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Workday Minnesota
Billionaire Pohlad Family Accused of Using Anti-Worker Construction Contractors
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. The Minneapolis-based billionaire Pohlad family has a national profile, as the owner of the Minnesota Twins and the 75th-richest family in the United States. And the Pohlad Family Foundation has cultivated a progressive image for its stated commitment to “housing stability” and “racial justice,” with a special focus on reducing racial disparities.
“We Do the Behind-the-Scenes Work”: What it Takes to Lead a Union of Clerical Workers
“Cherrene has been my mentor and advocate for more than a decade,” says Max Vast in an email. Vast became president of AFSCME Local 3800 after longtime president Cherrene Horazuk resigned in October. “Her commitment to a member-led union has been particularly inspiring to me,” says Vast. “Even when it’s hard to get folks fired up, she is skilled at finding the issues that move people to action. She and I also share a deep passion for global solidarity. She spent many years doing solidarity work with El Salvador and I started my organizing in Palestine solidarity work. We both believe that solidarity with workers across the world is one of our most powerful tools.”
“The World Depends On Us”: Our Favorite Labor Stories of 2023
“The world depends on us, on our labor. And we have the right to decide what kind of world it’s going to be.” As we enter 2024, I reflect on this quote from the late Leo Robinson, Black longshoreman and leader in the ILWU, who played a key role in organizing Local 10’s 1984 boycott of goods shipped from apartheid South Africa.
“Subsidizing Abuse” Investigates Minnesota’s Affordable Housing Industry’s Record of Worker Exploitation—While Receiving Millions in Public Dollars
At least $84 Million in Minnesota state and municipal funds earmarked for affordable housing projects have gone towards contractors with records or accusations of worker exploitation, from wage theft to misclassification to labor trafficking to sexual abuse, according to a new report. Subsidizing Abuse: How Public Financing Fuels Exploitation in...
“We Won’t Let Them Destroy Us”: Nurses at Illinois Hospital Strike Over Thanksgiving Week
On October 6, a group of union nurses confronted the leadership of Ascension St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill., also known as St. Joe’s. Beth Corsetti, who has worked as a nurse for 10 years and has been at St. Joe’s for three of those years in the cardiac unit, raised concerns about unsafe staffing to president Christopher Shride, she says. “I asked, ‘how do you not see the fact that the amount of falls we’ve had and the amount of injuries that have been found is because we don’t have staff to get to these patients?’ And he flat out looked at me and said, ‘We have no staffing crisis,’ ’,” Corsetti says. “I still can’t get over it.”
This Union Is Famous for Opposing South African Apartheid. Now It’s Standing With Gaza.
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The Nation. In 1984, Larry Wright and his coworkers in International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 refused to unload goods shipped from South Africa in solidarity with that country’s anti-apartheid movement. This boycott at the San Francisco pier, which lasted 11 days, sent reverberations throughout the US labor movement, where major players like the AFL-CIO still were not yet willing to endorse the anti-apartheid movement’s boycott campaign.
First Avenue Workers’ Victory: Another Win for Union and Worker Center Collaborations
In the late summer of 2021, a group of workers from First Avenue, the iconic Minneapolis music venue, were fed up with low pay, last-minute scheduling, lack of parking, and safety concerns, and wanted to implement some of their own ideas in their workplace. Unsure of how to get it done, the workers decided to first contact Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota (ROC-MN) to learn more about their workplace rights.
Master Lock Factory in Milwaukee Closes After 100 Years
After more than 100 years, Master Lock’s iconic factory in Milwaukee is shutting its doors in March 2024. The closure will result in 400 lost union jobs, and also mark the end of a former industrial region of the city that once housed some 50 plants. The Real News,...
The U.S. Labor Voices Opposing Military Aid to Israel
This article was jointly produced by Workday Magazine and In These Times. As the Israeli military relentlessly bombards 2.4 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and a ground invasion appears imminent, one storied, national union — the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) — is opposing U.S. military aid for the state of Israel whose assault on the besieged strip has already taken the lives of at least 1,800 Palestinians (a number that is quickly rising) and displaced more than 420,000 others. The Israeli government’s overwhelming violence comes on the heels of a surprise attack by Hamas militants on October 7 when 150 were taken hostage and more than 1,300 people, almost entirely Israelis, were killed.
Republicans Are Using Anti-China Rhetoric to Undercut Striking UAW Workers’ Demands
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Three and a half weeks into the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) stand-up strike against the Big Three — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — the GOP is coalescing around a talking point: that the autoworkers’ real enemy is China.
“Your Body Suffers”: The Unremarkable Pain of an Auto-Assembly-Line Worker
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The Nation. Daniel Carpenter was one month past his 40th birthday when he suffered neck pain so severe that he thought he was having a stroke. “I was up north with my girlfriend at the time at a wedding,” said the autoworker, who has been employed for nearly 19 years at General Motors, almost all of it at the company’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center in Michigan, which produces the Hummer and Silverado. “We were staying at a cabin. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t move.”
They Sacrificed to Survive Bankruptcy. They Worked Through A Pandemic. Now, Autoworkers Have Had Enough.
PLYMOUTH, MINN. — Bonita Burns, 50, sits in a camping chair on the lawn in front of Mopar Parts Distribution Center. One of the crutches she uses to get around after her foot surgery leans against the chair. A picket sign leans against the other side. She is scratching off lottery tickets, hoping for some luck.
Wisconsin Autoworkers Are Bundling Firewood for a Winter Picket Line
HUDSON, WIS.—On the morning of Friday, September 22, workers at General Motors Parts Distribution Center calmly put away their equipment, gathered their personal belongings and stepped off the job. They’d been selected to strike as a part of the United Auto Workers’ second wave of stand-up strikes against the “Big Three” automakers (Ford, GM and Stellantis).
Stop Letting Auto Companies Pit Workers Against the Environment
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. In recent media coverage of the United Auto Workers’ stand-up strike against the Big Three car makers — Stellantis, Ford and General Motors — a false narrative is circulating: that the walkout is in conflict with the urgent need to mitigate climate change. The basic argument is that if wages and benefits were to improve, this would make the transition to electric vehicle manufacturing unprofitable, and would therefore imperil a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s environmental policy.
Workday Minnesota
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Workday Minnesota holds the powerful to account while bringing the perspective of everyday workers and the organizations that defend their rights to focus. Workday emphasizes long-form investigative journalism to bring to light the concealed and buried.
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