Editor’s note: The resolution discussed in this story passed 9-3 Thursday with councilors Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw and Linae Palmisano dissenting. Prior to that vote, the council rejected a motion to delay action on the item and send it to a committee for a public hearing.
The Labor Standards Board resolution that the Minneapolis City Council will vote on Thursday has long been debated but only recently formed into an actual agenda item.
It’s been two years since the creation of the advisory board was first backed by both City Council members and Mayor Jacob Frey. It’s also drawn opposition from many business owners who believe more oversight by the city government would be damaging. Supporters include workers who say having a seat at the table to discuss business and employee needs would help both employers and their employees.
The resolution creating the board is on Thursday’s City Council agenda, and it appears to have the votes necessary for approval.
Here’s more background in advance of the council’s action:
The board itself
The board would have 15 members – 12 appointed by the council and three appointed by the mayor. The mayor, while in support of the board, has stated that he believes there should be a 50/50 split between the council and the mayor in the appointment of board members.
If approved, the board would be made up of an even split between employers, employees and “community stakeholders,” with each group having five seats. The Civil Rights Department would be the city department primarily responsible for supporting the new board.
The board would be an advisory body, so it would only be bringing recommendations to the council. It would have no power in and of itself to enact or enforce policy.
Recommendations also would have to first pass through the board’s “sectoral workgroups” – groups that are focused on employment within a particular business sector. These workgroups, according to the resolution, would make recommendations to the mayor and the City Council as they study wages, benefits, training and working conditions. They also would engage employers, employees and community members.
In a follow-up email to MinnPost, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office added that the mayor would also like to see the board have a 50/50 split between employees and employers and require a supermajority consensus before bringing recommendations to council.
“The mayor has long supported a Labor Standards Board that is balanced but the Council’s proposal is not. This lack of balance has led the business community to pull out and not participate. This doesn’t work. The mayor’s position is simple: get participation from both business and labor and pass a balanced board that can benefit good governance,” the spokesperson wrote.
Timing and lack of a public hearing
A level of mystery has persisted around the Labor Standards Board despite it being in discussion for years. In October, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal was the first news outlet to uncover an early draft of what the board could look like. The first draft resolution wasn’t publicly released until Nov. 3.
Dozens of business owners and proponents for the board filled City Council chambers last week during a Public Health and Safety Committee meeting. Many thought there would be a public hearing where they could voice their opinions about the board during that meeting, but that was not the case.
Council members explained that because the board would be created via a resolution, not an ordinance, a public hearing would not be part of the process. That means there has been no official public comment period on the issue since the draft language for the resolution was released.
With this in mind, during the Nov. 6 committee meeting, council member Linea Palmisano made a motion to delay the resolution to provide time for a public comment period. “With any controversial issue, let’s make sure to follow a transparent and open process,” she said. Palmisano’s motion was voted down by the committee’s majority.
Instead, council members referred those who want to comment on the board to the council’s online public comment forum and email.
The opposition
On Tuesday, 82 business owners sent a joint letter to the City Council urging members to reconsider the Labor Standards Board proposal. Of the signatories on the letter, 23 are business owners of color.
Much of the opposition to the board stems from business owners who say they’ve already had trouble staying afloat since the pandemic. The letter states that stressors over the past four years have already led to the closure of over 40 restaurants between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The letter lists obstacles and fears like “the pandemic, record inflation, supply chain problems, public safety threats and concerns, significant increases in city property taxes, road construction on Hennepin and Lake and throughout the city, and now this threat from the Minneapolis City Council – a proposed Labor Standards Board.”
The business owners also stated that they have not been listened to or had an opportunity to provide adequate input on the formation of the board.
“We do not feel that in this process you have listened to us or considered the hardships our businesses face across the city. Instead, this Labor Standards Board proposal has been done behind closed doors and rushed through the process, with only certain interest groups in mind,” the letter stated.
David Benowitz, president and co-owner of Craft & Crew Hospitality, told MinnPost that some small businesses in fear of further regulation are considering not renewing their Minneapolis leases once they expire. Two of his restaurant group’s seven restaurants are in Minneapolis.
“We’re looking at sites throughout the Twin Cities right now in terms of expansion, and Minneapolis is not one of them, unfortunately,” Benowitz said. “I wish that wasn’t the case. I do love this city but there are so many things working against us as a small business, and this is just another layer on top of it.”
The supporters
Last week, members of Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL) and SEIU Local 26, along with a group of City Council members that included authors of the Labor Standards Board resolution, visited a local childcare center to talk about the board and workers rights.
To CTUL member and downtown worker James Steele, the board is not about pitting employees against employers, but rather about creating a space where employees and employers can come together to collaborate.
“I’ve always found it important for workers, advocate for themselves, but I think working 40 hours a week for Target downtown, that’s what really started pushing me to advocate for workers,” he said.
Steele said Target was the largest corporation he’s worked for, and he saw a deep power imbalance between employee and employer.
“I definitely felt as though I was being talked down to by a lot of the managers that I had to fight for a lot of things, like hours, pay increases. I really just often had to beg for 40 hours,” he said.
Steele said he often found himself fighting for a 40-hour work week just so he could make rent, so guaranteed hours are among his top priorities.
Steele currently works multiple jobs as a barista and bartender in downtown and the North Loop. These current employers have been supportive and have been proactive in providing benefits, raises and a consistent schedule, Steele said. Now, Steele says he wants to help ensure this treatment continues and advocate that fellow workers across the city have support.
“The Labor Standards Board, it’s really, it’s a really great way to get employees and their employers at the same table, on the most level playing field we can possibly be on to solve the issues together,” he said. “There is this enormous power imbalance between employers and employees. So it’s exciting we’re going to be able to sit at the same table, same advisory board, and work on these issues that come up together.”
A divided council
The Labor Standards Board issue has once again shown cracks between the City Council’s progressive majority and more centrist members. At the Nov. 6 committee meeting, council members Palmisano and Michael Rainville spoke out in favor of allowing community comment and reassessing the resolution as a whole.
Because there would be no public hearing on the topic, Rainville said he wanted to voice on the record what he’s heard from the small-business community in his ward and across the city.
“In essence, what this is going to do is pit small-business owners against their employees – employees who already have protections under federal, state and city laws… This will do nothing to decrease the amount of empty storefronts in Uptown or downtown,” Rainville said. “The business community has made it clear that when their leases are up, they’re going to leave Minneapolis or simply close their business.”
Palmisano said she’s been contacted by dozens of local businesses that are “downright fearful” about the board. She asked her fellow council members who authored the resolutions, “What have you learned from small-business owners in your conversations with them?”
There have been several iterations of conversation with small-business owners both in structured settings and informal settings over the course of the last year, council vice president Aisha Chughtai responded. Chughtai is one of the authors of the Labor Standards Board resolution.
“The theme that has emerged in common across all of those conversations, at least from my perspective and from the author’s perspective, is a deep fear of what could happen,” Chughtai said. “This fear is that the city government but really government more broadly, doesn’t have the business owner’s backs, is not going to consider policies that help them succeed, survive, thrive, in our local economy. I think a common theme that’s very much so tied to that is that policies or regulations come up in the city and at other levels of government, and it’s like they happen overnight.”
But Chughtai said she believes these concerns are exactly what the labor standards board would aim to address.
“We should be soliciting input and feedback from those who are directly impacted by a new labor regulation to ask for their perspective. That’s what we’re trying to do,” she said.
Council member Aurin Chowdhury, who also is an author of the resolution, said in her conversations with the business community, specifically the restaurant industry, she has heard that the future feels uncertain. She said business owners told her they don’t want one-size-fits-all policies.
“And when I heard that, I was like ‘I completely agree with you.’ We don’t want labor standards just popping up out of the air, which is the process that we currently have. I think that is worth stating again,” Chowdhury said.
The committee meeting was held the day after the election, and some council members argued that a Labor Standards Board at the city level would provide protections for workers that could otherwise be stripped under a federal administration looking to deregulate business.
Council member Jason Chavez said many community members struggling to get by now “are going to be struggling for the next four years.”
“I just want to level-set here. This is an advisory board. I’m sorry, but the sky is not falling,” Chavez said. “We’re in a moment in our country where we have immigrants in our state, in our city, in our country who feel unsafe in a time in our country where they feel demonized, unsupported and left behind. What a Labor Standards Board does, in this moment – it’s even more (important) in this moment after yesterday’s appalling news.”
Update: This story has been updated to reflect that James Steele is a CTUL member and not a member of SEIU.
This story has also been updated to include further comment from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Winter Keefer
Winter Keefer is MinnPost’s Metro reporter. Follow her on Twitter or email her at wkeefer@minnpost.com.
