St. Paul Regional Labor Federation - Latest Stories

Minnesota labor federation taps first female leader

By Paul Demko | 08.17.09 | 2:08 pm

Shar Knutson has been elected president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, becoming the first woman to lead the state’s largest labor federation. Knutson was widely expected to face off against two other challengers for the post: Bill McCarthy, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and Mary Kathryn Ricker, head of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. But only McCarthy and Knutson were ultimately nominated, with the latter prevailing on the first ballot.

Local labor organizers lament ‘card-check’ provision’s seeming demise

By Paul Demko | 08.06.09 | 6:00 am

Throughout the 2008 campaign, the “card-check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was a political lightning rod. Business groups pilloried the proposal as an attack on workers’ rights, while organized labor lobbied ferociously for the measure, which would allow workers to unionize when more than half have signed cards indicating support for collective bargaining. When Democratic leaders quietly decided to drop the measure from EFCA last month — without so much as a vote — it came as something of a slap in the face for labor.