July 12, 1999 - The St. Paul Companies announced it's getting out of the personal insurance business and cutting hundreds of jobs at its downtown headquarters. The insurance giant is selling its personal insurance divisions to Metlife because it thinks it can make more money focusing on commercial insurance products. 17 hundred people work in the company's personal insurance operation -- 500 in Minnesota. . Metlife says it will retain all of them through the end of the year and that after that it will keep as many as possible.
July 9, 1999 - Agriculture experts from around the world gathered in St. Paul to talk about the future of farming. The University of Minnesota conference comes at a time when farmers are facing unprecedented pressures resulting from plunging prices, rapidly changing technologies, and increasingly stiff competition in world grain markets. The challenge For US policy makers is equally tough, for taking care of farmers at home may clash with equally important objectives -- one of these is inducing Foreign countries to open their markets more fully to American agricultural exports. ANOTHER is get them to end or lower subsidies for their own farmers that may crowd American farmers out of other export markets.
July 7, 1999 - Northwest Airlines flight attendants will soon vote on a contract offer. Union leaders have been holding informational meetings around the country, explaining to the rank and file details of the agreement they reached with Northwest last month. Yesterday evening several hundred flight attendants gathered at a Bloomington hotel. Many were there to criticize the contract. Another session is planned for later this morning in the Twin Cities.
June 30, 1999 - US Bank Corp and the state of Minnesota have settled the privacy lawsuit brought against the bank by Attroney General Mike Hatch. Under the deal the bank admits NO wrong doing, but will change some policies and donate millions of dollars to charity.
June 29, 1999 - Governor Jesse Ventura says Minnesotans can expect proposals for major tax reform from his administration's next budget in two years. Ventura says government is too large and taxes are too complicated. He says his challenge will be determining where to make cuts.
June 8, 1999 - Minnesota has come out on the downside in the latest merger deal. Honeywell's corporate headquarters are moving to the east coast as part of its acquisition by Morristown New Jersey-based Allied Signal. Over the past couple of years the whole COUNTRY has experienced an unprecedented wave of takeovers in many different industries. While Minnesota has long prided itself on the number of Fortune 500 companies based here, MANY are not big enough to stand alone in a marketplace which increasingly values size above all else. As a result, the Twin Cities has LOST some companies -- but it has also won some.
June 8, 1999 - Honeywell employees are sorting through surprise, sadness and uncertainty a day after the news of New Jersey-based Allied Signal's aquisition of the company.
June 1, 1999 - For 16 years Sun County Airlines has been flying in and out of the Twin Cities as a "charter" airline. Today Sun Country begins "scheduled service" -- with flights to 16 destinations, 11 of them non stops from the Twin Cities. Market watchers say travelers will find bargains galore as Northwest responds to its new competition.
May 20, 1999 - Nearly half of Northwest Airline's unionized employees continue to work without new contracts, more than two and a half years after the agreement that cut their pay expired. Typically airline employees threaten to strike as a way of putting pressure on management. But an alternative tactic often referred to as "CHAOS" is growing in popularity among some unions. "CHAOS" involves small scale SURPRISE work interruptions designed to trigger domino effects. Northwest's flight attendants are threatening a version of CHAOS if negotiations break down. The union the airline's mechanics voted to join is an even more enthusiastic proponent of the strategy.
April 27, 1999 - Governor Ventura today made one of the last major appointments to his adminstration. This afternoon Ventura appointed Brooklyn Center resident Charles Nichols Chairman of the Metropolitan Airports Commission. Nichols is something of an unknown quantity at the Minneapolis /St. Paul airport.