Latest news with #MinnesotaReformer
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Unionized doctors picket outside Allina clinics in first for Minnesota
Unionized physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners picketed in rain and smokey air outside Allina's Coon Rapids clinic on June 3, 2025 in a first for Minnesota. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer) Newly unionized doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants walked picket lines for the first time in Minnesota outside four Allina clinics on Tuesday, voicing frustration with what they called the 'factory style' of modern medicine. The clinicians voted by a wide margin to unionize with Doctors Council SEIU in October 2023, forming the nation's largest private-sector doctors union with more than 600 members across 60 Allina clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin. But since then, union leaders say they've made little progress toward finalizing a first labor contract covering wages, benefits and working conditions despite meeting with hospital leaders nearly 40 times. 'We're not seeing Allina come to the table with meaningful proposals,' said Dr. Chris Antolak, a family physician, outside Allina's clinic in Coon Rapids. 'We're here today to picket because we need to prove to Allina that we're standing in strength and solidarity.' The union also organized picket lines, which are not strikes, outside Allina clinics in Maplewood, West St. Paul and Bloomington. The striking image of physicians picketing underscores the turbulent state of American health care, which leaves many patients and now even doctors demanding change. Physicians, as the white collars on their lab coats convey, have not historically seen themselves as workers in need of a union. The consolidation of health care and productivity demands set by faraway bosses, however, has made many feel more like workers pushed to churn through patients on an assembly line rather than masters of their own practices. 'I'm a union kid. My parents were teachers … I never thought I would be union until I realized the power that we have as a single voice,' said Dr. Kara Larson, who's worked as a pediatrician at the Coon Rapids clinic since 1999. 'The union brought us together to advocate for change for our patients.' The clinicians say Allina has proposed cutting compensation by reducing their base salary from the median wage for health care providers nationally to the 25th percentile. They also say the health system, one of the largest in the Upper Midwest with $5.8 billion in revenue in 2024, refused to budge in negotiations over reducing work loads and increasing support staff and sick leave. Addressing safety concerns also remains a sticking point — health care workers are among the most likely to be physically assaulted on the job, which is also animating separate union nurses' negotiations with more than a dozen hospitals including Allina. In a statement, Allina Health said it is negotiating in good faith with the union to seek 'responsible agreements.' 'Allina Health and the union were fully aware they would be charting new territory in creating these first contracts, and it is important to get it right,' the statement said. The two sides have come to tentative agreements over the control of their schedules, creation of a mentorship program and labor management committee, and protections against unfair discipline. Braving rain and willdfire-induced bad air, the physicians at times seemed unfamiliar with picket line practices: A SEIU staff member shouted out instructions on picketing — where to start walking and where to pivot back — before they started. More than once the group seemed to forget to keep moving and came to a standstill, while two people led competing chants at different paces, muddying what's typically a clear call-and-response. But nevertheless, they got their point across. Physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants are sure to become more practiced in blue collar labor demonstrations in the years to come as unionization increases. Just this year, resident physicians at Hennepin Healthcare and the University of Minnesota unionized with SEIU's Committee of Interns and Residents, one of the fastest growing health care unions in the country. More than 130 Allina doctors at Mercy and Unity hospitals voted to unionize in 2023, and last year, more than 400 nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other advanced nursing staff voted to unionize across nine Essentia hospitals and 60 clinics spanning northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Chris Rubesch, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, joined the picket line in support of the doctors on Tuesday, signaling a growing alliance between two classes of health care workers not infrequently at odds with each other. 'We have a broken health care system that prioritizes profits … and we need to refocus on our patients,' Rubesch said. 'We are standing with you shoulder to shoulder.'
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Big Beautiful Bill' dings states that offer health care to immigrants
Demonstrators gather for a protest organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee calling for the continuation of MinnesotaCare for adults in the country without authorization at the Minnesota State Capitol in May. The Republican budget bill the U.S. House passed last month would penalize Medicaid expansion states that provide health care to immigrants who are here on humanitarian parole. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally. Along with punishing the 14 states that use their own funds to cover immigrants who are here illegally, analysts say last-minute changes to the bill would make it all but impossible for states to continue helping some immigrants who are in the country legally, on humanitarian parole. Under the bill, the federal government would slash funding to states that have expanded Medicaid and provide coverage to immigrants who are on humanitarian parole — immigrants who have received permission to temporarily enter the United States due to an emergency or urgent humanitarian reason. The federal government pays 90% of the cost of covering adults without children who are eligible under Medicaid expansion, but the bill would cut that to 80% for those states, doubling the state portion from 10% to 20%. That's the same penalty the bill proposes for states that use their own money to help immigrants who are here illegally. Ironically, states such as Florida that have extended Medicaid coverage to immigrants who are here on humanitarian parole but have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would not be harmed by the bill, said Leonardo Cuello, a Medicaid law and policy expert and research professor at the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. It is 'wildly nonsensical and unfair' to penalize expansion states for covering a population that some non-expansion states, such as Florida, also cover, Cuello said. 'It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage.' West Virginia is one of the states where lawmakers are nervously watching U.S. Senate discussions on the proposed penalty. Republican state Rep. Matt Rohrbach, a deputy House speaker, said West Virginia legislators tabled a proposal that would have ended Medicaid expansion if the federal government reduced its share of the funding, because the state's congressional representatives assured them it wasn't going to happen. Now the future is murkier. Cuello called the proposed penalty 'basically a gun to the head of the states.' 'Congress is framing it as a choice, but the state is being coerced and really has no choice,' he said. There are about 1.3 million people in the United States on humanitarian parole, from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Venezuela as well as some Central American children who have rejoined family here. The Trump administration is trying to end parole from some of those countries. A Supreme Court decision May 30 allows the administration to end humanitarian parole for about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Not many of those parolees qualify for Medicaid, which requires a waiting period or special status, but the 40 states with expanded Medicaid could be penalized anyway when they do start accepting them as they begin to qualify, said Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center. It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage. – Leonardo Cuello, Georgetown University research professor Meanwhile, an increasing number of states and the District of Columbia already are considering scaling back Medicaid coverage for immigrants because of the costs. The federal budget bill, named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is now being considered by the Senate, where changes are likely. The fact that so many states could be affected by the last-minute change could mean more scrutiny in that chamber, said Andrea Kovach, senior attorney for health care justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago. By her count, at least 38 states and the District of Columbia would be affected by the new restrictions, since they accepted some options now offered by Medicaid to cover at least some humanitarian parolees without a five-year waiting period. 'They're all going to be penalized because they added in parolees,' Kovach said. 'So that's 38 times two senators who are going to be very interested in this provision to make sure their state doesn't get their reimbursement knocked down.' The change to exclude people with humanitarian parole was included in a May 21 amendment by U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who chairs the House budget committee. Arrington's office did not reply to a request for comment, though he has stressed the importance of withholding Medicaid from immigrants who are here illegally. '[Democrats] want to protect health care and welfare at any cost for illegal immigrants at the expense of hardworking taxpayers,' Arrington said in a May 22 floor speech urging passage of the bill. 'But by the results of this last election, it's abundantly clear: The people see through this too and they have totally rejected the Democrats' radical agenda.' Some states already are considering cutting Medicaid coverage for immigrants, though Democratic lawmakers and advocates are pushing back. Washington, D.C., Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed phasing out a program that provides Medicaid coverage to adults regardless of their immigration status, a move she says would save the District of Columbia $457 million. Minnesota advocates protested a state budget deal reached last month with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to phase out health care coverage for adults who are here illegally, a condition Republican lawmakers insisted on to avoid a shutdown. Similarly, Illinois advocates are protesting new state rules that will end a program that has provided Medicaid coverage to immigrants aged 42-64 regardless of their legal status. The program cost $1.6 billion over three years, according to a state audit. The state will continue a separate program that provides coverage for older adults. 'Our position is that decision-makers in Illinois shouldn't be doing Trump's work for him,' said Kovach, of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. 'Let's preserve health coverage for immigrants and stand up for Illinois immigrant residents who have been paying taxes into this state for years and need this coverage.' Illinois state Sen. Graciela Guzmán, a Democrat whose parents are refugees from El Salvador, said many of her constituents in Chicago may be forced to cancel chemotherapy or lifesaving surgery because of the changes. 'It was a state budget, but I think the federal reconciliation bill really set the tone for it,' Guzmán said. 'In a tough fiscal environment, it was really hard to set up a defense for this program.' Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek is among the governors holding firm, saying that letting immigrants stay uninsured imposes costs on local hospitals and ends up raising prices for everyone. 'The costs will go somewhere. When everyone is insured it is much more helpful to keep costs down and reasonable for everyone. That's why we've taken this approach to give care to everyone,' Kotek said at a news conference last month. Medicaid does pay for emergency care for low-income patients, regardless of their immigration status, and that would not change under the federal budget bill. Franny White, a spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority, said her state's Medicaid program covers about 105,000 immigrants, some of whom are here illegally. She said the policy, established by a 2021 state law, can save money in the long run. 'Uninsured people are less likely to receive preventive care due to cost and often wait until a condition worsens to the point that it requires more advanced, expensive care at an emergency department or hospital,' she said. California was among the first states, along with Oregon, to offer health insurance to immigrants of all ages regardless of their legal status. But it now is considering cutting back, looking to save $5 billion as it seeks to close a $12 billion budget deficit. In May, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed freezing enrollment of immigrant adults who are here illegally, and charging them premiums to save money. 'It's possible that other states will decide to cut back these services because of budgetary concerns,' said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a health policy research organization. If the federal budget bill passes with the immigrant health care provision intact, states would have more than two years to adjust, since the changes would not take effect until October 2027. 'We have time to really understand what the landscape looks like and really create a legal argument to make sure folks are able to maintain their health care coverage,' said Enddy Almonord, director for Healthy Illinois, an advocacy group supporting universal health care coverage. Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@ Like Minnesota Reformer, Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Big Beautiful Bill' dings states that offer health care to some immigrants here legally
Demonstrators gather for a protest organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee calling for the continuation of MinnesotaCare for adults in the country without authorization at the Minnesota State Capitol in May. The Republican budget bill the U.S. House passed last month would penalize Medicaid expansion states that provide health care to immigrants who are here on humanitarian parole. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally. Along with punishing the 14 states that use their own funds to cover immigrants who are here illegally, analysts say last-minute changes to the bill would make it all but impossible for states to continue helping some immigrants who are in the country legally, on humanitarian parole. Under the bill, the federal government would slash funding to states that have expanded Medicaid and provide coverage to immigrants who are on humanitarian parole — immigrants who have received permission to temporarily enter the United States due to an emergency or urgent humanitarian reason. The federal government pays 90% of the cost of covering adults without children who are eligible under Medicaid expansion, but the bill would cut that to 80% for those states, doubling the state portion from 10% to 20%. That's the same penalty the bill proposes for states that use their own money to help immigrants who are here illegally. Ironically, states such as Florida that have extended Medicaid coverage to immigrants who are here on humanitarian parole but have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would not be harmed by the bill, said Leonardo Cuello, a Medicaid law and policy expert and research professor at the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. More states offer health care coverage for certain immigrants, noncitizens It is 'wildly nonsensical and unfair' to penalize expansion states for covering a population that some non-expansion states, such as Florida, also cover, Cuello said. 'It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage.' West Virginia is one of the states where lawmakers are nervously watching U.S. Senate discussions on the proposed penalty. Republican state Rep. Matt Rohrbach, a deputy House speaker, said West Virginia legislators tabled a proposal that would have ended Medicaid expansion if the federal government reduced its share of the funding, because the state's congressional representatives assured them it wasn't going to happen. Now the future is murkier. Cuello called the proposed penalty 'basically a gun to the head of the states.' 'Congress is framing it as a choice, but the state is being coerced and really has no choice,' he said. There are about 1.3 million people in the United States on humanitarian parole, from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Venezuela as well as some Central American children who have rejoined family here. The Trump administration is trying to end parole from some of those countries. A Supreme Court decision May 30 allows the administration to end humanitarian parole for about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Not many of those parolees qualify for Medicaid, which requires a waiting period or special status, but the 40 states with expanded Medicaid could be penalized anyway when they do start accepting them as they begin to qualify, said Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center. It would appear that the purpose is more to punish expansion states than address any genuine concern with immigrant coverage. – Leonardo Cuello, Georgetown University research professor Meanwhile, an increasing number of states and the District of Columbia already are considering scaling back Medicaid coverage for immigrants because of the costs. The federal budget bill, named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is now being considered by the Senate, where changes are likely. The fact that so many states could be affected by the last-minute change could mean more scrutiny in that chamber, said Andrea Kovach, senior attorney for health care justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago. By her count, at least 38 states and the District of Columbia would be affected by the new restrictions, since they accepted some options now offered by Medicaid to cover at least some humanitarian parolees without a five-year waiting period. 'They're all going to be penalized because they added in parolees,' Kovach said. 'So that's 38 times two senators who are going to be very interested in this provision to make sure their state doesn't get their reimbursement knocked down.' The change to exclude people with humanitarian parole was included in a May 21 amendment by U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who chairs the House budget committee. Arrington's office did not reply to a request for comment, though he has stressed the importance of withholding Medicaid from immigrants who are here illegally. Need to go to the hospital? Texas and Florida want to know your immigration status. '[Democrats] want to protect health care and welfare at any cost for illegal immigrants at the expense of hardworking taxpayers,' Arrington said in a May 22 floor speech urging passage of the bill. 'But by the results of this last election, it's abundantly clear: The people see through this too and they have totally rejected the Democrats' radical agenda.' Some states already are considering cutting Medicaid coverage for immigrants, though Democratic lawmakers and advocates are pushing back. Washington, D.C., Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed phasing out a program that provides Medicaid coverage to adults regardless of their immigration status, a move she says would save the District of Columbia $457 million. Minnesota advocates protested a state budget deal reached last month with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to phase out health care coverage for adults who are here illegally, a condition Republican lawmakers insisted on to avoid a shutdown. Similarly, Illinois advocates are protesting new state rules that will end a program that has provided Medicaid coverage to immigrants aged 42-64 regardless of their legal status. The program cost $1.6 billion over three years, according to a state audit. The state will continue a separate program that provides coverage for older adults. 'Our position is that decision-makers in Illinois shouldn't be doing Trump's work for him,' said Kovach, of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. 'Let's preserve health coverage for immigrants and stand up for Illinois immigrant residents who have been paying taxes into this state for years and need this coverage.' Illinois state Sen. Graciela Guzmán, a Democrat whose parents are refugees from El Salvador, said many of her constituents in Chicago may be forced to cancel chemotherapy or lifesaving surgery because of the changes. 'It was a state budget, but I think the federal reconciliation bill really set the tone for it,' Guzmán said. 'In a tough fiscal environment, it was really hard to set up a defense for this program.' More States Offer Health Coverage to Immigrant Children Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek is among the governors holding firm, saying that letting immigrants stay uninsured imposes costs on local hospitals and ends up raising prices for everyone. 'The costs will go somewhere. When everyone is insured it is much more helpful to keep costs down and reasonable for everyone. That's why we've taken this approach to give care to everyone,' Kotek said at a news conference last month. Medicaid does pay for emergency care for low-income patients, regardless of their immigration status, and that would not change under the federal budget bill. Franny White, a spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority, said her state's Medicaid program covers about 105,000 immigrants, some of whom are here illegally. She said the policy, established by a 2021 state law, can save money in the long run. 'Uninsured people are less likely to receive preventive care due to cost and often wait until a condition worsens to the point that it requires more advanced, expensive care at an emergency department or hospital,' she said. California was among the first states, along with Oregon, to offer health insurance to immigrants of all ages regardless of their legal status. But it now is considering cutting back, looking to save $5 billion as it seeks to close a $12 billion budget deficit. In May, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed freezing enrollment of immigrant adults who are here illegally, and charging them premiums to save money. 'It's possible that other states will decide to cut back these services because of budgetary concerns,' said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a health policy research organization. If the federal budget bill passes with the immigrant health care provision intact, states would have more than two years to adjust, since the changes would not take effect until October 2027. 'We have time to really understand what the landscape looks like and really create a legal argument to make sure folks are able to maintain their health care coverage,' said Enddy Almonord, director for Healthy Illinois, an advocacy group supporting universal health care coverage. Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Building trades hold out hope for data center tax breaks in Minnesota budget — and other labor news
Construction continues on the sprawling Rosemount Data Center on land bought by Meta near Dakota County Technical College, shown Thursday, May 29, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Building trades push for data center tax incentives; head of violence intervention nonprofit charged with felony wage theft; Trump flips on Nippon-U.S. Steel deal; Planned Parenthood lays off 66 workers; judge dismisses lawsuit challenging holiday pay for nursing home workers; and trade war hurts global jobs outlook. With Democrats and Republicans at an impasse over an infrastructure spending package for the third year in a row, building trade unions are banking on lawmakers extending tax breaks for data centers to spur investment in high-paying construction jobs. The push comes as President Trump's federal funding cuts and ongoing trade war, compounded by high interest rates, have soured the economic outlook for construction jobs. 'There's not a surplus of work right now,' said Richard Kolodziejski, government affairs director for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters. Building one large data center can cost upwards of $1 billion, dwarfing the roughly $700 million bonding bill Minnesota lawmakers could authorize this year to pay for water treatment plants, roads and other infrastructure. The building trades unions warn that Minnesota will lose jobs to neighboring states if it doesn't compete on tax breaks to entice tech giants like Amazon and Meta to build data centers. The tax incentives also help justify prevailing wage requirements, which ensures much of the construction will be done by union workers. But some progressive lawmakers chafe at the idea of giving tax breaks to some of the richest companies in the world while the state stares down a looming budget deficit. They aren't convinced these projects wouldn't be built anyways given the state's cold climate and strong economy. 'I understand not wanting to give tax breaks to the wealthy, but those are the folks creating the jobs,' said Tom Dicklich, executive director of the Minnesota State Building & Construction Trades Council. One hyperscale data center costing $750 million creates upwards of 1,800 construction jobs and 300 ongoing operational jobs, according to a 2022 report on Wisconsin by Mangum Economics, which has produced similar reports sponsored by tech and energy companies for Virginia and Illinois. A coalition of building trades unions, energy companies and other businesses cited that report in a letter to lawmakers urging them to extend the sales tax exemption on software, servers and other equipment used to power the data centers. The growing cost of tax breaks for data centers has vexed public sector unions, who see the lost revenue cutting into funding for the schools, nursing homes and state agencies where their members work. The public sector unions — SEIU, Education Minnesota, AFSCME, MAPE and Inter Faculty Organization — signed onto a letter opposing an early version of the bill (HF1277) backed by the building trade unions, pointing out that the cost of the sales tax exemption has increased by more than 20-fold since 2018. That cost is expected to continue to rise, reaching $219 million in forgone sales tax revenue on servers, software and other equipment in fiscal year 2029. It was a rare instance of discord among unions who are typically disciplined about being unified in public, despite their many differences across industries. Member unions of the Minnesota AFL-CIO had signed onto a resolution in support of sales tax exemptions for constructing data centers, but the bill that was introduced in February went further. It extended sales tax exemptions on electricity and allowed data centers to claim the sales tax exemption up front rather than through a rebate, which creates a public record of how much sales tax was lost. 'It would be one thing, if the unions were upfront, that this bill is good for their members … Unfortunately, they want the rest of the Labor Movement to support their lobbying efforts and to call tax cuts for billionaires a 'pro-labor' bill. This we cannot do,' SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa President Jamie Gulley wrote in a post to his members in April, explaining his opposition. The debate was so contentious, Gulley wrote that one unnamed trade union to threaten to leave the AFL-CIO. The building trades counter that data centers add to state coffers through other taxes, including income taxes paid by their members. 'We don't have line items in the state budget that goes directly to the building trades,' Dicklich said. 'Where we can get work, we have to go after that.' Amazon announced amid the ongoing negotiations at the Legislature that the company is suspending plans for a big data center in Becker, the Star Tribune reported. Bishop Harding Smith, the head of the violence intervention nonprofit Minnesota Acts Now, was charged with felony wage theft and theft by swindle in Hennepin County on Thursday for allegedly pocketing $150,000 from a county contract intended to go to workers' wages. While wage theft is common, charges are still relatively rare even since Minnesota made it a felony in 2019. The first felony wage theft conviction was handed down just last month to a painting contractor for stealing more than $35,000 in wages from workers on an affordable housing project in Minneapolis. 'Bishop Harding Smith failed to pay his employees what he agreed to as part of the contract with Hennepin County and then lied about it when seeking payroll expense reimbursements,' Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing the charges. 'As I said when our office secured the state's first wage theft conviction, this behavior will not be tolerated.' According to the charging document, Harding signed a contract with Hennepin County in 2021 in which he would be an unpaid volunteer and would pay all other workers $35 an hour. The contract was later updated to increase the contract amount to more than $550,000 and provide Harding with a $35 an hour wage. Investigators found most employees were paid $20 an hour even though he billed the county as if they were paid $35 an hour. Harding admitted to investigators that he did not pay workers what they were entitled to but denied fraudulent intent, according to the complaint. In a rare instance of unanimity on the campaign trail last year, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump opposed Japanese-owned Nippon's $14.1 billion bid to purchase U.S. Steel. The politics were simple: The United Steelworkers, representing tens of thousands of workers in purple states like Pennsylvania, fiercely opposed the deal. And in a campaign fought over blue collar workers, supporting a foreign company taking over an icon of American industry would have been unthinkable. Now back in the Oval Office, President Trump has seemingly flipped on his opposition to the deal, writing on his social media platform last Friday that there will be a 'planned partnership' between the two steel giants Trump said U.S. Steel would remain in America with its headquarters in Pittsburgh, and the deal would create 70,000 jobs. It's unclear how a 'planned partnership' would be different than a buyout, and as The American Prospect noted, the U.S. Steel website describes the deal as a merger. United Steelworkers President Dave McCall sent a letter to members, which include 3,500 workers in Minnesota, reiterating his concerns. 'Throughout recent months, as the public conversation has turned to Nippon 'investing' in U.S. Steel or 'partnering with' U.S. Steel, Nippon has maintained consistently that it would only invest in U.S. Steel's facilities if it owned the company outright. We've seen nothing in the reporting over the past few days suggesting that Nippon has walked back from this position,' he wrote. Federal funding cuts are forcing Planned Parenthood North Central States to close eight clinics across Minnesota and Iowa this summer, laying off 66 workers and reassigning three dozen more. The health system, which is the main abortion provider in Minnesota, announced the closures on Friday afternoon, blaming a $2.8 million freeze in Title X funding in Minnesota that supports sexual and reproductive health. The organization also cited the near total abortion ban in Iowa following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade and House Republicans' 'big beautiful bill,' which defunds Planned Parenthood and makes cuts to Medicaid, which subsidizes care for more than 30% of its patients. More than 400 workers at the Planned Parenthood affiliate, which covers Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas, unionized with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa in 2022 and ratified their first labor contract last year. Megan Amato, a longtime licensed practical nurse in Iowa and Nebraska, said she was devastated by the news in a statement shared by the union. 'When I started 18 years ago, we had 17 clinics in Iowa. After these closures we will be down to two,' Amato said. 'I am the only person who does my job in the whole state and I worry about what that means for the future of abortion care in Iowa.' None of the clinics slated to close in Minnesota provide abortion care, but do provide birth control, education and other health care services. PPNCS said it will continue investing in telemedicine to serve patients, which includes medication abortion for patients with a Minnesota address. In a victory for Minnesota's new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two industry groups challenging the board's authority to mandate that nursing homes pay workers time-and-a-half on 11 holidays. The lawsuit was the first legal challenge to the board since the Legislature created it in 2023 to set minimum pay and working standards for nursing home workers across the state. The International Labour Organization cut its global employment forecast by 7 million jobs as President Trump's trade war roils the world economy. The United Nations agency previously projected the world would add 60 million jobs in 2025, revising it down to 53 million jobs this week. According to the report, nearly 84 million jobs across 71 countries are directly or indirectly tied to consumer demand in the United States, which is being throttled by uncertainty and higher prices from Trump's tariffs. A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs after the U.S. Court of International Trade paused them on Wednesday. The International Labour Organization also reported that the share of the world's gross domestic product going to workers globally ticked down over the past decade from 53% to 52.4%. In other words, less of the world's income is going to the workers generating that income by creating goods and providing services. While the decline is slight, the International Labour Organization estimates it works out to about $290 less per worker in 2024 purchasing power.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Warning: This story contains graphic language. Blame the DFL politicians.
Photo and illustration by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar gave a succint response to a question posed to her by a reporter from the right-wing Daily Caller a few weeks ago: 'F*ck off.' Not long ago, a politician uttering the phrase may have shocked the Minnesota electorate's civil sensibilities. But Omar was evidently satisfied with the interaction — she later tweeted it out — and in a matter of days, if not hours, even conservative posters had moved on. It took awhile to reach the Upper Midwest, but Democrats here have joined a national trend, employing the kind of crass language that Donald Trump ushered into the political discourse almost a decade ago. Back in October, less than a month before he and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris would lose the general election, Gov. Tim Walz revved up a friendly audience in Madison. 'Elon's on that stage, jumping around, skipping like a dipshit on these things,' Walz said, pausing for the audience's laughter. He added: 'You know it!' The moment went viral, and Walz has since repeated the bit, sparking comparisons to Trump's affinity for name-calling (though 'Trump's remarks were typically directed toward elected officials of color, not white billionaires,' The New York Times noted, helpfully). Minnesota Democratic politicians are usually relatively mild in their cussing, but one thing seems clear: They're cursing more freely, and often with gusto. Since the start of Walz's vice presidential run, he could frequently be heard bemoaning this or that 'damn' thing — 'Mind your own damn business' — like a dad suffering over his lawnmower engine, or a frustrated high school football coach. In a recent town hall in Texas, he said: 'How about we just be proud of our policies, take it everywhere, and we will win the damn election on that.' But he'll occasionally rip off a more weighty curse word. In a recently published interview with The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich, Walz said he regretted that neither he nor Harris went on the Joe Rogan podcast during the campaign. 'I'm like, 'f*ck it,'' Walz said. 'Just go.' Nearly 10 years ago, Trump transformed the way politicians talk, and especially the way they curse: openly and without apology. He won the 2016 election immediately after the publication of a tape in which he infamously described grabbing women's genitals and has freely used curse words and vulgar language ever since. Prior to Trump, cursing was scandalous for politicians. Former President Barack Obama once referred to his opponent Mitt Romney as a 'bullshitter,' grabbing headlines and sparking Republican outrage. So why are Minnesota Democrats suddenly cursing so much? Politicians swear in part to seem — irony alert — more authentic, said Melissa Mohr, swearing expert and author of 'Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing.' 'A lot of what politicians do in their speeches is quite scripted, and swearing is a way to use language to make it feel like you're saying things from your heart,' Mohr said. For Democrats facing the deluge of Trump's executive actions in the first months of his second term — funding cuts to agencies, mass layoffs, the transfer of immigrants to an El Salvador prison, his defiance of the courts and more — cursing is also a way to emphasize the seriousness of the moment. 'Usually when we swear, that's because we've got some deep emotion about something, whether it's pain or frustration or joy,' Mohr said. But cursing can also backfire when it's not convincing, Mohr said. If voters pick up on a slight hesitation before a bad word, a strange emphasis, or the unusual construction of a phrase, it could signal that the cursing is more of a strategic choice by speechwriters than a genuine burst of emotion from the speaker. 'When it's not authentic, it comes off as extra not-authentic, and I think that that definitely turns people away,' said Republican lobbyist and local stand-up comedian Brian McDaniel. As the parties have become more polarized and less inclined to appeal to centrist voters, Republicans — with the notable exception of the commander in chief — have kept their speeches clean so as not to offend the religious base of the party, McDaniel said, whereas Democrats' cursing can be taken as a way to 'stick it to the man.' Democrats here may have taken a bit longer to jump on the cussing trend because they're entrenched in the culture of 'Minnesota nice.' Minnesotans and their politicians seem to have a more reserved approach to swearing than people from other regions, though it's difficult to accurately measure how frequently a population curses. A 2015 map of swear-word frequency compiled by a linguist and based on tweets, seems to indicate that Minnesotans generally swear less, at least in the online public sphere, than people from other areas. Although lately with the Dems, it's hard to tell. On X, DFL Sen. Tina Smith captioned a post by Elon Musk, who was instructing federal employees to send a summary of their accomplishments for the week: 'This is the ultimate d*ck boss move from Musk — except he isn't even the boss, he's just a d*ck,' Smith wrote. And when Smith announced she wouldn't be seeking re-election, state Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy's official statement began with a two-word sentence: 'Well shit.' (Murphy later showed more restraint: 'My mouth is full of cuss words right now,' she said regarding recent negotiations with Republicans on the final day of the legislative session.) It's not just a Minnesota thing: U.S. Sen. Elise Slotkin got fiery and profane recently while urging Democrats to 'f*cking retake the flag' and to adopt 'the goddamn Alpha energy.' In the case of both Slotkin and Walz, the cussing shows emotion and seeks to shape Democratic identity, melding it to the working class party of old. In this populist moment, Mohr said, swearing codes populist. 'When you break that mold and you swear,' Mohr said, 'it kind of brings you to that 'ordinary' person's level.'
