This week in labor
The work week may have been short, but the labor movement never stops!
Howdy, folks! In case you missed yesterday’s special newsletter, MULP is back! And there is still time to sign up for the Know Your Rights workshop here.
🚨 Frontline worker pay update
Today’s newsletter arrives a little later than usual because I wanted to include details from the webinar held for employers today about applications for frontline worker bonus pay. The application process is scheduled to be open June 8 through July 22! That could change but we’ll keep giving updates.
Applicants will need an email address in order to apply and receive correspondence concerning the application process. You will also have to go through a knowledge-based authentication, or identity verification process, after providing personal as well as employer information. If approved, you can choose to receive payments via direct deposit or prepaid debit card.
Employers are not obligated to notify former employees even if they were employed during the designated time period. They can choose to do so, but they’re only obligated to notify current eligible employees within 15 days of June 8.
You can learn more and sign up for updates here, which will also be the site to go to when applications go live.
🩺 Patients over profits
On Wednesday, nurses held informational pickets across Twin Cities hospitals, demanding their employers put patients over profits and address safe staffing concerns. Michael Moore from St. Paul’s Union Advocate has the story:
Lisa Sanford, an intensive care nurse at Children’s in St. Paul and member of the bargaining committee, said management is back to treating nurses like numbers on a spreadsheet after showering essential workers with platitudes during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For two years now we’ve been asked to put ourselves last, but now it’s become an expectation,” Sanford said. “It’s unsustainable, and it’s precisely why we have lost so many at the bedside.”
Check out how much healthcare executives at local hospitals are paid at here.
🪧 No more death
Hundreds of students across the Twin Cities walked out of class with community members this week to protest gun violence in schools a week after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. MN Teen Activists led a Minneapolis crowd in a march from Gold Medal Park to US Bank Stadium, where students shared stories, poems, and chants.
☕ A toast to the roasters
Congrats to Peace Coffee workers who won their union election this week and will be represented by UFCW Local 663! Check out the story from Racket’s Jay Boller.
Thank you for reading. We are each other’s harvest.