People power v. corporate greed
Essential workers celebrate bonus pay, Amazon workers are speaking out, and a big wage theft case involves the Vikings owners. Also, some labor angles on abortion.
🚨 First, check out these labor skills classes
Are you a working parent? Are you burnt out? The Labor Education Service class for working parents has been rescheduled to May 11, 5- 6pm. Sign up here.
The Know Your Rights at Work training with the Labor Education Service has been rescheduled to Tuesday, June 14, 9am-12pm. Sign up here.
💸 Past due frontline worker bonus pay is on the way!
In a victory for the essential workers who campaigned and testified in front of the Frontline Worker Pay Working Group after state lawmakers promised $250 million in bonus pay, Governor Walz signed a bill moving $500 million in compensation checks forward. Check out more details and sign up for updates here.
🎤 Watch: Tate and Eric from CTUL did a Worker’s Voice series episode on the essential workers’ campaign!
📣 Standing up to Amazon
Workers walked out of the warehouse in Shakopee and asked for a $3 wage increase and time off for Eid, a Muslim holiday celebrated earlier this week.
Not only are injury rates higher than other warehouses, six workers died last year after being forced to work during a tornado. In a hearing on using taxpayer money to fund companies violating labor laws, Amazon Labor Union president Christian Smalls testified in front of the Senate Budget Committee.
“It’s in your best interest to realize it’s not a right or left thing, it’s not a Democratic or Republican thing–it’s a workers thing, it’s a workers issue.” –Smalls, in response to Senator Lindsey Graham’s accusation that singling out Amazon is unfair and part of Senator Bernie Sanders’ radical agenda.
🔥 Congrats to the first union Starbucks in Minneapolis!
Jordan Zakarin (@jordanzakarin) from More Perfect Union has the story on NLRB’s suit against Starbucks over its anti-worker rules.
☔ A rainy May Day in Minneapolis
The rain didn’t stop the celebration! There were marches and a festival where a lot of community organizations tabled. We celebrated with food, dance, poetry, and song!
I enjoyed this blog post from Take Action MN about the meaning of May Day, also known as International Workers Day. Getting to see the Southside Battle Train for the first time in person was wild! Check out FOX9’s video covering May Day!
🏈 Skol, workers!
Dozens of workers have come forward with claims of wage theft against contractors working with MV Ventures, a real estate company owned by the Wilf family, which owns the Vikings team. Some of them spoke at a press conference about working excessive hours and not getting paid overtime pay. Even though Minnesota has one of the strictest laws against wage theft, enforcement hasn’t been strong.
Max Nesterak (@maxnesterak) from the Minnesota Reformer has the story.
🚩 Autonomy in and outside of the workplace
Politico’s piece on Justice Alito’s leaked majority opinion draft that would strike down Roe v. Wade has dominated the news cycle this week. This is more than a moral issue. Restricting abortion has disproportionate socioeconomic effects across class lines.
Pregnancy is not merely a biological condition, it’s used as a tool of political control. Pregnant people are excluded from workplaces as well as from government processes. Just recently, Minnesota state senate candidate Erin Maye Quade went into labor and had to withdraw during the convention because it wasn’t suspended.
Access to reproductive care wouldn’t be possible without the labor of healthcare workers. Organizations like the Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood have been fighting unionization efforts.
🎨 Solidarity with arts and culture workers
KSTP covered the arts and culture workers that gathered at the state capitol yesterday asking the government for economic relief. Like restaurants and other businesses, the creative economy is still recovering from the pandemic, too.
🔎 Are you looking for a job?
The East Side Freedom Library is hosting their annual union job and resource fair Thursday, May 19. Learn more here.
Moral purity will not save us, solidarity will. We are each other’s harvest.