CLUC names new director
for Community Services
New name, ‘Working Partnerships,’
to reflect new direction

From the Minneapolis Labor Review, November 16, 2006

By Steve Share, editor, Minneapolis Labor Review

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council (CLUC) has named Doug Flateau as the new director of its Labor Community Services program. In addition, the CLUC has announced the creation a new nonprofit organization, “Working Partnerships,” specifically for carrying out the work of the Labor Community Services program.

Flateau began work October 24. He replaces Mary Ystesund, who retired in June after 30 years as the program’s director (Labor Review, June 22, 2006).

Flateau brings ten years of experience to the job from his work with the Minnesota AIDS Project, where he helped coordinate fundraising and community education efforts.

Part of that experience included working with the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service and the Minnesota Nurses Association to create an AIDS education program for union stewards.

Flateau also is a former grassroots fundraiser for Paul Wellstone’s 1996 U.S. Senate campaign. “It’s still a huge influence on my life,” he said.

Flateau’s experience on the Wellstone campaign, he said, taught him “how important it is to do grassroots work if you’re trying to help people, whether it’s a campaign, or social service work, or the labor movement.”

Doug Flateau

Flateau’s grassroots organizing experience will help him lead the Community Services program through a transition from its past status as an office of the United Way to become a new agency funded by United Way that provides services to the labor community. Formed as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, the new Working Partnerships’ office and staff will be directed by the Minneapolis CLUC.

Minneapolis CLUC president Bill McCarthy said he intends to change the Labor Community Services program from a social service model to an advocacy model involving extensive work in the community relating to fundraising, coalition-building, voter-registration, connecting with communities of color, union member education, leadership development and direct worker support.

This new direction is based on the model of Labor Community Services programs in other cities funded by United Way.

Flateau said one of his goals for Working Partnerships also will be to increase participation by union workplaces in the United Way’s annual fundraising campaign.

In addition, he wants Working Partnerships “to be a point of contact for unions and union members who want to do community service work.”

Through Working Partnerships, he also wants to build broader recognition in the community for the community service work of union locals and their members.

These grassroots encounters, Flateau said, are vitally important to building community. “It’s face to face, neighbor to neighbor. It’s not only the right thing to do — it works.”

Flateau, 37, grew up in suburban Boston where his father, a barber, was a union member. Flateau moved to the Twin Cities to attend Macalester College, graduating in 1992 with a double major in history and theatre. With ten Macalester friends, he helped found the Bedlam Theatre collective.

For more information on Working Partnerships, contact Doug Flateau at 612-379-8133.

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