Workers, business owners crowd Minneapolis City Council presentation of contentious labor board

After years of speculation, Minneapolis City Council members have finally laid out their long-awaited Labor Standards Board proposal, which would bring workers and employers together to deliberate new regulations for industries with well-known problems, such as labor trafficking in construction.

Labor unions are pushing for it, and two years ago, Mayor Jacob Frey and a majority of council members said they supported creating a Labor Standards Board. But the notion of creating a new layer of government, with workers having a role in regulations that impact business owners, has led to a wave of opposition from local and national industry groups.

Council members promised to pass the Labor Standards Board by the end of the year. At Wednesday’s public health committee, City Clerk Casey Carl, Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai and Council Members Aurin Chowdhury and Katie Cashman presented the structure of the panel for the first time.

Facing a phalanx of competing signs for and against the Labor Standards Board, they described the proposed board as being composed of an equal number of business owners, workers and other community stakeholders (such as consumer advocacy representatives), who would create sector-specific work groups as needed to discuss issues in specific industries and recommend policy solutions to the City Council, which would then go through its regular process of vetting new policies.

“The goal of this structure is to foster collaboration among stakeholders and creative solutions instead of one-size-fits-all policymaking,” said Chughtai. “It’s supposed to increase participation and engagement of those affected day to day by our workplace policies, and ultimately to allow for data-informed policy recommendations to be considered by the City Council.”

Chowdhury said: “What this is about is trusting our local businesses, trusting our workers and trusting consumers and experts and saying, ‘Hey, we trust you, we believe that you’re the experts, you should have a table to come together on and have a robust discussion to inform us as policymakers.’ Most [businesses], they aren’t acting in an egregious way that’s impacting their workers in a negative fashion, but we want to go and examine the sectors where workers are struggling, where labor standards that are needed are missing, to improve the workplace and in turn improve our economy.”

Earlier this year, national organizations that opposed raising wages for fast food workers in California conducted an ad blitz opposing the Minneapolis Labor Standards board. Since then, a growing number of business groups — the Minneapolis Restaurant Coalition, Hospitality Minnesota, the Minneapolis Regional Chamber, the Downtown Council and Minnesota Retailers Association — have also urged the council to abandon the board. Small business restaurateurs of color have been the most outspoken, saying they cannot withstand any new regulations after previous years’ passage of minimum wage and sick time ordinances and do not want workers telling entrepreneurs how to run their businesses.

Speaking for business owners on Wednesday, Council Member Michael Rainville predicted the Labor Standards Board would pit small business owners against their employees. “This makes the city government become a union organizer,” he said. “This will do nothing to decrease the amount of empty storefronts in Uptown or downtown. The business community has made it clear that when their leases are up, they’re going to leave Minneapolis and/or just simply close the business.”

Council Member Linea Palmisano criticized the communication around the Labor Standards Board as “nonexistent.” “I’ve been getting asked this all summer by many local business owners, and it was always, ‘I don’t know where this is in the process,’ ” she said.

Palmisano argued for a public hearing because the proposal has been controversial, but committee members voted against it after Carl, the city clerk, explained that while public hearings are required for the enacting of laws, the Labor Standards Board is just a subordinate advisory body to the City Council.

Council Member Jason Chavez argued the Labor Standards Board would be a more democratic way of considering workplace standards than the status quo, where any council member can introduce a regulation without gathering feedback from any community members.

“We should be grateful that a platform is going to exist where business leaders, community partners, unions, our community members and workers are actually going to have an opportunity to weigh in on implications of any policy,” he said. “I don’t see an issue with an advisory board that’s going to give voices to workers.”

Committee members voted 4-2 in favor of forwarding the Labor Standards Board resolution to the full City Council meeting.

In a statement, Frey said he “has long been in support of a labor standards board that is fair and balanced, but the City Council’s proposal is not.” The mayor’s office said he will support a board that has a 50/50 split between employers and employees, a 50/50 split between mayoral and council appointments to the board, and a requirement that at least two-thirds of the board members must support a recommended policy before it may advance to the City Council, rather than a simple majority.