Minnesota: New Policy Promotes Workers Rights
From Workday Minnesota:
MINNEAPOLIS - Every year the City of Minneapolis awards hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts for services and now a newly-adopted policy means that more of those contracts could be performed by union labor.
The Minneapolis City Council voted 12-0 Aug. 31 to adopt a "labor peace" policy that will apply to all contracts for services in excess of $250,000 when a determination has been made that the city has a "proprietary interest" in the contract.
"This is a significant resolution adopted by the City Council," said Bill McCarthy, president of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council, who negotiated for more than a year with City Council members and staff to craft the labor peace proposal. "If the city finds they have proprietary interest, they will require labor peace, or in other words, card-check."
The resolution adopted reads, in part: "A contractor performing services for the City of Minneapolis ("Contractor") shall be or become signatory to a valid collective bargaining agreement… with any labor organization seeking to represent employees employed to perform services under Contractor's contract with the City as a condition precedent to its contract with the City."
In exchange, the labor organization must agree to refrain from "picketing, work stoppages, boycotts or any other economic interference with the services performed by the Contractor" for the duration of the contract...click to continue.
