Update: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the Minneapolis Labor Standards Board resolution Thursday, Nov. 21, offering an alternative structure for the board. Notably, the resolution passed 9-3, which represents a supermajority. If the council vote remains the same on an override, the board will still pass.
There’s been plenty of heated debate over the creation of a Labor Standards Board in Minneapolis. But labor standards work is already being done in many cities across the state and country.
For example, a week before the Minneapolis City Council approved a labor board, the St Paul City Council passed a wage theft ordinance that was recommended and brought forward by the city’s Labor Standards Advisory Committee.
To be clear, the St. Paul Labor Standards Advisory Committee and the to-be created Minneapolis Labor Standards Board are different. In St Paul, the committee is designed to be made up of 16 members: six employers, six employees and four at-large community representatives. Members are appointed by the mayor, who brings his selections to the council for approval.
The Minneapolis Labor Standards Board will be made up of 15 members – 12 appointed by the council and three appointed by the mayor. The board will have an even split between employers, employees and “community stakeholders,” with each group having five seats. The Minneapolis board also will have “sectoral workgroups” – groups that are focused on employment within a particular business sector.
Both groups, however, are tasked with engaging employers, employees and community members and advising on labor standards issues in their respective cities.
The Minneapolis Labor Standards Board will make recommendations to the mayor and the City Council as they study wages, benefits, training and working conditions. The St. Paul Labor Standards Advisory Committee advises and supports the city’s Labor Standards Enforcement and Education Division, which oversees the city’s Minimum Wage and Earned Sick and Safe Time ordinances and is a source for workers and businesses in Saint Paul to provide education on requirements and investigate complaints. It also can bring forward recommendations to the City Council, as it did before the wage theft ordinance was adopted.
St. Paul and state law
The new wage theft ordinance in St. Paul essentially codified state law around the issue, said Beth Commers, interim director for the city’s Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity division (HREEO).
Working with the St. Paul Labor Standards Advisory Commission is important because its representatives “understand the landscape in different ways than staff do,” Commers said.
Notably, Minneapolis passed its own wage theft ordinance in 2019, giving attorneys within the city’s Department of Civil Rights authority to enforce the municipal law against wage theft. This was also prompted by the 2019 change in state law.
Any time an employer fails to pay wages, employees are legally entitled to, that is wage theft. This includes paying an employee less than minimum wage, not paying overtime, requiring work without pay, denying legal breaks, misclassification, withholding tips, non-payment of fringe benefits and illegal deductions.
“Wage theft has been illegal in Minnesota for a while,” Commers said. “But the city staff, the city investigators, we don’t have enforcement capability for state laws, right? We would get calls, but we would have to refer to the (state) Department of Labor and Industry.” That changed with passage of the city ordinance.
The St. Paul ordinance does not make any new requirements for employers or employees. Rather, it gives the HREEO investigators the enforcement capacity to investigate allegations of wage theft. It also provides Saint Paul businesses with local tools to address any instances of suspected wage theft.
Before taking the wage theft ordinance to the City Council, the St. Paul Labor Standards Committee spent more than a year speaking with community stakeholders, employees and employers about the issue, said Alanna Galloway, Labor Standards Advisory Committee co-chair. A major goal in putting it on the table was to raise awareness about the problem, she added.
It “shocked” Galloway to learn that wage theft is one of the largest forms of theft across the state and country. The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry estimates more than 39,000 workers suffer from wage theft statewide each year. This has an impact of $11.9 million of wages owed, but not paid, to Minnesota workers.
“We generally think of theft as somebody with a knife on the street,” Galloway said. “But people who are going to work and not receiving their pay, that’s damaging, often more monetarily damaging to more residents and workers. So it’s a big deal and we need to make sure that we’re supporting and protecting the wages of workers.”
Filling up the advisory council
One interesting aspect of the St. Paul Labor Standards Advisory Council is that the body has struggled to have equal representation from both employers and employees. It’s employee-heavy right now, Commers said. She is working to gain more business representation through the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Labor Standards Advisory Committee was started in 2020, when many people were working remotely through the pandemic, Commers noted. Now that the committee’s meetings are in-person again, Commers believes it’s harder to attract time-stressed employers to serve. St. Paul also has a decades-old Business Review Council, which has 75% representation from businesses. This council also makes recommendations to the city.
“It’s hard when we have the Business Review Council that is full of employers, and then we have the LSAC, which is supposed to be split,” Commers said. “Some business owners in St Paul are like, ‘Well, we’re already on the Business Review Council.’ But the Business Review Council acts as a sounding board and a guidance giver for the mayor and council, but in a different way than the LSAC does. The LSAC has really been charged with recommending the future of this body of work in the city. They are the boots on the ground, too.”
More from the Chamber of Commerce
In the case of the wage theft, St. Paul Chamber President B Kyle said it’s important to note that the ordinance is not “additional overreach” by the city. Instead, it “empowers the city to implement what’s already been established at a state level.”
Kyle said the chamber has been contacted by the St. Paul Labor Standards Advisory Committee as the committee looks for more business representation. She also sees why it’s been tough for the committee to gain business membership.
“People are busy. It’s just that simple, right? Which is why we have a Chamber of Commerce to advocate on their behalf,” Kyle said. “So we’ve been invited to participate in the labor standards committee in Saint Paul, which we appreciate, and we find that that relationship is very workable. In my experience, the city really does want to hear what we think and how we might provide input.”
The chamber already has representation on the city’s Business Review Council. The difference between the advisory council and the review council comes down to specificity, Kyle said. The review council specifically works on how businesses can engage with government, while the advisory committee is more specific.
John Perlich, the St. Paul chamber’s vice president of government affairs, is one of the newest appointees.
“We debate, we wrestle with policy, we get reports from department heads, we have the opportunity to weigh in on issues that we support, on issues that we have concerns with,” Perlich said. “And really, it’s another avenue for the business community to have their voice heard by the mayor and the City Council and city departments as it relates to how they interact with the larger St Paul business community.”
Winter Keefer
Winter Keefer is MinnPost’s Metro reporter. Follow her on Twitter or email her at wkeefer@minnpost.com.
