Community
COVID Testing Site

COVID Testing is Free, Fast and Encouraged for Frontline Workers

By |

COVID-19 testing is fast, safe and open to anyone free of charge at 21 community testing sites across Minnesota. That’s the message state health officials want union members – and all frontline workers – to hear as more businesses, schools and other gathering places begin reopening to the public. As a small group of union leaders toured the testing site inside St. Paul’s Roy Wilkins Auditorium today, state officials emphasized that testing remains critical to containing the coronavirus outbreak. And containing the outbreak is critical to keeping Minnesota schools and businesses open.

Organizing
AFGE Members

Local veterans, workers call out Union Busting at VA

By |

“It’s just another effort to destabilize the VA because, ultimately, they want to privatize the VA,” AFGE District 8 Vice President Gregg James said. “There are trillions of dollars available if millions of veterans have to go downtown to ge their care.”

Elections
GOTV Volunteer

Union Volunteers, broad coalitions power Labor 2020 Political Campaign

By |

Don Slaten has been volunteering in support of his union’s political program for years. Never has he seen a campaign season like this one, marked by social distance, early voting and a highly polarized voting public. “It’s just unreal,” said Slaten, a retired member of Machinists Local Lodge 459 who became active in local politics in the mid-1980s. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

In an election cycle with no playbook, Minnesota’s unions have adjusted their approach to politics. Physical distance is now baked into the Labor 2020 campaign strategy, with phone and text banks taking the place of most door-to-door canvassing.