides to get back to the negotiating table and resolve their differences so the employees can get back to work. The council agreed to take the matter under advisement but made no decision at the time.

After discussing it during the Administrative Committee meeting that followed, however, the consensus was to have Genereux alone sign the letter, modeled after the one signed by East Grand Forks Council members. There was some concern about treading into territory that some might construe as biased.

Read the article at the Times. Ryan Schuster at the Grand Forks Herald reports in Union leader sends letter to Crystal president:

The international president of the union that represents the 1,300 locked out American Crystal Sugar Co. employees wrote a sternly-worded letter to American Crystal’s president last week, imploring him to end the lockout and resume negotiations with the union.

In a letter dated Aug. 18 and addressed to American Crystal president and CEO Dave Berg, Frank Hurt, the international president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, asked Berg to “immediately end the company’s strike against your workers and meet with their union representatives to negotiate, in good faith, a fair and equitable collective bargaining agreement.” . . .

“I have rarely seen a company act as boldly and unfairly against its workers as American Crystal Sugar,” Hurt wrote in the letter. “Our members have devoted their professional careers to the success of your company and for that loyalty they have had their lives harshly thrown in to turmoil, uncertainty and hardship.” . . .

Brian Ingulsrud, American Crystal’s vice president for administration, said the company had no response to Hurt’s letter. Ingulsrud said the letter won’t change the company’s course in its dealings with the union.

“There really isn’t anything new to report,” Ingulsrud said.

Read the entire article at the Herald. On the paper's oped pages, Gerald Larson writes in a letter to the editor, Cut American Crystal execs’ pay while boosting workers’:

I am a concerned resident of North Dakota in no way associated with Crystal Sugar or the employees’ union.

If the salary figures stated by Scott Ripplinger in his recent column are correct, I think the Crystal Sugar board should offer an explanation to the public as well as to the locked-out employee as to why it is necessary to cut employee benefits when the board is able to increase executive salaries at a ridiculous rate (“Crystal worker calls contract sour, not sweet,” Page A4, Aug. 16).

 

For example, I’m referring to Dave Berg’s salary increase of more than $1 million in a three-year period to a total salary of nearly $2 million. . . .

Check out his conclusion at the paper.

Steve Share of the Minneapolis Labor Review reports via the Twin Cities Daily Planet that Sugar lock-out includes distribution facility in Chaska, frustrated workers. The 19 Chaska workers are a close-knit group:

"It's like a small little family," Lahr said. "They're hunting and fishing together... Most of us are long term employees," he said, with 15-38 years on the job (for Lahr, 36-1/2 years). They know the names of each other's kids. "We've been here a long time."

Read the long piece at the TCDP. The Star Tribune's Mike Hughlett reports in Beet harvest will test American Crystal Sugar's lockout strategy:

It's been three weeks since American Crystal Sugar locked out 1,300 workers in a contract dispute, but the company's biggest economic test of the lockout is still to come.

Weather-related crop setbacks have delayed the harvest, so American Crystal's five Red River Valley plants - while teeming with replacement workers - aren't yet actually processing beets.

When the Moorhead-based company starts up those factories, it will be relying on a relatively inexperienced workforce, upping the risk of production shortcomings, industrial relations experts say.

Ultimately, that risk is borne by the 2,800 growers who own American Crystal Sugar, a cooperative. Their income is partly determined by how efficiently the lumpy beige roots from their fields are transformed into fine white sugar. . . .

Check out the story at the Strib. The Grand Forks paper notes that the run-up to the harvest will be underway in the beginning of next month in Crystal to begin pre-pile lift Sept. 6:

American Crystal Sugar Co. has announced to shareholders that they’ll start pre-pile harvest on Sept. 6 with beet slicing, or processing starting in all of its five factories. In the southern Red River Valley, Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative at Wahpeton will start harvest Sept. 21-22, and will start slicing at its single factory on Sept. 23.

Dan Bernhardson, the farmer-owned co-op’s director of agriculture, said the later-than-normal start is due to lower yield projections. The current projection ranges from 20 tons to 22 tons per acre, which would be the lowest in the past five years. The lowest during that period was 22.3 tons in 2009, and the five-year average is 24.5 tons per acre.

. . .Bernhardson earlier had said recent crop sampling data would likely be a topic for the Aug. 24 regular board of directors’ meeting that is reportedly scheduled in Grand Forks, starting in the morning. The so-called full-scale, 24-hour harvest will start about Oct. 1.

How will the lockout affect the harvest? The Herald reports:

It is unclear whether Crystal’s labor issues will be a part of the board meeting. The board has a sub-committee that is regularly briefed in detail on the labor impasse, which has resulted in a lock-out of 1,300 union workers. It isn’t clear a later processing start will play any part in the settlement of the dispute.

Photo: Sugar workers and their allies march on the bridge between Moorhead and Fargo.

American Crystal Sugar lockout update: sympathy for workers, sympathy for the devil

The lockout of union works at American Crystal Sugar refineries in northwestern Minnesota, while union and management supporters continue their tussling in area newspapers' oped sections.

First, news coverage. In LIFE ON THE PICKET LINE: American Crystal workers keep the faith, Grand Forks Herald business writer Ryan Schuster reports:

. . .“We’re out here 24 hours a day, seven days a week on four-hour shifts,” said locked-out union worker Scott Ripplinger as he picketed outside the American Crystal Sugar Co. plant in East Grand Forks last week. “We’d rather be working. This isn’t about if we want to work or not. We want to work. They won’t let us. We’re locked out.”

The locked-out workers still show up to the plants where they once worked. Unable to return to work, they instead take turns manning picket lines set up outside the gates and watch as replacement workers contracted by the company come and go.

But three weeks into a lockout initiated by company management after union members overwhelmingly rejected the company’s last contract offer, picketing union workers say they are united and remain undaunted.

“I don’t mind being out here,” said Dave Bakke, who has worked at the company’s East Grand Forks plant for nearly 32 years as he picketed in front of the plant this week. “I’m not only out here for myself, I’m out here for everybody else, too.” . . .

Read the rest at the Herald. The article appears in the Fargo Forum as American Crystal workers hold line.

In related news, at WDAY, Charley Johnson reports in No Progress As ACS Lockout Nears 3 Weeks:

American Crystal Sugar union workers have been locked out of their jobs for almost three weeks and Crystal vice president Brian Ingulsrud says the company is standing by its final offer, and hopes the union will reconsider and take another vote on the proposal. . . .

. . .Union sticking points are the company's desire to have them pay a portion of the health insurance premium, and language in the proposed contract that the union says would make it easier for Crystal to out-source some jobs to non-union workers.

Workday Minnesota reports that the community continues to rally around the workers in Pressure grows on  sugar company to end lockout:

EAST GRAND FORKS - The City Council here voted unanimously Wednesday to send a letter urging American Crystal Sugar to return to negotiations with its locked-out workers. "The council recognizes the importance of the facility and the people who work there to our city," city administrator Scott Huizena said. "Obviously, it's a very important part of our economy in East Grand Forks."

The council took the vote after a presentation by AFL-CIO spokesman Mark Froemke who, a night earlier, had asked the City Council in Grand Forks, N.D., to do the same thing. The Grand Forks council did not take an official position but Froemke said several of its members told him they would individually write letters to the company urging it to end the lockout. . . .

ACS lockout update: IBT big rig rolls into Moorhead; editor sees end of sugar program

Locked out American Crystal Sugar refinery workers continue to picket, and KFGO reports that they received a rolling show of solidarity from Teamsters.

From the article:

Teamsters Local 120 spokesman Donny Walz says the teamsters want to send a message that they fully support the locked-out workers. Union workers at American Crystal have been locked-out since August First. The employees say they want to go back to work, but the company won’t allow them without a formal wage and benefits agreement. 

 

A union representative says there are no signs that the lockout will end anytime soon.

Mike Jacobs, editor and publisher of the Grand Forks Herald, suspects that Crystal’s strategy means danger for sugar program. He lays out the case:

American Crystal Sugar executives must be figuring that the U.S. sugar program is going to end.

That’s the only way to explain their current labor strategy.

The strategy is to reduce costs by cutting jobs. The company has chosen tough tactics, including a lockout of its 1,300 union workers.

All of this adds another element of danger to the sugar program, which is already at risk in Congress.

Crystal’s calculation is both financial and political.

If the sugar program ends, imports of sugar will rise. The price of sugar will go down. American sugar refiners will survive only by becoming more competitive. That means driving down costs. Labor is a very big cost, and Crystal saw the expiration of its labor contract as a way to reduce the work force.

This strategy makes sense for Crystal executives, who work for the growers who own the cooperative. . .

Read the rest. Jacobs concludes that if the sugar program ends, communities in the Red River Valley will take huge hits, but the co-operative and its refineries will survive. It's not a heartening vision and Jacobs doesn't write it as one.

In an earlier letter to the editor, American Crystal lockout a betrayal, pure and simple, Megan Villarreal speaks to the human cost of the strategy:

Everyone knows someone who works at American Crystal Sugar. These are our neighbors, friends and relatives. My grandfather and father-in-law both retired from Crystal Sugar, while my husband and uncle currently are locked out.

It’s very difficult to plan a family get-together when two members of your family work two different shifts, but it has been this way as long as I can remember. We have made it work because Crystal Sugar was a good place to work.

Every dollar made by a Crystal Sugar employee stays in our community.

These dollars help pay for our schools and churches, not to mention huge contributions to organizations such as United Way. . . .

Read the rest at the Herald.

"Hey Joe Talley, backstabbing union workers again?": hundreds protest ACS refinery lockout

A solidarity rally for locked-out American Crystal Sugar refinery workers drew hundreds of people to the streets of Moorhead, Minnesota, the Associated Press and other news sources report.

Via those commies at Forbes, AP's Dave Kolpack reports in Union workers rally against Crystal Sugar lockout:

Hundreds of American Crystal Sugar workers and others showed up in Moorhead with signs, banners and even guitars Thursday in a rally for employees who have been locked out for 11 days.

About 1,300 union workers have been locked out of five sugar processing plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa in the company's first labor impasse in 30 years. The largest beet sugar processor in the U.S. had offered a 17 percent pay increase over five years, but workers were upset about provisions covering job security and health care costs.

Management had nothing to say, Kolpack reports, other than word that no talks were scheduled. But the guitar-toting workers had a sing-able message:

The rally started near the company's Moorhead headquarters, where workers chanted pro-union slogans and targeted company vice president and Chief Operating Officer Joseph Talley. "Pink slip Joe," they yelled.

The group walked several blocks to a bridge over the Red River separating Minnesota and North Dakota, where one of at least two guitar-playing marchers, D-Roy Anderson, played the Jimi Hendrix song "Hey Joe." Anderson made up his own version Thursday when he saw buttons and signs about Talley.

"Hey Joe, where you are going with that big knife in your hand? Hey Joe Talley, when you going out and backstabbing union workers again?" Anderson sang.

The Grand Forks Herald has more in Lockout union members, supporters rally in Moorhead:

Several hundred union workers and their supporters gathered at the Moorhead Center Mall about noon today for a rally intended to show support for union members locked out on Aug. 1 by American Crystal Sugar Co.

From the mall, they marched down both sides of the Veterans Memorial Bridge between Moorhead and Fargo, chanting union slogan[s] and carrying signs like one that stated: "Stop the war on workers!" . . .

The Herald's mother ship, the Fargo Forum posted a story and video:

Letters from supporters of the workers have appearing in area papers. Typical headlines, from yesterday's Grand Forks Herald: If sugar industry is protected, why aren’t workers? and What are Crystal executives thinking? and Go hear it from the workers:

One important suggestion that I have for the community is to go speak with the American Crystal Sugar workers about why 96 percent of the voting workers disagree with the contract written by American Crystal Sugar.

The workers explain it best, and they have made themselves available 24 hours a day. Listening to these workers, one would find that the contract impasse is not about money, but rather workplace safety, job security and reasonable health coverage so they are not saddled with excessive health care costs in hard economic times.

In comparison, American Crystal Sugar executives convey the message that they cannot believe workers would turn down such a “fair contract,” but this is a standard public relations ploy from the union-busting consulting firm — Strom Engineering — hired by American Crystal.

It surprises me that American Crystal Sugar would introduce and welcome Strom Engineering into our communities, a firm that according to a Star Tribune article from last Sunday, “has been criticized in the past for hiring ex-cons, misleading job applicants and running grueling, 12-hour shifts seven days a week without so much as a bathroom break.”

It is not the Minnesota way, nor the North Dakota way, to bring firms into our communities that have in place poor labor practices and hire replacement workers who have no connection to the community. . . .

Read them all at the Herald.

Franken talks to management and union representatives

In other developments, local radio KFGO reports in Franken Speaks With American Crystal Sugar President:

Senator Al Franken says the lockout of union workers at American Crystal Sugar is not something he wants to see drag on.

Franken has spoken with Crystal President David Berg and his staff has met with union representatives. Crystal locked-out 1,300 employees on August 1st. The union says contract language and added health care costs are among its primary concerns.

American Crystal Sugar has brought in replacement workers for union workers. Management has also taken on some of the work at Crystal's five Red River Valley Sugar processing plants.

Franken is right; this shouldn't drag on. The company must end the lock out, let the workers go back to what they do best, and join the union negotiators at the table.

A sweet heritage of cooperation

There's something to be said for working together like that, and someone has indeed said it.  In Just a Derm Minute: Union helped build American Crystal Sugar's name, production, profits, an op-ed column published by the Frazee-Vergas Forum, freelance writer John Dermody comments:

. . .The key phrase is "locked out." We have heard daily that workers are "on strike," but, no, they have been turned away. . . .

. . .It is very clear that employees of the co-op want to work. Nobody wants to be idle when scraping to meet the cost of food, shelter, transportation and education-related items. The economic impact on just the Fargo-Moorhead area could be devastating if the lockout continues. . . .

Incidentally, the workers have solidly stood with farmers and the company to work for federal laws that have protected the industry from being undercut by foreign imports. They've worked together on numerous farm bills that have created prosperity for the industry.

Farmers could put some pressure on their own "employees" who sit at high levels within the company. They could tell them, "We don't want to risk losing a bumper crop because replacements from South Carolina don't know how to perform essential tasks.

Let's face facts. The spirit behind co-ops is basically why such agriculture-related organizations as Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, Grange and National Farmers Organization have been created over more than 100 years. Are they unions? Of course not. They have diligently sought a good income for farm families. So why should union workers NOT have good benefits when processing and promoting farm products?

The old Nonpartisan League in North Dakota, along with other groups, made farmers strong enough to fight railroads and milling companies who would have had power over prices paid for grain and the charges paid for shipping by farmers. . . .

Management should stop and think - with "think" being another key word - about how the unity and loyalty of union workers in the past benefited everyone and raised the profit level of American Crystal Sugar by leaps and bounds. . .

This co-operation and sense of community is part of the texture of northwestern Minnesota. That's why the locked-out workers are finding such community support. Why does management want to tear that fabric?

Photo: Workers and allies marched across Veterans Memorial Bridge between Moorhead and Fargo to protest the lockout. Via Facebook.

We don't need no Education MN: Sutton says Republicans, leave those teachers alone

Minnpost gleaner Brian Lambert regularly notes the entertainment value of failed burrito baron and state Republican chairman Tony Sutton. Bluestem concurs.

Yesterday's brick in the wall: an item from MPR's Capitol View, MNGOP cancels teacher meeting, duly amplified b the blyogosphere here and here.

Tom Scheck wrote:

The Minnesota Republican Party has canceled a meeting that was scheduled to take place tonight with GOP-leaning union teachers.

The teacher organizing the effort said his goal was to create a group to represent Republican members of the traditionally Democratic-leaning teachers union Education Minnesota. MNGOP Chair Tony Sutton says he inquired further about the meeting after MPR News contacted him about it yesterday... and that's when he says concerns came up.

"One of the people involved with this was very insistent that it only be public school teachers and union members," Sutton said. "It really raised some concerns for me because I think there are a lot of teachers in charter schools and private schools that should be part of this, if we do something like this."

Fascinating stuff, since a number of Education Minnesota members in this area (the union member and Republican spearheading the cancelled effort teaches in Glencoe, my county seat) are indeed Republicans and local screening committees routinely endorse those Republican candidates who show an inclination to be education-friendly--like former State Senator Steve Dille and  Dean Urdahl. (Urdahl, a retired teacher, was opposed by another Education Minnesota member in 2010; as the PIM article on the endorsement documents, most of the legislators EdMinn endorsed were frm Greater Minnesota).

Eric Roper's post at the Strib's Hot Dish blog adds the local organizer's reaction:

A group of union members called the meeting with the GOP to form an "education caucus within the party," according to a post on Education Minnesota's website. “The goal was to get union members active, Republican union members active,"  said organizer Tom Schoper. "That’s what the goal was." . . .

Schoper said they hadn't "gotten that far" to determine whether non-union members would be included in the group.

What's the next step?

“The next step is I don’t know," Schoper said. "I was surprised by this.”

Could Sutton's cancellation by executive fiat signal renewed attempts to undermine public education and public employee unions by the Republican Party in 2012? Jeepers--it's not hard to spot Senate Majority Leader Mike Brodkorb twitching on his cell phone outside near the bike racks. That laddie never stands still. And after all, there's talk of trying to ram through a right-to-work amendment, PIM reported.

Another sign? While Sutton wants those teachers to leave his kids alone, he is overjoyed at a visitation by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whose unbounding love for public educators provoked an unpouring of public sympathy (as well as the loss of two Republican running buddies in the Badger State senate). From the Daily Glean:

And you thought it was bad when the Packers came to town … now Scott Walker is coming to Minnesota. . ..

. . ." ‘We are honored and excited to add Gov. Scott Walker to the list of speakers for the Midwest Leadership Conference,’ said Minnesota GOP Chairman Tony Sutton in a statement. ‘Despite millions of dollars and man hours spent by the Democrat Party and its allies on the Wisconsin recall elections, Republicans maintained their majority status in the Wisconsin Senate.' " Personally, we are disappointed chairman Sutton could not find a way to work the word “outraged” into his statement.

Perhaps more dark sarcasm in the media could do the trick.

Photo:  Minnesota Republican chair and failed burrito baron Tony Sutton frowns for the camera at a Tax Cut Rally St. Paul, Minnesota May 7, 2011. Photo by Fibonacci Blue; used with permission.

American Crystal Sugar lockout update: editorials, rally, letters, farmers

Update  Thursday, 8/11/2011: For an update and news about hundreds rallying in Moorhead today, visit "Hey Joe Talley, backstabbing union workers again?": hundreds protest ACS refinery lockout [end update]

Looking around news about the American Crystal sugar lock-out in Northwestern Minnesota, the story hasn't gone away.

The editors of the Crookston Times write in a short editorial: Crystal, union need to start talking again:

Maybe we set the bar too high by asking over the past couple of weeks for American Crystal Sugar management and members of the union to get together and agree on a new contract that is at least reasonably satisfying to all concerned. If that is indeed the case, then this week we’re scaling back our expectations and simply asking that both sides start negotiating again in the hope that the current lockout of the union workers and the employment of the replacement workers end sooner rather than later. Anything is better than nothing, which seems to be what’s going on right now, other than both sides attempting to win the public relations battle through the regional media. Start talking, people; if this drags on too long, decent, hard-working people are going to really start hurting, and that pain will inevitably spread to the communities that they call home.

Workday Minnesota announced that Rally planned Aug. 11 to support locked-out sugar workers:

The rally is scheduled for noon, Thursday, Aug. 11, outside American Crystal Sugar headquarters at 101 N. Third St., Moorhead. Participants will also march to the nearby bridge spanning the Red River between Moorhead and Fargo, North Dakota, then go to Davy/Memorial/Riverfront Park to hear labor leaders and other speakers.

The union plans to run buses to bring members from Drayton, N.D., Crookston and East Grand Forks, said Mark Froemke, a union officer helping to coordinate the effort. Community residents and members of other unions also are scheduled to participate.

Those who cannot attend can show support by signing an on-line petition coordinated by the Minnesota AFL-CIO. More than 3,000 people had signed by mid-week.

“We want to show people they’re not alone,” Froemke said.

In the Grand Forks Herald, the chair of the North Dakota Democrats, Mark Schneider, writes in Sugar beet growers should tell American Crystal to end lockout:

The misguided lockout of American Crystal Sugar workers by management is taking a tremendous toll on working men, women and their families in the valley. The sugar beet industry is, of course, an integral part of the regional economy. American Crystal is owned by the regions’ sugar beet farmers and, ultimately, its managers are accountable to them.

Whatever Chief Operating Officer Joseph J. Talley’s motives are in locking out American Crystal’s own employees, the ultimate authority at American Crystal Sugar is the sugar beet growers themselves.

Beyond the federal subsidies they receive, sugar beet farmers have been blessed in recent years with both outstanding crops and outstanding prices. . . .

Yet, consider the irony: In the sugar beet owners’ name, COO Talley locked out the workers who in North Dakota cannot even receive unemployment benefits. . . .

Read the whole thing at the Herald. The Star Tribune looked at the company that supplies scabs in Strom helps strike back against unions (I suppose the Strib thought it was being clever with that headline, rather than grossly inaccurate in conflating a lockout with a strike):

For more than half a century, a little-known Minnetonka firm called Strom Engineering has provided troops to help companies across the country battle their unions.

American Crystal Sugar sought reinforcements from Strom when it locked out some 1,300 union employees in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa last week. Strom workers have stepped in at a steel mill for nearly a year, replaced striking mechanics at Northwest Airlines and kept a food plant running during a dispute.

To companies that hire Strom, it is an ally that can help their bargaining position merely by drawing up contingency plans for a work stoppage.

Union leaders who have gone up against Strom clients have a different view.

"To us, Strom is basically an outfit that hires mercenaries to basically go in and destroy communities," said Mark Froemke, president of the AFL-CIO's West Area Labor Council and a member of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union, which represents the sugar beet workers.

Learn more at the Strib. A short report on a local radio station notes that Collin Peterson Concerned With Sugar Lockout:

Minnesota 7^th District Rep. Collin Peterson says he's concerned with the possible implications of the employee lockout at American Crystal Sugar. In the long term, Peterson says it could play a role in sensitive negotiations over the federal sugar program. 

Peterson says he talked with Crystal management a couple of months ago. 1,300 crystal employees in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa are affected by the lockout, now in its second week.

Photo: Locked out workers.

Teamsters cease delivering at American Crystal Sugar; editors call for return to table

On Monday, Bluestem posted about management's intransigence in Locked-out workers picket American Crystal Sugar; company hauls in scabs. Union members overwhelmingly rejected the co-op's offer over health care and contract language would make it easier for the company to replace union workers with non-union workers.

The situation is devolving for the co-op in Northwestern Minnesota. WDAZ reports that Teamsters Join in American Crystal Contract Dispute. Local editors say Hopefully, that wasn't Crystal's final offer in the Crookston Times and No winner in lockout at Crystal Sugar Co. in the Fargo Forum.

The Grand Forks Herald reprints a Star Tribune commentary: In context of protective tariffs, American Crystal's lockout raises eyebrows.

And yet management isn't budging, the  Herald reports in  No talks scheduled as American Crystal plans to keep using replacement workers.

Let's unpack those headlines. In Teamsters Join in American Crystal Contract Dispute, the public learns:

One of the nation's biggest unions is showing its support for American Crystal Sugar Union workers.

The Teamsters Union issued a statement Monday saying they will not be making deliveries to plants for the duration of the lockout.

There's a possibility that it could have a major affect on American Crystal Sugar plants due in part that some of their biggest deliveries are made by Teamsters drivers.

The local union requested the support of Teamsters during the lockout. . . .

Crookston Times editor Mike Christopherson writes in Hopefully, that wasn't Crystal's final offer:

. . . it’s not all about the money. Crystal wants to significantly change the health plan for its union employees, and the union is saying that the salary increase and “bonus” won’t necessarily put more money in their pocket; in fact, they say, it might not even cancel out the increased costs they’ll pay for health coverage.

Then there’s the whole out-sourcing jobs issue, or, in other words, hiring outside contractors. The union thinks the language in the contract offer relating to this area puts just about every union worker at risk of being replaced somewhere down the line but non-union personnel.

Scary stuff, even with a decent pay increase. The devil is in the details, and the union at this point wholeheartedly rejects them. Here’s hoping management at Crystal, a farmer-owned cooperative currently on one heck of a successful run, gives a little more ground and puts forth a retooled offer that warrants serious consideration by the union. The company and its impact on our region’s economy are too significant to let this situation fester too long.

The Fargo editorial board says in No winner in lockout at Crystal Sugar Co.:

The best thing for the economy of the Red River Valley would be for American Crystal Sugar Co. and its union workers to return to the bargaining table. The worker lockout that began Monday morning hurts workers and their families, and suggests the company does not believe its own rhetoric about the value of its workers. . . .

. . .First, the company’s decision to lock out employees when the union had no intention of striking seems unnecessarily harsh. It’s a recipe for lingering bitterness. If possible, the company should end the lockout as a condition of resuming negotiations. If company managers really believe “our workers are our best assets,” let them work while talks proceed.

Second, the union has to join the real world. That is, the days of a nearly free ride for certain benefits are over. Paying more for company-provided health insurance is a concession the union should make.

Finally, both sides need to gather around the table again to re-examine contract language regarding union job security. The company’s interpretation is different from the union’s conclusion. Job security is important to the union, as it is for everyone who holds a good job. For the company’s part, it should welcome clarity of language that removes uncertainty from workers who have demonstrated their loyalty for decades.

That’s what negotiating is supposed to be about. It won’t happen until both sides start talking again.

The Strib's business columnist Eric Wieffering comments in In context of protective tariffs, American Crystal's lockout raises eyebrows:

But the just-expired contract, with the seniority provisions that are now so objectionable, lasted seven years and covered a period of low prices. Judging by the bonuses and incentive payments made to top executives, it didn't seem to hurt the company's business. Between 2008 and the end of 2010, CEO David Berg's total compensation more than doubled, to almost $2 million. The average compensation increase for the top four executives totaled 75 percent over two years.

Over the years, American Crystal and other sugar producers have used employees as props in their campaigns to help kill measures that would have ended or loosened the quotas that locked in industry profits.

But once the workers rejected the contract, Ingulsrud said the company had to lock them out right away to protect the company from a strike with the harvest only three or four weeks away. "We didn't want to risk waiting until they had maximum leverage," he said. . .

And about those "replacement workers," (r as simple country bloggers like to call them, scabs):

There appears to be no end in sight to the labor impasse between American Crystal Sugar Co. and 1,300 union workers at its facilities in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

No talks have been scheduled between the two sides and an official with the nation’s largest sugar beet processor said the Moorhead-based company doesn’t have any current plans to resume negotiations. . . .

The co-op isn't looking good in the lockout. Between the teamsters and the court of public opinion, how long until management decides to come back to the table?

Want to help bring both sides together to hammer out a more reasonable contract?

Via Workday Minnesota, the Minnesota AFL-CIO has launched an online petition to support sugar processing workers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa who have been locked out. Read more.

Sign the petition.

Do what Tild tells you to do!

Photo: Via MPR.

Locked-out workers picket American Crystal Sugar; company hauls in scabs

There's a lockout at the American Crystal Sugar. Valley News Live has the latest in American Crystal Sugar Locks Out Workers, plans no new talks.

View the news clip below.

The Grand Forks Herald reports in IT'S THE REST OF IT': American Crystal union workers say job security big issue:

Replacement workers were on the job at seven American Crystal Sugar plants, and some employees were picketing outside them today, after about 1,300 union members were locked out of facilities in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa.

The union’s contract expired at midnight Sunday after workers overwhelmingly rejected what the company called its final offer. The largest beet sugar processor in the U.S. had offered a 17 percent pay increase over five years, but workers were upset about provisions covering job security and health care costs.

'It’s the rest of it'

Carl Tofsley is retiring in October, when he turns 62. So, his union’s negotiations with American Crystal won’t impact him greatly.

“It’s not so much for me as for the other workers,” Tofsley said this morning as he picketed outside the gates to the factory on the first day of the lockout.

“Hey, we’re happy with the raises. The money is great. It’s the rest of it.”

For the 96 percent of workers who voted against the last company proposal, “the rest of it” means paying more for health insurance and a loss of job security.

“Job security is No. 1,” said Roger Delage, president of Local 2676, as more than 100 workers lined U.S. Highway 75 by the processing plant on the southern edge of the city.

“They say they took the wording out about job security, but they just reworded it. It’s still there. And the signing bonus money goes away fast when you consider the added health insurance costs.” . . .

The paper notes that solidarity in high on the lines, with virtually all of the plant's 164 workers picketing, with most of the drivers of passing cars honking their support. The Herald reports in Few hundred non-union workers hired for American Crystal lockout, company says:

A few hundred non-union workers are replacing American Crystal Sugar Co. employees during the lockout that started Monday, though details are scarce about who those workers are. . . .

Replacement workers were driven to and from work in vans with tinted windows, local union president Roger Delage said. . . .

The union disagreed that employees were easily replaceable.

“The jobs we do, it’s not rocket science, nor are we brain surgeons,” Froemke said Monday. “But the jobs we do in the factory are very skillful jobs. I just don’t believe they are going to be able to run five factories with transient workers who have never been in a sugar factory.”

In Five Things, including thoughts on the lockout, the Crookston Times editorial staff write:

Crookston —

Let’s make it a short lockout
Let’s make this a short lockout, shall we? Let’s get our skilled, experienced and dedicated American Crystal Sugar workers back on the job this week. The company said its offer late last week, rejected soundly by the union on Saturday, was its “final” one, but if this situation is going to move toward some type of solution, that really can’t be the case, can it? Tuesday’s Times’ editorial will discuss the contract offer, the company’s position and the union’s position, but in this space here today, the hope is that the company, a vital part of the Red River Valley economy, realizes that it needs its best people on the job in order to be as successful as it can be. Factories full of replacement workers doing critical duties as we head to pre-pile and campaign time? That just sounds counter-productive.[emphasis added]

Via Workday Minnesota, the Minnesota AFL-CIO has launched an online petition to support sugar processing workers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa who have been locked out. Read more.

Sign the petition.

Photo: Via MPR.

MNGOP hating on Mayberry, RFD: anti-business property tax shifts to plague greater Minnesota

There's a steady tattoo of news in greater Minnesota newspapers these days, echoed in a Minnesota Public Radio report, Cities could raise property tax to make up for state budget cuts.

Will voters remember thse stories next fall when the Republican party and its homophobic allies beat their hackneyed drum about "rural values"?

MPR's Mark Steil reports:

According to projections by non-partisan state House legislative staff, the budget deal could lead to property tax increases of 4.6 percent statewide. Communities outside the Twin Cities would see the biggest jump, about 6 percent on average. Metro area taxes would rise about 4 percent.

Cities in south central Minnesota could see the biggest increase, about 7.3 percent. Property taxes in the Iron Range and Duluth are projected to rise 7.2 percent, while in east central and southeast Minnesota the hike will be just under 7 percent. . . .

Steil cites suburban Republican leigslators who disagree with the nonpartisan staff, but in looking at local reports around the state, Bluestem thinks the legislative staff might be on to something. And if no property tax shifts are coming, then there's belt tighten for the already slender.

From west central Minnesota, the Monte News reports in Administrators say compromise delays resolution of budget problem:

The state of Minnesota is beginning to function again following a 20-day government shutdown that was resolved last week when Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law a number of bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The new biennial budget has been widely criticized by DFL legislators and the Independence Party of Minnesota as once again deferring rather than solving the chronic state budget deficit.

That perspective seems to be shared by city and school officials here. The American-News asked Montevideo City Manager Steve Jones and Montevideo Super­intendent of Schools Luther Heller for their reactions to the budget.
 
City of Montevideo
“The main impact on the city for 2011 is that we have to cut $326,000 from our existing 2011 budget,” wrote Jones in an e-mail. “Staff has sat down this week and has a plan in place.  . . .

What does that mean in concrete terms?

“We cut funds for items such as plow trucks, mowers, heavy equipment, police cars, park improvements, park maintenance, trees, computer equipment and building repairs and upgrades,” he wrote.

The city will face a similar revenue shortfall in 2012, according to Jones.

“For 2012 we will also have $326,000 less than anticipated, so the capital improvement fund will continue to be underfunded for future equipment, replacement and repair needs. Very little, if any part-time summer help will be hired, and except for needed maintenance projects, upgrades and major repairs could be delayed.

“Our real fear is for 2013 and beyond. Because the state chose to delay real reform, we will go through this same scenario in 18 months, and we will be weaker and less financially able to weather the storm in 2013 than if they had made all the necessary changes now.”

Snowplow. Streets.

The headline up in Detroit Lakes? DL prepares for disappearing state aid: A conservative budget. The news:

The ever-changing local government aid and market value credit are changing once again.

City Finance Officer Lou Guzek told council members to plan on only getting the amount for LGA that the city received in 2010, about $550,000, even though it is slated to receive $690,500 in 2012.

Guzek said if the city should happen to get the full amount promised by the state, he recommends the unbudgeted $140,000 be put into the debt service fund.

“I’d take the conservative approach and budget with the $550,000,” he said.

For market value credit, in 2011, cities will receive what they did in 2010, and next year “it disappears as a payment to the cities,” Guzek said.

The city budgeted for $202,000 in MVC in 2011.

For 2011, the city levied about $3.4 million in taxes. That came half from residential and half from commercial or “other” properties.

But with recent changes in market value, if the city levies for $3.4 million again next year, commercial properties will feel the squeeze much more than homeowners.

Homeowners won’t see much of an increase at all, but commercial property will see about a 12 percent hike in city taxes.

Guzek said that cities without LGA will also be without MVC, so it doesn’t affect the larger metro cities that already don’t receive LGA.

“We’re out fighting this battle by ourselves,” he said.  . . .

DL-Online's editorial board called it as they saw it in Mn tax shift is anti-business:

We know the state is in a tight financial bind, but this is just plain bad tax policy that could really hurt greater Minnesota, and especially businesses in greater Minnesota — and the jobs they provide.

Rural Minnesota lawmakers should push for a change to this stink bomb of a tax law when the Legislature meets again next year: Property taxes are already a major concern of small business owners, and this change just makes it worse.

Lawrence Schmumacher at PIM's Capitol Report has more (including news of the affects of the budgt here in Hutchinson) in Local governments look to hedge LGA uncertainty.

Driving Republicans to distraction

No wonder the legislative majority's leadership has to carrying on about how Ballot measures are key part of GOP agenda , as Briana Bierschbach reports elsewhere in PIM:

The passage of the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was the defining moment of the final days of Minnesota’s 2011 legislative session, and the first modern Republican-controlled Legislature is gearing up to bypass DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature again next year and add a few more to the 2012 ballot.

After a gubernatorial veto last session, a move to put voter photo identification on the ballot is already afoot. And during internal caucus negotiations on the special session budget deal, a group of hard-line House Republicans exacted a promise from leadership to pass an amendment to require a legislative “super-majority” to raise taxes in exchange for their budget votes. In addition, GOP Capitol hands say there are eager talks about throwing a right-to-work amendment into the mix.

Perhaps those distractions will prompt rural Minnesotans to pay no attention to those job-killing property tax hikes.

Photo: Mayberry RFD.

Tales of Hoffman: Inquiry finds no evidence for supporters' claims of capitol "police escorts"

Although two supporters of Senator Gretchen Hoffman have written that death threats and bullying during the session required escorts for the freshman legislator by law enforcement at the state capitol, an investigation by Bluestem Prairie finds no evidence to support the claims.

Last Friday, the Fergus Falls Daily Journal published a letter, Should advocate for Hoffman abasement, in which Fergus Falls resident David Adams scolded the newspaper for not defending the freshman senator against the ethics claims menace and the senator who generated it:

Additionally, you seem to think that she must obey your demands that she grovel to a mean-spirited and vindictive Sen. Goodwin who does nothing but promote a hedonistic agenda aimed at demeaning our traditional cultural values.

Okay then. Bluestem has not found the pursuit of pleasure to be the province of the mean-spirited and vindicative, but as a poor country blogger, my perspective on hedonism might suffer geographic limitations.

Adams is entitled to his opinion, as we all are, but later in the letter, he asserts a claim which stopped me cold:

In keeping her promise to us, Hoffman has been threatened with loss of her life, and bullied so badly by liberal groupies within the capitol halls that she has had to have capitol police escort her from her offices to committee hearings.[emphasis added]

However, The Daily Journal is more concerned with some perceived insult to someone who does not even represent our district or our interests. . . .

. . .You should be advocating for the protection of our senator not for her abasement.

Has Senator Hoffman's life been threatened? Has she been "bullied so badly by liberal groupies within the capitol halls that she has had to have capitol police escort her from her offices to committee hearings"?

If so, this isn't a joking matter. Death threats and a need for police escorts are no laughing matter. It's also a feminist issue, since historically violence and threats of violence have been used to keep women--regardless of their party--from participating in politics. More broad human rights considerations suggest that everyone has a right to feel secure in his or her person as we go about our business.

Nor is this the first time that a letter writer has claimed that Senator Hoffman has had reason to fear for her life. Back in  early April, Jerome Mullins wrote in Hoffman garners even more respect from voter:

And her work in committees to expose and cut unnecessary jobs and payroll expenses in some bloated governmental agencies and departments has got the government labor unions so angry with her that there are days when several Capitol police have to escort her and other conservative lawmakers around the halls of the legislature to provide her safety from the threats of the unions.

If these claims are true, this is serious stuff--for while Bluestem believes in felicitously composed ridicule, it doesn't support threats to people's lives. There should be no "Second Amendment solution" in disagreements with our elected officials; the solution is civic engagement and elections.

Have liberal groupies and public employee unions threatened Senator Hoffman with bodily harm? I couldn't find any news reports that support Mullins' claim that she and "other conservative lawmakers" had to be escorted by law enforcement inside the capitol--nor any reports of Hoffman being singled out.

One blogger had asked Are Conservative Lawmakers Being Escorted Around Capitol By Security? after reading Mullins's LTE in the Wadena Pioneer Journal, but appears to have directed his question to the world at large, rather than those involved in providing capitol complex security.

Others were asking more general questions about security on the hill. Indeed, questions of capitol complex security were deemed important enough by Governor Dayton, legislative leaders and the state supreme court to put together a review of the state's approach to the issue, following the attack on Representative Gabby Giffords in Arizona. The final report of the Minnesota committee can be read here.

Given the seriousness of the letter writers' claims--and Adams' request that the Fergus Falls Daily Journal begin advocating for Hoffman's protection, Bluestem started asking the specific question: Has Senator Gretchen Hoffman needed a police escort inside the Minnesota State Capitol because she has received threats?

My first call was to the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms office. The person who answered the phone hadn't heard of any threats to Senator Hoffman, but noted that "Capitol Security" would be in charge of investigating any threats to senators, as well as providing any "police" escort inside the building. I was directed to call John Mock at Capitol Security.

Returning my call later yesterday afternoon, Mock said that no state patrol officers had been assigned to escort Senator Hoffman during the session, and his office had no record of any death threats to Hoffman that had been reported to Capitol Security.  However, he added that this is not a definitive answer.

He noted that while people often refer--as the letter writers did-- to "capitol police," this phrase is a misnomer. Two state patrol officers are assigned to Capitol Security, although their numbers are often supplemented as security needs change (say, when large rallies are planned).

The uniformed state patrol officers on duty are assisted by uniformed civilian security officers, who are employees of the state patrol, Mock explained. The  uniformed civilian security officers are the men and women at the state capitol who wear blue uniforms.

Finally, a third group assists with securing the capitol, non-uniformed civilian security personnel. This final group is largely composed of retired law enforcement officers. They wear maroon blazers, khaki slacks, and badges (not shields) that identify them.

Mock thought that it was possible that Hoffman might have asked for an escort from any of these levels, although his office has no record of such a request and no state patrol officers were assigned to protect her.

He noted that anyone at the capitol complex--including any visitor--can ask for an escort if he or she feels the need for one; one doesn't have to be a state employee or legislator working at the state capitol to receive assistance from Capitol Security. This policy is very much in line with security procedures at universities; escorts can be requested by anyone who feels the need for one. It's  "better safe than sorry" common sense.

So it is possible that at some point in the session, Senator Hoffman asked for an escort from Capitol Security. However, the office didn't receive reports of any death threats nor did it provide a "capitol police escort" as a consequence of them.

Given that this is the case, Mullins and Adams' claims seem more like the posings of characters from a reality show than solid concerns about Senator Hoffman's security. Indeed, I can't find any instance of Senator Hoffman herself making statements about threats or a need for "capitol police" escort.

I suspect a couple of DFL activist friends may be reading this and wondering where "liberal groupies" might be found, while public employee union members are probably just rolling their eyes at the "government employee union" rhetoric. One of the tactics of the right is to invoke dislike of the "government" with that dog-whistle label, in order to better demonize all public employees.

Let Bluestem make a modest proposal to Mullins and Adams. Given their flair for hysterics, and the overall lack of evidence at the state capitol for their claims, let them go into show business. All across greater Minnesota, cable access channels are crying out for material. These budding scriptwriters should pitch a show that will demonstrate their creative potential. Call it "The Real Drama Queens of Otter Tail County."

Photo: State Senator Gretchen Hoffman

Related posts: Tales of Hoffman: Senator's intern writes a letter defending her former boss's ethically challenged tweet

: Tales of Hoffman: Rally in Fergus Falls on June 28; secret DFLer Bill Ingebrightsen invited

Tales of Hoffman: Kvetchin' Gretchen apologizes; local GOP bulldog takes up her cause

Lawyers, puns and money: on doing the right thing, and moving on

Shiny news object: Minnpost headline rewrites state's legislative social media ethics history

Tales of Hoffman: Vergas yarn seller's "sensitivity" defense unravels, forced to apologize

Tales of Hoffman: Senate Ethics Committee to workshop freshman pol's tweet on Monday

Tales of Hoffman: Vergas yarn peddler slapped with ethics beef; local editorial jeers her tweet

Tales of Hoffman: Unsweet tweet may meet ethics complaint fate

Tales of Hoffman; or, Newman off-shores Minnesota job-killing tax blame game

Tales of Hoffman: Attention gay Raelians! Schedule your next skeet shoot in Fergus Falls!

 

Winona Daily News spanks MNGOP for county recount fiscal irony

Bluestem today willingly gives up any claims to Greater Minnesota Sass Champion to Darrell Ehrlick, editor of the Winona Daily News, who chastizes our Republican overlords in a Sunday editorial, Our view: GOP, practice what you preach:

Good grief. Where do we start? Let’s see ... what about the party that preaches fiscal responsibility running up debt and not paying it off?

Or what about the irony of wanting to cut “bloated” and “irresponsible” government, only to realize that those same nameless government workers are the people who run elections and recounts?

Oh yeah, then there’s election reform. There’s pretty rich irony there.

But maybe the most galling part is the same group of political operatives who demanded nearly immediate attention of countless government officials are the same people who now refuse to pay for those same services. . . .

. . .A report in Wednesday’s Daily News shows the party is still about a half-million short of cash, and owes three southern Minnesota counties a combined $3,000 for the recount efforts. .  .

. . .State Republican lawmakers have urged the state to live within its means. That may be good advice, but it becomes cheapened — if not discredited — when the same party can’t live within its own means. . . 

Perhaps the best sentence? Noting that the MNGOP also trashes the public employees who quickly and professionally did the work for which failed burrito baron and Republican state party chair Tony Sutton still has to pay (out of whatever fund he's drawing that cash from):

It becomes insulting when the same party that seems to look askance on any public sector employee then won’t realize that the people who helped gather all the information in such an efficient and timely manner were the very ones the party seemed intent on vilifying.

Tired of staid, Voice-of-God editorials? Start reading those in the WDN. I don't agree with all of the paper's positions (example: right to work laws) but I've never dozed off while reading them, even when I think they miss the mark. A definite contender for a BSP Hickster Award, for this is what early summer in rural Minnesota is all about: tender baby greens, rhubarb, peonies and Darrell Ehrlick unleashing a can of Sunday morning whoop-ass.

Related post: Failed boorish burrito baron's bills burden boonies

Image: The Divine Tild's Sutton peso note keeps circulating. True genius.  Someone give this woman a gallery show.

State legislative town halls across Minnesota: Labor and health care

Looking around for public meetings held by Minnesota state legislators with their constituents during the Passover/Easter break, I didn't find much. However, two sets of meetings--mostly after the break--turned up. If you go, speak your mind but be respectful and on topic.

From the Minnesota AFL-CIO:

Several key state lawmakers have agreed to meet with working men and women in their communities. For the last decade, Minnesota’s state budget has been balanced on the backs of middle class families.  We need you to tell your lawmakers that it’s time to create jobs, time for a fair budget, and time for the richest Minnesotans to sacrifice too.

The following meetings have already been scheduled. Check back here for upcoming meetings in your community.  Don’t see your legislator yet? Drop them a line.

Anoka – Representative Jim Abeler (48B)
Monday, April 18, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Anoka City Hall Community Room
2015 First Ave N, Anoka, MN 55303

Mound – Representative Steve Smith (33A)
Wednesday, April 20, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Mound Depot, Mound Bay Park
5801 Bartlett Blvd, Mound, MN 55364

Plymouth – Senator Terri Bonoff (43)
Tuesday, April 26, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Plymouth Creek Center, Black Box Theater
14800 34th Ave N, Plymouth, MN 55447

White Bear Lake – Representative Carol McFarlane (53B)
Tuesday, April 26 6:00-7:30 p.m.
White Bear Lake Library
4698 Clark Ave, White Bear Lake, MN 55110

Eagan – Senator Ted Daley (38) and Representatives Diane Anderson (38A) and Doug Wardlow (38B)
Monday, April 25 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Wescott Library Eagan
1340 Wescott Rd, Eagan MN 55123

Rochester – Senator Dave Senjem (29)
Friday, May 6, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Rochester Labor Temple
11 4th St SE, Rochester, MN 55904

From Kathy Sheran's office:

State Sen. Kathy Sheran will host a Health Care Town Hall meeting along with Rep. Terry Morrow and Rep. Kathy Brynaert on Saturday, April 30 at S. Central College in North Mankato. The focus of the meeting will be health care issues and discussion about legislative proposals under consideration at the Capitol. The legislators will be joined at the town hall by Sen. Linda Berglin.

 The town hall will be held from 2-3:30 p.m. at the college’s Conference Center.

 “There are serious issues and potential changes being discussed that could have serious ramifications for the people of our area and for the people of Minnesota,” Sen. Sheran said. “I encourage folks to attend the town hall to tell me what they think and to find out more about what’s happening at the Capitol.”

The Senate’s Health and Human Services budget was passed in early April.

 “Sen. Berglin is a foremost expert on health care issues,” Sen. Sheran said. “I look forward to having her with us at the town hall to answer questions and offer her perspective.”

Know of others? Drop Bluestem a line.

More math problems: pension bill Parry pitched "threatens stability of state’s retirement system"

Something isn't adding up for the Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate. The latest wrong answer: a bill that will threaten the stability of Minnesota's pension funds.

I'm hard pressed to tell whether the error in the proofs is located in the calculation that Senator Mike Parry is prime leadership material, or that the STEM initiative needs to be applied retroactively to freshman legislators like Gretchen Hoffman. It's a false choice; both are likely true.

Last week, the Minnesota Senate Majority comm shop--leader by MNGOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb chivalrously trotted out Sen. Mike Parry to assist Senator Hoffman in the press conference promoting a bill to cut the state contribution to the public employees' pension, while raising their contribution.(Parry isn't exactly carrying any important bills on his ownsome).

Later in a town hall, Parry defended the bill to constitutents who work for the state, as Bluestem noted in Mike Parry tells public employees they'll get bigger pensions, suggests new tax on services:

At one point, Parry characterized the pension bill as an increase.

“Why wouldn’t you want an extra 3 percent in your pension for when you retire?” Parry said.

“I’m not getting an extra 3 percent. I’m getting to pay an extra 3 percent because you’re reducing my employer’s contribution to it,” Driskell said. “And you are cutting me, sir. You’re cutting 15 percent of my co-workers, which may well be me, and you’re cutting 6 percent of my salary. You are cutting me. Don’t tell me you’re not. I have a brain.”

In their rush to demonize (and cut take-home pay for state employees), Hoffman and Parry forgot to check their math on the pension fund itself. A press release from Senator Dick Cohen's office lays out of the case:

“Republicans have pushed their plan to cut public employee pensions under the veil of fiscal responsibility, but now it’s clear this is simply an attack on hard-working public employees,” said Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul. “This bill will add costs to state and lower governments, lower tax revenues for our state, and increase the unfunded liabilities in our retirement system. Worse, it will take money out of the pockets of working families during these difficult economic times.” . . .

. . .Experts at the Minnesota’s three major pension plans – the Minnesota State Retirement System, the Public Employees Retirement Association and the Teachers Retirement Association – testified that while Minnesota’s pension system is currently well-managed, the GOP proposal would add significant costs to the system, and expand the deficits in Minnesota’s retirement funds.

 

As introduced, the bill would have expanded the unfunded liabilities in the state’s retirement funds by $64 million. An amendment adopted to the proposal last night would reduce that figure to roughly $40 million.

 

“This so-called pension reform bill threatens the very stability of our state’s retirement system,” said Sen. Cohen. “At the end of the day, this bill is simply a cost increase on thousands of middle-class Minnesotans. It will bring in $30 or $40 million for our state’s General Fund, directly out of the paychecks of public workers. It is simply a pay cut disguised as reform.”

 

The measure was also opposed by city and county officials, nurses, firefighters, school districts, teachers, and state employee unions. Rep. Steve Smith, R-Mound, a House Republican lead on pension issues, has also questioned the merits of the proposal.

 

The State Government Innovation and Veterans Committee will consider whether to include the measure in a broader budget bill late Tuesday evening.

And the genius heading that committee? Mr. Personality himself, Senator Mike Parry.

Photo: Senator Mike Parry, real man of Republican genius.

Mike Parry tells public employees they'll get bigger pensions, suggests new tax on services

Within a week of introducing a bill to cut the state's contribution to public employees' retirement benefit, Mike Parry told constituents at a Town Hall meeting in Owatonna that those who are public employees will be get bigger pensions under his plan.

In GOP bills leave Parry in hot seat, Clare Kennedy of the Owatonna People's Press reports:

This apparent contradiction [see below] ruffled many in the room who were already upset about two other forthcoming proposals: A 6 percent pay cut for public employees and a “shift” in pension plans that would cut 3 percent from the state’s contribution on the fund. The employees would be obliged to make up the difference.

At one point, Parry characterized the pension bill as an increase.

“Why wouldn’t you want an extra 3 percent in your pension for when you retire?” Parry said.

“I’m not getting an extra 3 percent. I’m getting to pay an extra 3 percent because you’re reducing my employer’s contribution to it,” Driskell said. “And you are cutting me, sir. You’re cutting 15 percent of my co-workers, which may well be me, and you’re cutting 6 percent of my salary. You are cutting me. Don’t tell me you’re not. I have a brain.”

And what was the contradiction? Parry criticized Governor Dayton's plan to trim the state's workforce by six percent, while proposals coming from his caucus call for fifteen percent cuts:

Of a spate of bills Republicans have introduced, one of the most contentious is a bill written by Sen. Ted Daley called “15 by 15” which would require a 15 percent reduction of the state’s workforce by 2015. According to the bill itself, appointed commissioners would be compelled to cut their staff by “attrition, a hard hiring freeze, early retirement incentives authorized in this section, restructuring of benefit or pension programs as authorized by other law, furloughs, and layoffs.” . . .

At first, Parry seemed to speak in favor of such cuts. In fact, such a bill is similar to proposals he made during his first campaign in January 2010, when he promised to cut state government 15 percent “across the board.”

“What we’re looking at, because of some of the streamlining and downsizing that will be coming forth, with zero-based budgeting also being looked at, we believe there’s room for the reduction,” Parry said. . . .

As he continued speaking, however, Parry criticized DFL Gov. Mark Dayton for a similar proposal.

“With the new technology and streamlining that we’re looking at bringing forth, as we do in business, this is the right way. I think it’s the right way,” Parry said. “Our governor right now wants to reduce our workforce by 6 percent. He wants to lay them off. I don’t agree with that. I believe that all of us can take a little bit of a reduction and keep everyone employed. Why would I want to put somebody on unemployment?” . . .

So is it the size of government that's the problem, here--or what? Several teachers mentioned that they were already contributing more for their health care; teachers in the Owatonna school districts are paying 11 percent more for their medical insurance premiums over last year. One Town Hall participant had more severe cuts:

“I’m already enduring a 20 percent cut,” said the man, who asked to withhold his name. “Now you’re asking me to take another 6 percent. My question is, if I have to take a 6 percent cut, how is that OK with you when you’re unwilling to tax a single person in the upper echelon which some would call the rich?”

Parry also wobbled in his answer to that question:

In response, Parry promised that he and other Republicans planned to deep six certain tax exemptions as well, to “spread out the pain,” in spite of criticism he would likely face.

“If we do that, the other side is going to say, you’re raising taxes, and they want to beat us up for that,” Parry said. “There are some unbelievable tax exemptions here that we should all be paying. I was just looking at one today and I’ll be highly criticized but I think we should do it — tax on services.”

It's getting pretty complicated there, isn't it? And why is Parry whining about what "the other side is going to say"? One would think he'd be just as concerned about the warning letter sent to legislators by the Republican party chair, failed burrito baron Tony Sutton. Sutton wrote:

"resist any revenue enhancement proposals like raising taxes, raising fees, expanding gambling, expanding the sales tax or any other such schemes that not only violate our principles, but are also bad politics and bad public policy."

Perhaps Parry has nothing to fear--other than having Waseca and his residence being shuffled into a different state senate district--when a newspaper owned by the same chain balances the OPP coverage of an actual town hall meeting with some full-throated, kneepading praise of Parry's "bold and unflinchingly blunt" political work.

Faribault Daily News managing editor Jaci Smith's article, In the Majority, is a masterpiece of its kind. The editor is far more smitten by Parry's personality than the constituents in Owatonna were of his proposals:

Gregarious to the point of boisterous, yet bold and unflinchingly blunt in his political work, this unusual dichotomy of personality has earned the senator some plum assignments in the new GOP majority and has some speculating about his future political ambitions.

Backpedaling must be the new blunt. And then there's this curious description of the special election:

From the beginning, Mike Parry, a businessman from the tiny southern Minnesota town of Waseca, stood apart by the sheer amount of shoe leather he wore out as he campaigned to replace long-time Sen. Dick Day (R-Owatonna). Day resigned his seat mid-term to lead Racino Now, a lobbying interest for slots at the state’s two horse-racing tracks.

“Here’s a guy who, in January 2010, ran in an area where on paper it seemed like a tough district to win,” said Michael Brodkorb, communications director of the Senate Majority Caucus. “He worked incredibly hard.”

Parry held countless town hall meetings, walked the streets and stopped at virtually every home. If you lived in his district, you couldn’t avoid him.

Countless town halls? if by "countless," one means "none," the editor should get an award from the SPJ. But Smith seems to be a graduate of the school of creative nonfiction writers who disdains looking in her paper's own archives. While there were many forums and debates for all three candidates, there's no record of any Town Hall. There was one small business roundtable in Owatonna that might be deemed a town hall, though no one called it that at the time

And a "tough district" for a Republican to win? Senator Dick Day must have been a miracle worker. But perhaps Smith has simply ceded her editorial judgement to the Deputy Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota:

GOP Communications Director Brodkorb was more effusive.

“I think Senator Parry has tremendous potential,” he said. “If he decides to stay a state senator, he’d do a tremendous job and serve his district well. But he has such a strong work ethic and does such a great job engaging the public, it really presents someone like Senator Parry some opportunities outside his district.”

If the Town Hall in Owatonna is any example of the "great job engaging the public" Parry does, let's hope Brodkorb schedules more of the same. 

Or did Brodkorb simply need some promotional material to try to sell Parry's taped podcast radio show to stations outside of the senator's district?

Update: Parry is a sponsor of SF0812, which would reduce salaries of public employees by six percent.

Northwestern Minnesota labor guy documents solidarity road trip

My friend Ted Fiskevold, a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, Twin Cities Chapter 13, and a fine photographer, took a solidarity road trip with Mark Froemke, president of the Western and Red River Valley Area Labor Council of the AFL/CIO,  across the Midwest to document union action across the region. He's put together a photo blog of their trip. which readers should go check out. TedF captured some great images.

The trip received a write-up on the DL-Online, Local man attends big labor rallies in Wisconsin, Indiana. He reflects on the rallies:

“It really is pretty simple,” he said. “The haves have more and the have-nots have less — there really is class war going on in this country and people are getting angry about it.”

The rally on Saturday was the biggest in a month of protests and rallies in Madison, and the capitol grounds were full, Fiskevold said.

“It was like walking at WE Fest after the Saturday night show and trying to get out of the concert bowl — it was like that all around the capitol area,” he said.

With his permission, here's a tease, the first three paragraphs of the last entry, Full Circle to Hudson, Wisconsin:

 

Mark Froemke and I wheeled into the Park and Ride lot near the bridge over I-94 in Hudson, Wis. a little after 3 p.m.  A visibility picket was just winding down and Candace Lund, Minnesota AFL-CIO Mobilizing and Organizing Director was busy wrapping things up.

Candace, a woman with a lot of ‘zing in her title who puts a lot of zing into her job, told us the picketers encountered “Even greater reception that the first few Hudson rallies.”  That was not surprising since the polls had not been kind to Wis. Gov. Walker or his Republican allies in the legislature in regards to his view on collective bargaining and his association with the Koch Brothers.

The visibility picket message was mainly on the recall to keep people stirred up about Walker, but more importantly, to aid in the recall efforts on Republican Senator Sheila Harsdorf.  Harsdorf’s district includes Hudson, bucks right up to the Minnesota border, and requires 15,744 petition signatures in order to recall her.  A goal that was not too lofty, Candace told Jerry Ockerenfels, Froemke and me.

Go check it out. On Monday, TedF will be posting an entry about use of the photos by others.

Photos: People stand together in Madison (above); Candace Lund, (middle); cows march on Madison (below). Photos by Ted Fiskevold, National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, Twin Cities Chapter 13, AFL-CIO.

From twit to bull elephant: Waseca's Mike Parry takes lead role in attacks on public employees

Senator Mike Parry first burst into the scene following a series of unfortunate tweets were discovered by tweeps and bloggers during a special election in January 2010.

Apparently, the Republican Party of Minnesota knew it had its guy with the former Waseca city council member, ex-radio guy, consultant and owner of a Godfather's Pizza.

Now,  he's taking a lead in shifting Minnesota's tectonic plates toward Wisconsin.  Hot Dish Politics at the Strib reports:

Turning up the heat on an already sensitive topic nationally, Republican legislators in Minnesota said Monday that the state’s public employees needed to pay more of their pensions to help solve the state’s budget crisis.

A rapid shift. The Strib notes:

In a sign of how quickly the proposal was moving in the Republican-controlled Legislature, Sen. Mike Parry, R-Waseca, who chairs the Senate State Government Innovation and Veterans Committee, said the legislation would be introduced Monday and be referred to his committee.   Parry said the plan would not await to be heard by a legislative panel on pensions.

The proposal would, for example, require correctional employees to raise the percentage of their salary that goes to their pensions from 8.6 percent to 11.6 percent. Judges would go from 8 percent of their salary to 11 percent of their salary, and basic members of the Public Employees Retirement Association would generally go from 9.1 percent to 12.1 percent.

The governor and labor leaders responded quickly. The AP reports:

Dayton avoids issuing direct veto threats of specific bills, but at a press conference Monday, the governor said the GOP pension proposal "would go far beyond what Wisconsin is proposing." The Democrat also reaffirmed his support for collective bargaining rights for government employees.

"Those agreements are contracts, legal obligations of both parties and they need to be honored," Dayton said. "The right to negotiate changes to those is something that both parties have and should not be taken away unilaterally by some kind of outside authority."

In  Minn. GOP senators take aim at public worker benefits, AFSCME leader Elliot Seide told MPR report Tim Pugmire:

This is a unilateral pay cut," said AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide.

He said he hopes DFL Gov. Mark Dayton will block such changes.

Seide also said Minnesota isn't ready to follow Wisconsin's lead.

"I think this is precisely the plan laid out by Gov. Walker and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is run by right-wing extremist billionaires and other cheap labor conservatives, to divide public workers against private workers and to drive down the wages and benefits of all workers," Seide said.

A comparison shows that the situations in Minnesota and Wisconsin are different already.

Before Wisconsin's so-called budget repair bill passed, public employees contributed little to their own retirement and health care. That's not the case here.

In Minnesota, public workers and taxpayers evenly split contributions, at rates varying from about 5 percent to 10 percent of salaries.

Numerous friends in the private sector have chimed in on twitter that that contribution rate equals their own.

Shar Knutson replied that Parry’s Plan is a Wisconsin-style Attack on Middle Class Families:

Responding to State Senator Mike Parry’s proposal to further squeeze public sector workers’ hard earned pensions, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson issued the following statement:

“Senator Parry’s pension proposal is unfortunately an attempt to bring an extreme, Wisconsin-style attack on middle class families across the border to Minnesota.

“Senator Parry should know that Minnesota public employees already pay a significant share of their pensions out of pocket.

“The Senator should also recognize that the average public employee makes around $38,000 a year and retires with an average annual pension of $13,000 a year.

“Middle class families across the state have already sacrificed more than their fair share in the last decade.

“It’s time for lawmakers to stop these attacks on middle class families and stay focused on creating jobs now and balancing the budget fairly.”

 The move looks like more of the same divide and conquer strategic, playing workers against each other, just as the GOP pits urban and rural against each other.

Related post: Will dividing Minnesotans add up for Republicans and their allies?

Photo: Senator Mike Parry.

Tractorade joins biggest Madison rally yet; 1000s mock Walker at rural Washburn fundraiser

Wisconsin family farmers rallied with pro-union forces yesterday to protest Scott Walker's power grab that will erode the middle class. Posted on the Land Stewardship Project Youtube page:

Vegatable and beef farmer Tony Schultz is a member of Family Farm Defenders, which sponsored the tractorade along with the Wisconsin Farmers Union and LSP.

The Cap Times looks at Why farmers are driving their tractors to protest at the Capitol:

Monroe County dairy farmer Joel Greeno works 90 to 100 hours a week. He and his wife, who works at a Wal-Mart distribution center, have a 4-year-old daughter and are expecting their second child at the end of April. Despite the fact that both are working, they qualify for health-care coverage through the state-funded BadgerCare program.

"It's just sad," says Greeno, 44. "I work hard and my wife works for one of the largest corporations in the world. Where we are right now scares me."

Republican Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, which he signed into law Friday, and his recently released budget proposal haven't exactly eased Greeno's mind.

In the name of narrowing the state's projected $3.6 billion budget deficit, Walker has proposed sweeping changes to Medicaid-funded programs including BadgerCare, cuts in state aid to public schools by nearly $834 million and a $96 million cut in aid to local governments, including cities, towns and counties.

All those cuts have Greeno wondering what kind of health coverage he will have when his newborn arrives and if the school where his daughter had her kindergarten screening a few weeks ago will still be open when it's time for her to start school this fall.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in Farmers, labor join in capitol protests:

On the seat of his tractor, Chuck Arentz protested the actions of Gov. Scott Walker as both a farmer and a Teamster.

Both will suffer as a result of the budget-repair bill that strips collective bargaining rights from public employees and gives more authority to the administration in dispensing Medicaid to the poor, said Arentz, who runs a dairy farm in Cashton.

"He's cutting Medicaid for the low-class, the middle class, the people who don't make a lot of money and cutting $900 million to schools," he said after participating in the tractorcade Saturday. "That's our future.

"Can't he see what's going on down here? I don't think he wants to."

Silas Bernardoni, a beef farmer from Darlington, said farmers would suffer under the budget cuts proposed by Walker.

"It's rural areas that are going to be hit hardest," he said. "Who lives in rural areas? Farmers. We're in one of the poorest counties in this state." . . .

Walker wasn't around to see the massive rally; instead, he was off to a Republican fundraiser in Washburn, a rural community on Lake Superior in Bayfield County. But angry badgers didn't leave him alone, the Duluth News Tribune reports in Wis. governor greeted at Washburn fundraiser by thousands of protesters:

Wisconsin’s protracted family fight over the budget and public employee unions moved to this Bayfield County town Saturday evening, as embattled Gov. Scott Walker spoke at an invitation-only event and was greeted by at least 2,000 angry protesters outside.

Walker arrived in a convoy of six unmarked police cars that pulled up at 5:45 p.m. to the Steak Pit for a Republican Lincoln Day fundraiser. The large, boisterous crowd, which had been lining the streets leading to the restaurant since 4:30, quickly recognized him and erupted in boos and shouts of “Recall Walker.”

The presence of the protesters more than doubled the number of people in the small town:

Bayfield County Sheriff Paul Susienka said Saturday evening that he didn’t have a crowd estimate, but various people had estimated the size at between 2,000 and 5,000. So the protest probably at least doubled the size of Washburn, which has a population of 2,271.

Susienka said there had been no incidents and no arrests.

No arrests occurred at the massive rally in Madison, either. The paper talked to the rally's organizers:

Ron Borchers, a substitute teacher in Washburn, said he was among 24 people who organized the rally, which began Friday afternoon behind Stage North, a community theater and entertainment venue.

Borchers praised Washburn police, whom he said worked closely with the organizers to agree on ground rules.

Scott Griffiths, a freelance artist in Washburn, also was among the organizers.

“The thing that really got me here is the disparity of wealth that has grown way too out of hand,” Griffiths said. “This is not a Wisconsin thing. This is a global pandemic of wealth buying power.”

Recall Walker has posted a video:

Photos: A sign from the Madison rally: "Now settle down kitty." Photo by Rafael Morataya (above).

Winona in Wisconsin: MN teachers join boilermakers, Teamsters, cops and firefighters

The Winona Daily News's Jerome Christensen reports on a group of Winonans who traveled to Madison to join the protests on Thursday.

In Winonans travel to Madison to support public employees, Christensen writes:

Like Joshua at Jericho they went round and round, drums beating, horns blaring, loud shouts echoing from the stonework. But the walls of the Wisconsin State Capitol didn't fall down and the doors opened but a virtual crack. . . .

. . .Twenty-five Winona area supporters joined the crowd, traveling to Madison on a bus chartered by the Winona Education Association. Dwayne Voegeli, trip organizer, said that teachers and union supporters were taking advantage of spring break ...

And thre's some humor amid the frustration:

Security was tight as State Troopers blocked all entrances to the Capitol building, admitting only a trickle of demonstrators, each of whom had to empty all pockets, be passed over with a metal-detecting wand and submit all bags and packages for a search. "I feel I should be getting onto an airplane," one demonstrator quipped as he stuffed wallet and change back into his pockets.

"Hey, we let you keep your shoes on and didn't take your toothpaste," the trooper shot back with a grin.

And:

On the other side of the building Randy Schmidt, Fredonia, Wis., and a lone companion held up signs in support of Walker and the Republican majority. . .  Despite repeated challenges and a fellow standing next to him holding a sign reading "This is what underfunded education looks like" with an arrow in Schmidt's direction, Schmidt said he felt he was "among friends" and that the overwhelming majority of demonstrators defended his right to disagree.

Read the entire article at the WDN.

Photo: Shame in Wisconsin.

"10x more awesome": facing loss of Badgercare, farmers to join workers' protests Saturday

The tractorade, a tool for agrarian protest developed by the American Agriculture Movement in 1979, is being revived in Wisconsin.

In ‘Tractorcade’ moves farmers into budget debate, the Wisconsin Farmers Union reports:

Farmers, many driving their tractors, will descend upon the Wisconsin Capitol Saturday to express concerns about the effects Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget repair bill and 2011-2013 biennium budget would have on rural Wisconsin.
 
The farmers will be part of the Farm Labor Tractorcade, hosted by Wisconsin Farmers Union and Family Farm Defenders. The rally on capitol square and at the capitol will include music and presentations by farmers speaking out against the governor’s proposals.
The event will start at noon.
 
“There’s plenty in the bills which, if they’re passed, would really hurt farmers and rural communities,” said Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden, a Westby-area dairy farmer. “Our members have been telling us they want their voices heard, so we’re giving them the forum for the governor and Legislature to get the message that there are problems with the bills.”
 
The budget repair bill would threaten BadgerCare, on which more than 11,000 state farm-family members depend for health insurance coverage, and would nearly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees. The biennial budget takes more than $800 million from public schools while allowing 0 percent levy increases without referendum -- which means small rural schools each would have to either increase farmers’ property taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars or drastically cut programs. Shared revenue cuts to municipalities also would make it difficult for townships to offer services.
 
Organizers of Saturday’s event say those issues would greatly hurt family farmers and their rural communities. Just as important, efforts to cut public workers’ collective bargaining rights is an affront to the collective bargaining process, in which family farmers participate through cooperatives and pooling.

“Farmers need to stand behind workers and their freedom to collectively bargain,” said Family Farm Defenders vice president Joel Greeno, a Kendall-area dairy farmer. “All farmer cooperatives depend upon the same principle, so any attempt to take away that right needs to be challenged.  If you lower the bar for anyone, you ultimately lower it for everyone else. Just because farmers are going bankrupt due to unfair prices doesn’t mean workers should lose living wages, too. There is no way to repair the budget until we restore fairness to the whole economic system.”
 
“A lot of family farmers depend upon BadgerCare because they have no other insurance options,” said Tony Schultz, a member of WFU and FFD and an Athens-area community-supported agriculture farmer. “Many of our CSA customers also happen to be teachers, nurses, and other public workers so this backward proposal has a direct impact on our future livelihood.”
 
Von Ruden said the bills, which together would remove $1.25 billion from school and municipal aids, shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
 
“Many of these important programs were implemented by Tommy Thompson’s administration,” Von Ruden said. “He saw the importance of creating two-thirds state school funding and BadgerCare, which was backed by the Doyle administration. Gov. Walker keeps saying he’s giving schools and municipalities the tools to cut costs and somehow be able to operate better than they operate now. But the only tool we see the governor providing is a hammer to smash things.”
 
Farmers who take their tractors to the event will gather in a downtown Madison parking lot and drive their tractors to the capitol. Anyone interested in driving their tractor or providing a tractor for another farmer to drive should contact Greeno at (715) 463-7634.
 
Donations to help offset farmers’ expenses for taking their tractors to Madison are being accepted at http://www.razoo.com/story/Farmer-Labor-Tractorcade-Fund?1299566160.

There's even a Facebook page if you want to sign up. Boing-boing noted:

This has been a very weird event, by U.S. standards. We don't often have protest movements that sustain their momentum, at this level, over this long a period of time. Hell, one day is usually the maximum. So it's been interesting to me to see the Madison protests evolve. Up next, apparently, are theme protests. Next Saturday, March 12, starting at noon, it's farmer-labor day at the Wisconsin Capitol Building—with farmers from across the state set to bring a tractorcade of support to the protesters in Madison. Yes. A tractorcade. This just got 10x more awesome.

Farmer and labor alliances are nothing new for Midwest Unrest. North Dakota was home to the Non-Partisan League. In Minnesota, the Farmer-Labor  Federation, later the Farmer-Labor Association, united rural and urban citizens.

Photos: A flag-draped John Deere from the 1979 tractorcade (above); a Farmer-Labor Party campaign vehicle from 1925, via the MSHS (below).

Note: I'm active in the Minnesota Farmers Union.

Mankato Labor Assembly: information picket with AFGE tomorrow

From an email:

A message from our Brothers and Sisters at the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, AFL-CIO

Representing Over 28,000 Social Security Employees Working In Over 1,300 Field Offices and 36 Teleservice Centers Across the Nation, Puerto Rico and Pacific Islands

A Republican-led House bill to fund federal agencies through the end of September would cut billions of dollars in assistance to local communities for public housing, day care and after-school programs, meals for the elderly and programs that create and retain jobs. This would also force Furloughs for the Social Security Administrative offices!

Who will this hurt? The ELDERLY and DISABLED who depend on Social Security the most, as well as our families!

Join our AFGE union Brothers and Sisters on March 2, 2010

What: Information Picket and Rally
WHEN: 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
WHERE: on Riverfront Drive in Mankato (20 Civic Center Plaza)

Events have been scheduled at many Social Security Offices around the country. Many senior, disability and community advocates have pledged their support to Social Security workers.