With workers in mind, St. Paul takes step toward regulating driverless cars

October 22, 2026 by 1 Comment

Twin Cities rideshare driver Abdikani Ali warns that autonomous vehicles would undercut workers in his industry.

At the urging of workers and labor unions, the St. Paul City Council last week put the city on course to regulate autonomous vehicles before companies like Waymo and Tesla’s Robotaxi begin operating here.

The council passed a resolution Oct. 14 directing the Planning Commission to study the issue and send back recommendations for a regulatory framework that protects workers, prioritizes safety and accountability, safeguards people’s privacy and protects public transportation systems.

“We need to understand these impacts for ourselves – not take big tech’s word for it,” Council President Rebecca Noecker, who led efforts to pass the resolution, said at a press conference inside City Hall before the vote.

Already, Waymo vehicles are surveying Minneapolis and St. Paul streets, although human monitors still ride inside. The Google-owned taxi company currently operates in 15 U.S. cities. Tesla robotaxis have gone live in six urban areas.

Uber and Lyft drivers, who recently began organizing a union with Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26, have lobbied city leaders in both Minneapolis and St. Paul to act now, before autonomous vehicles begin commercial operations here, to prevent widespread job losses.

Minnesota’s rideshare industry generates over $500 million in total economic output, generating about $43 million in local and state tax revenues.

If local governments like St. Paul fail to act, Council Member Hwa Jeong Kim said, “hundreds of millions of dollars that today support working families across St. Paul would instead flow to Silicon Valley CEOs.”

Rideshare drivers like Abdikani Ali agreed. Ali supports his family by driving for Uber and Lyft, working as many as 16 hours in a day to make ends meet.

“I don’t want Waymo or Tesla to come into the St. Paul community and take away the jobs that people like me depend on,” Ali said. “I also don’t want the money and wages that we’re (earning) to leave our community and go to companies and corporations run by Elon Musk and Google.”

Council members in Minneapolis last month attempted to protect rideshare drivers’ jobs with an ordinance requiring autonomous vehicles to carry human monitors, but it failed to pass.

The resolution adopted in St. Paul, Noecker said, does not presuppose any policy outcome. Instead, the council is setting in motion a process that will seek answers from the community about what guardrails are appropriate. “The outcome of that could look a lot of different ways,” Noecker said.

The Planning Commission’s work is expected to take six months to a year.

“Our responsibility is to the people of St. Paul, not to these corporations,” Noecker added. “Depending on what our community tells us, there may be guardrails we can put in place that allow these vehicles to operate safely, but we need to do the work first. And we want to do that work now rather than wait until they are literally at our door.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Labor fed backs St. Paul’s administrative citations referendum, no endorsement in Ward 4

July 24, 2025 by

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation will recommend a “yes” vote on the ballot question before voters in the capital city this November regarding administrative citations.

The referendum will determine whether to amend the city charter to allow St. Paul to enforce certain ordinances by issuing civil fines, rather than getting entangled in costly, sometimes lengthy legal battles.

Unions have argued the change will allow for more timely and equitable enforcement of St. Paul’s labor standards, like minimum wage and earned sick and safe time.

The fines could also make it easier for the city to enforce its housing codes and compel owners of vacant or blighted properties to make improvements.

Currently, the only enforcement option available to city staff who identify a labor violation is to recommend criminal charges. Allowing for administrative citations would add flexibility to the process, advocates said during City Council hearings on the charter proposal earlier this year.

“It would allow the city to avoid burdening people with criminal convictions, and it would absolutely make a difference for low wage workers who are not being paid fairly in our city,” Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said. “The City of St. Paul should add it to their toolkit.”

Council members voted unanimously to adopt the charter amendment in January, but opponents of the change collected the signatures necessary to put the question before voters. The referendum will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Delegates to the Regional Labor Federation voted to endorse the charter amendment at their July 9 meeting. A recommendation for endorsement on the St. Paul Public Schools’ levy request could come at the next meeting, Aug. 13.

Special election in Ward 4

The federation made no endorsement in the special election to determine the Ward 4 representative on the St. Paul City Council. Mitra Jalali stepped down from the seat earlier this year.

The special election is set for Aug. 12, with polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Early voting at the Ramsey County election offices, located at 90 W. Plato Blvd., is open during regular business hours through Aug. 8, with special hours scheduled Aug. 9 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Aug. 11 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Four candidates will appear on the ballot: Chauntyll Allen, Molly Coleman, Cole Hanson and Carolyn Will.

Ward 4 includes portions of the Hamline-Midway, Merriam Park, St. Anthony Park, Mac-Groveland and Como neighborhoods.

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Labor groups applaud St. Paul’s move to allow administrative fines

February 6, 2025 by

New civil fines will allow the City of St. Paul to enforce labor standards more effectively. That includes the city’s $15 minimum wage, which workers fought to pass in 2018.

In a move praised by worker advocates, St. Paul City Council members voted unanimously Jan. 22 to allow the city to issue administrative citations.

The vote to amend the city charter, supporters said, will allow St. Paul to enforce its labor standards and other ordinances more effectively and equitably by issuing civil fines, rather than getting entangled in costly, sometimes lengthy legal battles.

It’s a tool other large cities in Minnesota have at their disposal – and for good reason, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson told council members during a public hearing on the amendment Jan. 15.

“It would allow the city to avoid burdening people with criminal convictions, and it would absolutely make a difference for low wage workers who are not being paid fairly in our city,” Peterson said. “The City of St. Paul should add it to their toolkit.”

In recent years the city has passed an ordinance establishing its own minimum wage, as well as wage-theft and sick-time ordinances, with enforcement falling on the Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity (HREEO).

But until now, the only enforcement option available to HREEO staff who identified a violation was criminal charges.

With administrative citations, the process will play out without going to court.

“The current system rewards people who are wealthy and can afford to fight the city and drag things out,” SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa’s Rick Varco told council members.

That creates an incentive, SEIU member Tavona Johnson added, for “wealthy corporations to break the law and force low-wage workers to do something about it.”

“Under the current system, employers can threaten to clog the courts and run out the clock,” Johnson, who lives in St. Paul, added. “I have lived paycheck to paycheck, and these delays and lost wages hurt.”

“If you’re a low-wage worker, any delay in getting the wages that you’ve earned can be devastating,” UNITE HERE Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg said.

St. Paul renters, small business owners and community members joined labor activists at the public hearing, where the overwhelming majority of speakers voiced support for administrative citations.

The fines could also make it easier for the city to enforce its housing codes and compel owners of vacant or blighted properties to make improvements. Tonette Clardy, a homeowner in Ward 4, complained to council members about a vacant building in her neighborhood that was recently condemned.

“As a Black homeowner, I’m afraid this building will bring down my property values, which hurts my ability to build wealth for my family,” Clardy said. “I want to make sure the building owner is held accountable, and at the same time, I don’t think they should go to jail.”

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Time has come for statewide earned sick and safe time, MN lawmakers say

January 17, 2023 by

Maria Vazquez, a member of CTUL, recalled going to work with a fever and trembling legs before St. Paul’s earned sick and safe time ordinance went on the books in July 2017.

Minnesota lawmakers today held up St. Paul’s earned sick and safe time ordinance as a shining example of policy they hope to replicate statewide.

Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul and Rep. Liz Olson of Duluth, lead authors of legislation that would extend paid sick and safe time to an estimated 900,000 Minnesotans working without the benefit, said the time has come to ensure no one is forced to choose between their paycheck and their health.

“Over several sessions here at the Capitol, we have spent a great deal of time vetting this critical solution for economic security,” Olson said during a press conference with workers and advocates in advance of the measure’s first committee hearings.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic’s darkest days, we saw just how important it was for people to stay home when they were sick,” she added. “But this was a problem well before COVID, and it’s a problem we are going to solve now.”

The solution looks much like the policy members of the St. Paul City Council sent to then-Mayor Chris Coleman’s desk in September 2016.

The DFLers’ proposed legislation would require employers to provide one hour of sick time for every 30 hours an employee works, with accrued time capped at 48 hours per year – a rate on par with the St. Paul ordinance.

Employees would be able to carry over unused time from year to year, but their accrued time could not exceed 80 hours, barring an independent arrangement between the employer and employee.

The legislation spells out a range of ways workers could use their accrued time, including to recover or to seek care for injuries and illnesses to themselves or family members.

Maria Vazquez, a member of the worker center CTUL, was working as a housekeeper in St. Paul when the city council took up earned sick and safe time. At the Capitol press conference, she recalled showing up to work with a fever and trembling legs before finally gaining access to the benefit.

“Other people would rightly ask, ‘Why are you going to work when you are sick?’” Vazquez said via an interpreter. “But when you are employed without those benefits you still have responsibilities… If I didn’t go to work, it was (choosing) between my health or the roof over my head, the food on the table.”

Preventative-care appointments and weather-related school closures also would qualify under the proposed legislation, as would so-called “safe time” – absences that result from suffering domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking.

Laura Carpenter, a former food service worker in the Minneapolis Public Schools, recalled accessing her earned sick and safe time to seek legal protection from an abusive partner in 2018.

“I was able to take the day off work and go downtown to (Hennepin County Domestic Abuse Service Center), where I was supported by an advocate who helped me navigate the legal system,” Carpenter remembered. “This resource was invaluable for my family … but I wouldn’t have been able to access it during the daytime hours if I was worried about my job security or losing my income.”

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have earned sick and safe time laws on the books, as do the cities of Minneapolis, Duluth and Bloomington.

In St. Paul, the ordinance has worked so well that council members are poised to strengthen it, extending coverage to employees of companies outside St. Paul when they perform work in the city. The goal, Ward 2’s Rebecca Noecker said, is an even playing field – something a statewide measure could ultimately ensure.

“There’s a narrative that these sorts of policies are bad for businesses, but that can’t be farther from the truth,” Noecker said. “We have seen business owners in my ward and throughout the city respond really positively to the way that these policies provide a benefit that they would like to be able to provide for their employees.”

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Council members push back against hospital cuts

February 11, 2020 by

Council Member Rebecca Noecker, whose ward includes St. Joseph’s Hospital, called Fairview’s proposal to close the hospital “heartbreaking” during a City Hall press conference yesterday.

Standing alongside nurses from Bethesda and St. Joseph’s yesterday, three St. Paul City Council members called on Fairview to reconsider steep cuts at the downtown hospitals and, instead, partner with the community in preserving care for St. Paul’s urban core.

“The services, the jobs and what it means for our community – we cannot do without them in downtown,” said Rebecca Noecker, whose second ward includes St. Joseph’s.

Fairview confirmed in December it is weighing several proposals to cut costs, and permanently closing St. Joe’s, the state’s oldest hospital, is among them.

At nearby Bethesda, Fairview already has moved to cut the facility’s admissions capacity from 90 to 50 beds.

Together, the proposed cuts amount to an “abandonment of the central city,” Council Member Jane Prince said, adding that Fairview executives “have to answer” for “a very serious decision that they are making to walk away from downtown St. Paul.”

To that end, Prince, Noecker and Dai Thao, whose first ward includes Bethesda, plan to introduce a resolution at the council meeting tomorrow opposing the hospital cuts, and demanding Fairview be more transparent and inclusive of community leaders in whatever service reductions play out at the facilities.

At a press conference inside City Hall yesterday, council members did not mask their frustration with Fairview’s failure to engage community leaders before announcing the proposed cuts. Thao said he learned what was happening from media reports in December.

“This is not acceptable,” Thao said. “When health care corporations make decisions without the community being a part of it, we know it’s not about delivering care. We know it’s about delivering profits.”

Antoinette Fiagbedzi, a nurse at Bethesda, calls out Fairview for putting profits before patients.

Noecker acknowledged “systemic issues” facing Fairview, like limited access to quality health insurance and mental-health treatment, but said Fairview executives have so far ignored offers to work collaboratively toward solutions that benefit the provider and the community.

“We are all standing around holding this safety net together, and we cannot have one of our critical partners unilaterally drop their side of the safety net and walk away from that conversation,” Noecker said. “We all need to stay in it together to solve these issues.”

The Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents nurses at both Bethesda and St. Joseph’s, has begun negotiations with Fairview to ensure layoffs are handled according to the union contract, MNA President Mary Turner said.

But Turner warned the cuts at Bethesda, one of only two long-term rehabilitation hospitals in Minnesota, won’t just be felt by hospital staff. Closing St. Joseph’s, which devotes 100 of its beds to inpatient mental-health care and serves the city’s high-poverty neighborhoods, would expand the ripple effect even further.

“There is no way we can do without Bethesda and no way we can do without those 100 phychiatric beds in St. Joe’s,” Turner said.

Nurses at the press conference questioned Fairview’s decision to put care for the most vulnerable members of the community on the chopping block when the nonprofit health system sits on hundreds of millions of dollars in hedge fund and other financial investments – and recently raised CEO James Hereford’s pay to $913 an hour.

“Health care is not about if you have income or not,” Bethesda nurse Antoinette Fiagbedzi said. “When you care about people, you don’t think about their income. You don’t think of whether they have insurance or not. You do it out of love.

“That’s what we stand for, that’s what my colleagues stand for.”

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Voters back labor candidates, campaigns in local elections

November 12, 2019 by

Candidates carrying the unified labor endorsement performed well in local elections across the East Metro last week, and union members helped pass several school-funding measures as well.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, endorsed 25 candidates on the ballot in 2019, and 23 won their races. All six school levy and bond referendums endorsed by the federation won voter approval, including a record-breaking, $326 million facilities investment in the White Bear Lake school district.

“It was great to see our communities support investments in our schools – in both learning and infrastructure,” said Kera Peterson, the St. Paul RLF’s political director. “Our communities also voted to elect school board candidates who support public education and the schools our students deserve.”

In St. Paul, all six labor-endorsed candidates for City Council won in their respective wards.

Incumbent council members Amy Brendmoen, Mitra Jalali Nelson, Rebecca Noecker, Jane Prince and Chris Tolbert took a majority of first-choice votes, tallied by officials on election night.

Three days later, after the city’s ranked-choice-voting process played out, Nelsie Yang emerged the winner in Ward 6. A member of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild-CWA, Yang ran with the RLF’s endorsement.

Additionally, Council Member Dai Thao won reelection in Ward 1 with the support of several local unions. (The St. Paul RLF did not endorse a candidate in the race.)

All three unified labor-endorsed school board candidates in St. Paul won, as did Nicole Frethem, the labor-endorsed candidate in a special election for the District 1 seat on the Ramsey County Board.

Peterson said the election results confirm that most voters in east-metro communities share labor’s values, from fighting wage theft to lifting working families out of poverty.

“It’s exciting to know that union members helped re-elect the members of the St. Paul City Council who passed the city’s $15 municipal minimum wage and earned sick and safe time ordinances,” she said. “And it’s exciting to think about how we will work together to continue improving standards for workers in our community.”

Yang, meanwhile, was among several union members and retirees who won their campaigns for local office this year.

Tolbert, who won reelection in St. Paul’s third ward, is a member of Local 2938 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Allen, newly elected to the St. Paul school board, is a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators. And Angela Thompson, a member of Office and Professional Employees Local 12, won reelection to the White Bear Lake school board.

Three union retirees, all former members of Education Minnesota, also won seats on local school boards: Louise Hinz in South Washington County, Jackie Magnuson in Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan and Margaret Newmaster in White Bear Lake.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation unites more than 100 local unions in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago counties. Together, they represent over 50,000 working people.

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St. Paul’s union-endorsed candidates aim to build on city’s new labor standards

November 1, 2019 by

In November 2015, when St. Paul last held regular City Council elections, the city had no earned sick and safe time ordinance on the books, and hardly anyone at City Hall was talking about a $15 minimum wage.

What a difference four years make.

When voters in St. Paul go back to the polls Nov. 5, they will weigh in on an historic shift in the council’s agenda. Raising labor standards within the city limits, many council members said, is work that would not have gotten done without the partnership of local unions.

“It was definitely the catalyst,” said Ward 3’s Chris Tolbert, a lead author of both the sick leave ordinance and the $15 minimum wage. “My plan is to continue to partner with labor and look for ways we can enhance those protections, make sure there’s compliance across the board and continue to look for ways to have better working conditions for St. Paul workers.”

Tolbert is one of five labor-endorsed incumbents seeking reelection, along with Rebecca Noecker in Ward 2, Mitra Jalali Nelson in Ward 4, Amy Brendmoen in Ward 5 and Jane Prince in Ward 7. Nelsie Yang, a member of the Communications Workers of America, is the labor-endorsed candidate in Ward 6.

• Click here for a full list of labor endorsements in the Nov. 5 elections.

• Click here for information about voting, including your polling location.

In interviews with The Union Advocate, all six endorsed candidates voiced support for backing up the city’s new labor standards with education and enforcement. Nelson called it “the next step to protecting our hard-fought victories … so working families in St. Paul receive every dollar and day off they have earned.”

Already, workers have come forward with complaints they are not getting the sick leave mandated by the new ordinance. Prince said that’s something the city needs to fix soon – before the citywide minimum wage kicks into effect next year.

“The city hasn’t been in the business of enforcing labor laws before,” Prince said. “So now that we are, it’s really important that we be deliberate and intentional about it.”

“Our endorsed candidates have proven they’re serious about listening to working people,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said. “They’ve earned our support Nov. 5.”

Here’s more of what the endorsed candidates had to say in interviews with the Advocate:

• Amy Brendmoen, Ward 5

In the eight years Amy Brendmoen has served on the City Council, St. Paul has emerged as a leader in advancing policies that improve working families’ quality of life.

Now, she says, it’s time for the rest of the country to catch up.

“The $15 minimum wage and earned sick and safe time will be the best policies when they’re statewide and national policies,” Brendmoen said. “We need to take the momentum from the city level and help move that platform on a statewide basis.”

That won’t happen, she added, unless the city can show its new labor standards work. Brendmoen wants to see the city take steps to adequately educate the community about its new labor standards and, of course, enforce them.

After being elected council president last year, Brendmoen now chairs the city’s budget committee. That means she’ll play a critical role in securing funds for the city’s new office dedicated to implementing labor standards.

Brendmoen knows she’s likely to hear from her partners in the labor community along the way.

“They know that I’m accessible and approachable, so I feel like I get calls, texts, emails and in-person visits often,” she said. “It helps make sure we plan our policies right from the get-go.

“It seems like with lots of other advocates, the response comes after a policy is in place. But with labor it happens before, after and during.”

Mitra Jalali Nelson, Ward 4

Running in a special election to fill the Ward 4 seat last year, Mitra Jalali Nelson campaigned eagerly in support measures to address inequities that plague the city. She won decisively, just in time to cast a vote in favor of the $15 minimum wage.

But Nelson isn’t about to stop fighting.

“We have a lot of work to do to make sure that St. Paul is an equitable and safe place for working people to call home,” she said. “But we’ve made tremendous progress in just the one year alone that I’ve been in office.”

As someone who rents her home, Nelson has been a fierce advocate for measures that make housing more attainable and affordable in the city. It’s an essential part, she says, of making St. Paul a place that’s livable for working families.

Nelson is currently working to pass new protections for renters, and she helped secure a $10 million investment in the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. At the same time, she works to make sure city-backed development deals uphold community – and labor – standards.

“City development deals that receive public subsidy or other public benefit should always have to meet community benefits agreements that include strong hiring, labor, prevailing wage and contract standards for developers and workers involved with the project,” she said.

Rebecca Noecker, Ward 2

Rebecca Noecker isn’t running for school board, but she is putting public education at the forefront of her reelection campaign in Ward 2.

Noecker is leading the push for St. Paul 3k, a city-led effort to ensure all families have access to high-quality, affordable early childhood education. Noecker lists the initiative among her top priorities, along with affordable housing and supporting small businesses.

“I am deeply invested in creating opportunities for young people,” the former middle school science teacher said. “While the St. Paul School Board sets major policy for schools in the city, I believe the city has an important role to play in supporting children and families.”

Quality childcare and preschool are unaffordable for too many working families, preventing some parents from entering the workforce and leaving too many children unprepared for kindergarten. St. Paul 3K seeks to create more equitable access to early education by creating more options, simplifying the early-education system and joining forces with the county, school district and community.

It’s just one way the council member is putting kids first.

“I am also a strong voice on the council for the city’s Right Track youth-employment program, and have consistently supported increased funding for Parks and Recreation programs that are free to all kids in the city,” she said.

Jane Prince, Ward 7

After taking her seat on the City Council in 2016, Jane Prince posed a question to folks at City Hall, and she heard the same answer from pretty much everyone she asked.

There’s no way St. Paul will ever open a new city-staffed rec center again.

Three years later, Prince proved the doubters wrong, as she secured funding to reopen Highwood Hills, a rec center closed in 2008 when the city faced a deep budget shortfall. Prince and Mayor Melvin Carter cut the ribbon on Highwood Hills last April. And yes, the facility is staffed by AFSCME-represented city employees.

It’s a victory for families in Ward 7 and an example, Prince said, of what the city can accomplish by partnering with organized labor.

“Many of the best initiatives in our city come from our union brothers and sisters,” Prince said. “The workers know what’s best, so when things aren’t going right, there’s no one better to turn to than our employees.”

The rec center isn’t the only example Prince cites.

When the mayor floated the idea of eliminating fines and fees to make the city’s libraries more accessible, AFSCME backed it. And the city’s approach to snow plowing vastly improved last year after Public Works sought input from workers and their unions.

“Complaints went way down,” she said, “and I really feel confident that it was listening to our employees that made all the difference.”

Chris Tolbert, Ward 3

Chris Tolbert doesn’t take the labor endorsement lightly, and he’s proved it over the last eight years representing Ward 3.

He was the lead author of ordinances to raise the citywide minimum wage and guarantee earned sick and safe time to all workers. And Tolbert championed a measure to extend paid parental leave to all city employees.

A big reason why Tolbert supports labor’s issues? He’s a dues-paying member of a union himself.

Tolbert works as a lawyer in the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, and he is a member of Local 2938 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“I’m grateful for all that labor has done to improve the lives of workers not just in St. Paul, but across the state and across the country,” Tolbert said. “And I continue to appreciate the confidence unions have in me. It’s been an honor.”

While the council’s work to raise standards for people in low-wage jobs has drawn much attention, Tolbert is also working to attract good jobs to the city. He co-founded Full Stack, a public-private partnership focused on attracting, retaining and growing innovative jobs and businesses, last year.

“We have to continue to make sure not only do we have living-wage jobs, but we’re continuing to create more living-wage jobs,” he said, “so more people can support their families and be able to live in a city like St. Paul.”

Nelsie Yang, Ward 6

The culturally diverse East Side neighborhoods in St. Paul’s Ward 6 include some of the city’s highest levels of concentrated poverty.

It’s a very different city than the one Nelsie Yang sees in other neighborhoods.

“When I drive to more affluent, predominantly white areas, these places look drastically different from the East Side,” Yang said.

Now, the community organizer and daughter of Hmong refugees is running for City Council to make sure the people who live in her neighborhood get their fair share –“because we are not getting that on the East Side of St. Paul right now,” she said.

Yang wants to see the East Side get more infrastructure investments, like roads, transit, bike lanes and walkways. She wants the East Side’s rec centers to stay open longer and support children whose parents work multiple jobs. She wants the city to strengthen renters’ rights and mandate that developers doing business in the city commit to a minimum amount of affordable housing.

And Yang, a steward in the Minnesota Newspaper Guild-CWA’s bargaining unit at TakeAction Minnesota, wants to partner with unions to get those things done.

“Having the people power of labor unions and people working alongside each other, that’s how we will build toward a progressive future for all of us,” she said. “People are so ready to get invested and activated.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Wage hike shows what’s possible when workers join together, think big

December 19, 2018 by

Working people celebrated at City Hall as Mayor Melvin Carter signed St. Paul’s new $15 minimum wage ordinance Nov. 14.

Six years ago, when fast food workers in New York and, later, cities across the country began striking and rallying in the streets for a $15 minimum wage, the idea was dismissed as too radical.

Today, it’s written into the City of St. Paul’s legislative code.

Members of the City Council voted unanimously Nov. 14 to phase in $15 for all workers – indexed to inflation – over the next nine years. Within minutes of the vote, Mayor Melvin Carter, who made $15 a rallying cry in his bid for office one year ago, had put his signature on the ordinance.

That set off a celebration like few others at City Hall, where many of the working people who led the fight for $15 had gathered to witness the historic moment.

Shalantra Taylor, who works at a McDonald’s in St. Paul and is looking for a second job to make ends meet, was among them. She thanked Carter and council members for “listening to workers, for standing with us.”

“I am homeless, and I’m not the only one,” Taylor said. “Many working people have to work multiple jobs and are still living paycheck to paycheck… This minimum wage law is going to lift up working people and address racial inequalities in our city.”

During a signing ceremony at City Hall, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter showed off the city’s new $15 minimum wage ordinance, which drew unanimous backing from members of the City Council.

Making history

Taylor and other workers never wavered in their demands, and they resisted efforts to divide them along the lines of age, experience or industry.

When the restaurant lobby pushed a subminimum wage for tipped workers, a coalition of worker, faith and community organizations pushed back – both in the streets and in formal meetings with elected officials. As a result, the so-called “tip adjustment” never even came up for a vote before the council, and it is not included in the new ordinance.

By the time the ordinance was introduced this fall, the 15 Now Coalition had gained the influence necessary to go toe-to-toe with powerful lobbying interests like the Minnesota Restaurant Association and big-box retailers. And it did so by fusing the energy of community members fighting entrenched poverty and racial disparities with the power of organized labor.

When those groups share a bold, progressive policy vision, labor historian Peter Rachleff said, it’s a recipe for making history.

“I think the fight for $15 nationally looks more like the fight for the eight-hour day and the fight against child labor than it looks like anything else in American history,” Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library, said.

All three movements were initially derided as too ambitious.

“People said it’s too much too fast, but it’s that kind of evocative vision” that inspired the fight for child labor laws and the eight-hour day, Rachleff said. And it’s a similarly bold vision inspiring workers to fight for $15 today.

“We’re not talking about 2 percent a year or a $2 raise,” Rachleff said. “By putting $15 up the flagpole, people felt it was worth fighting for. People could imagine their lives being changed by making that kind of money.”

In 2017, fast food workers went on a Labor Day strike to launch the campaign for $15 in St. Paul.

Labor support ‘essential’

From the earliest stages of the Fight for $15, unions in the Twin Cities have recognized the importance of fighting alongside workers, whether union or non-union, pushing for a higher minimum wage.

Union members marched alongside striking fast food workers in the early days of the campaign, and many labor organizations, including the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, helped make $15 a litmus test for candidates running for mayor in 2017.

“Raising the minimum wage, without a tip adjustment, was a fight our affiliate unions and delegates realized was essential to who we are,” St. Paul RLF President Bobby Kasper said. “The labor movement won’t remain relevant unless we’re fighting for all working people.”

After Carter announced plans to take on the issue in his first year in office, the St. Paul RLF began hosting weekly meetings with activists and organizers from the 15 Now coalition. Several union members sat on the study group whose recommendations formed the basis of the minimum wage ordinance.

Now that the ordinance has passed, the 15 Now coalition will focus on education and enforcement in St. Paul, with an eye on taking the movement statewide.

“It’s a really ambitious idea,” Rachleff said. “But the beauty of it is it will force people to do the kind of metro-outstate organizing we need so desperately, not just in Minnesota but also in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest.

“Those conversations don’t happen if there isn’t a focal point.”

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Fight for $15 moves to city hall

September 12, 2018 by

Supporters of a $15 minimum wage ordinance display more than 2,000 petitions signed by supporters at a press conference outside city hall.

After months of neighborhood organizing that sometimes spilled over into the streets, St. Paul workers who want a higher minimum wage are bringing their fight to city hall.

“We have waited over a year as the city has discussed this issue,” said Pastor James Erlandson of Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul. “The time for debate is over. It’s time to pass the ordinance.”

Erlandson and other supporters of a $15 minimum wage staged a press conference today in advance of the City Council’s public hearing on the issue tonight.

The hearing will follow a presentation by the Citizens League on the findings of a committee charged with studying the issue over the summer. The 21 business owners, low-wage workers, nonprofit executives and other stakeholders did not issue a stand-alone recommendation to the council. Rather, they forwarded three “scenarios for consideration,” all of which would put St. Paul on the path to a $15 minimum wage, with annual inflationary increases.

That’s a big win for low-wage workers in St. Paul and the organizations – unions included – fighting to raise the wage. It’s a win, too, for the city’s voters, who elected Mayor Melvin Carter to a landslide victory last fall on a platform that included full-throated support for $15.

Tou Vang, an organizer with Hmong Americans for Justice, praised the committee for recognizing the “crisis of poverty” in St. Paul. It’s estimated that one of every four St. Paul workers earns less than $15 per hour, and 40.8 percent of St. Paul residents live in poverty, a higher rate than any other metro-area community.

“In addition to the committee’s research and discussion, it’s clear the outcomes of the process were influenced by years of workers rallying, striking and organizing for living wages and dignity,” Vang added.

(Citizens League)

Carve outs still at issue

While the study committee’s three scenarios all embrace $15, they do provide exemptions for city-approved youth training programs and employers who hire workers with disabilities. The scenarios also differ in how long employers would have to phase in the full $15 minimum wage ­(between four and seven years, depending on the size of the employer).

One scenario includes a subminimum wage for tipped workers in “full service restaurants,” which unions and many restaurant workers oppose. In fact, the study committee included a scenario with the “tip credit,” as its known to supporters, even though it failed to receive support from a majority of committee members.

The issue has been a point of contention at two public input sessions hosted by the city so far. (Two more sessions are scheduled later this month.)

Servers and bartenders in many states with a subminimum “tipped wage” rely almost entirely on their customers’ goodwill for their incomes, a dynamic that, as several studies show, puts workers at a greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment and wage theft.

Erin Lynch, a tipped worker in St. Paul, said she already experiences sexual harassment on the job, even though Minnesota is one of seven “equal treatment states,” with no tip credit on the books.

“I’m forced to weigh my dignity in these situations against my income in the form of tips,” Lynch said. “A tip penalty forces workers like me to rely more on tips in situations like these, and to put up with inappropriate behavior to supplement my income.”

A push to be bold

As council members begin the work of crafting an ordinance, two recently released reports provide fodder for advocates pushing strong, progressive action.

Last week researchers at the University of California Berkely issued an analysis of trends in the first six major U.S. cities to raise the minimum wage higher than $10. The team of economists found significant pay increases and, critically, no significant employment reductions in the six cities.

“When these minimum wage policies were being considered, some predicted that they would lead to significant job losses,” co-author Carl Nadler said. “We did not find such job losses. We did find that these cities’ minimum wage policies increased the earnings of low-wage workers, just as intended.”

Earlier this year Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, surveyed more than 500 people working in St. Paul, and their responses, analyzed in a report issued last month, shed more light on the city’s crisis of poverty.

Nearly half of workers reported earning $10 per hour or less, with 90 percent earning less than $15. Half of those surveyed said their income provides support for someone else – a loved one or family member – as well as themselves.

What would $15 mean for workers surveyed? Paying down debt or paying bills on time was the most frequent response. Others included improved housing options, less anxiety and more time with family.

That’s the case for Marfa Malcolm, who shuttles between three different jobs as a caregiver, and her 16-year-old daughter, who works in food service on weekends to help support their family.

“There are days when I work the overnight shift and I come in by 8 o’clock, and she’s gone to school,” Malcolm said outside city hall today. “When I go home and she’s home, I have to be doing my other part-time job. I can’t get to spend time with her, and she really needs me.

“So if you value family, I think you should pass $15 now.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Women workers take on MN restaurant lobby over tip penalty

June 28, 2018 by

St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman joins a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul.

Women workers delivered a message to the state’s powerful restaurant lobby yesterday that an attack on tipped workers’ wages is an attack on women.

Tipped workers joined union members and other supporters in a march on the Minnesota Restaurant Association’s offices in St. Paul, where the women staged a rally and delivered a letter demanding the organization end its campaign to carve out a subminimum “tipped wage” in St. Paul.

“I want to keep one fair wage in my industry,” St. Paul barista Evann Zuckerman told other activists at the rally. “I want the MRA out of the way, and to stop putting profits over people.”

Mayor Melvin Carter, who made a $15 citywide minimum wage the centerpiece of his 2017 election campaign, wants an ordinance on the books by the end of the year. Among the biggest questions he and City Council members face in drafting the ordinance is whether to include a tipped wage.

MRA is lobbying hard for a carve-out, as the organization does any time elected officials consider raising the minimum wage. (The MRA also supports a statewide law stripping cities like St. Paul of the power to raise labor standards in their communities.)

Minnesota is one of seven states without a “tip penalty,” which allows restaurants and bars to pay workers a lower wage as long as they make up the difference in tips. Not only is the arrangement highly susceptible to wage theft, but it also puts servers and bartenders – 70 percent of whom are women – at a greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment and abusive behavior.

Zuckerman, who has five years of experience in the industry, said she’s been hit on by customers and harassed by managers.

“Skewed power dynamics,” she said, are a big part of restaurant culture. The more reliant workers are on tips, the less likely they are to push back.

“Men who are already feel entitled treat female workers even worse knowing that they hold so much over us, as the minimum wage now is not enough and we need tips to survive,” she said. “The Minnesota Restaurant Association knows that making us rely on tips means workers are disempowered, and they just don’t care.”

A restaurant owner from Seattle, where the minimum wage is on track to reach $15, also spoke at the rally. Shirley Henderson urged St. Paul servers not to buy into the MRA’s warnings that service jobs will disappear or customers will stop tipping if servers’ wages increase.

“In Seattle, groups like the MRA use the same fear-mongering about $15,” Henderson said. “The sky is not falling in Seattle. Small business is thriving.”

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