Building Trades notch win for prevailing wage in West St. Paul

February 3, 2026 by

photo courtesy IBEW 110

By mobilizing their members and tapping solidarity from the local labor movement, Building Trades unions won an unexpected fight over prevailing wage in West St. Paul last year.

The city has long required developers to pay prevailing wages on any project that receives $50,000 or more in public assistance. But in July council members and the mayor voted narrowly to allow exemptions on certain projects, with an eye toward a housing development at 150 Thompson Ave.

The vote caught Building Trades unions off guard, but it also “kicked us into overdrive,” Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 110 representative Brian Winkelaar said. “We thought West St. Paul understood our issues.”

Electricians were among four crafts that would have been exempted from prevailing wage on the 150 Thompson project, along with plumbers, sheet metal workers and sprinkler fitters.

But other unions in the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council treated the proposed exemption as an attack on their members, too.

Prevailing-wage rules establish minimum hourly rates, plus benefits, that contractors must pay their workers. The rates are determined by an annual survey so that they reflect area standards, and they are specific to each construction trade.

Federal, state and local governments use prevailing-wage laws to ensure public investments support good jobs – and prevent low-road contractors from squeezing workers’ pay to win a public bid.

“This was an opportunity for the West St. Paul City Council to stand up and say, we want livable wages in our community,” St. Paul Building Trades Executive Secretary Don Mullin said. “We asked them to stand up for the middle class, to hold a standard in our neighborhoods – and they held that standard.”

The council originally scheduled a vote on the exemption for 150 Thompson in early September, but Building Trades unions successfully lobbied members to pump the brakes.

In the meantime, union organizers went to work, scheduling meetings with council members, encouraging tradespeople who live in West St. Paul to raise their voices and building support among the broader labor community.

“We had support from the nurses, SEIU, AFSCME, IBEW, the Building Trades,” Winkelaar said. “People said, ‘Even though it might not affect me, we’re standing with them.’

“There’s so much division in our world, whether it’s between parties or between unions, it really was great to see everybody come together.”

When the issue finally came before the council Dec. 8, union representatives and a strong majority of council members had identified a path forward for the 150 Thompson project that also protected prevailing wage.

With a crowd of about 75 union members in the meeting room, the council voted to apply the State of Minnesota’s rules on prevailing wage to 150 Thompson. Those rules allow contractors to hire registered apprentices, who earn less than journey-level tradespeople, to work on projects covered by prevailing wage.

The move will give the developer some relief while ensuring an even footing for union contractors in the bidding process, as the overwhelming majority of registered construction apprenticeship programs are sponsored by unions.

Council Member Robyn Gulley said the vote showed West St. Paul does, in fact, understand labor’s issues.

“One of the reasons that we protect strong wages is that they protect people in the community who work on these projects, and that is incredibly important,” said Gulley, a labor organizer and educator, who has earned an early labor endorsement in this year’s Senate District 65 election. “We cannot sacrifice our workers.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Budget axe falls on School District 197’s frontline workers

February 16, 2021 by

Despite putting their health at risk while providing essential care during the pandemic, paraprofessionals in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools learned tonight that the district will lay off up to 12 full-time workers from their ranks and replace them with temporary hires.

Members of ISD 197’s school board signed off on the cost-cutting measure tonight over pleas from teachers, parents and paraprofessionals to reconsider.

Protesters greeted school board members as they arrived at the district’s meeting space in Thompson Park. During a public-comment session, several speakers said special-ed students and their families deserve better than the abrupt layoffs, and so do paraprofessionals.

Lauren Kress, a site supervisor with the district’s School Age Care program, called paraprofessionals the “backbone of our children’s education,” and she urged board members to do better by the workers who “have been risking their own health and the health of their families.”

Marilee Erickson, a special-ed paraprofessional who works with early learners, said the cuts couldn’t come at a worse time for students, many of whom are returning to school after distance learning.

“The timing is troublesome,” she said. “Paraprofessionals know students throughout their buildings, and they know their needs. A temporary worker will not.”

Congress authorized $54.3 billion in emergency funding for public school districts across the country in the last round of COVID-19 relief.

But some lawmakers say more federal aid is necessary to prevent widespread layoffs in school districts, municipalities and other local governments. President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion recovery plan includes $600 billion to protect public services – and jobs for people who provide them.

At the meeting in West St. Paul tonight, Alex Barba-Cook told board members she expects to be among the paraprofessionals laid off as a result of the cuts. She has been on the job for just a year, but already, she said, “my heart is in this school.”

“The foundation of my job is having a good personal relationship with the kids,” Barbra-Cook said. “It takes a lot to build that trust over time. Now, I worry a lot of things are going to fall through the cracks.”

Paraprofessionals in West St. Paul are members of Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

School employees target Kline in fight to restore special education cuts

August 15, 2013 by
SEIU Local 284 President Keith Niemi talks to management and security staff in the West St. Paul SuperTarget.

SEIU Local 284 President Keith Niemi talks to management and security staff in the West St. Paul SuperTarget.

John Kline has enough influence in Congress to make reversing federal cuts to education a priority. But who has influence enough to get the 2nd District Congressman’s attention?

Target Corporation does, according to members of Service Employees International Union Local 284.

In an unannounced visit to Target’s West St. Paul location yesterday, activists attempted to deliver a letter asking Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel to use his company’s considerable clout with Kline to push for restoration of $9.2 million in education funds Minnesota schools lost as a result of federal sequestration cuts this year.

Kline chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, charged with oversight of federal funding for special education.

“We all know that Target has a very powerful voice and presence in education in Minnesota,” Local 284 President Keith Niemi told store managers at the West St. Paul SuperTarget. “We also know that Target is the biggest contributor to Rep. Kline’s campaign, and that Rep. Kline will listen to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel.”

Target has given $12,500 to Kline’s campaign and his “Freedom and Security PAC” so far during the 2014 election cycle, according to opensecrets.org. Only New York Life Insurance has donated more.

The funds Minnesota schools lost to sequestration were intended to support education for children with disabilities. The $9.2 million cut means about 110 school employees will lose their jobs, according to a White House estimate.

That doesn’t sit well with Melissa Demers, the mother of a child with special needs enrolled in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Schools. Demers praised Target for its charitable giving to Minnesota school districts, but she added, “Without people working, the paper and the crayons are not going to do anything for these students.”

Niemi, whose union represents more than 8,000 school employees, added: “Our special education students cannot be expected to succeed with fewer paraprofessionals, fewer teachers and fewer resources that result from cuts in funding for the education of Minnesota’s children.”

Store management and security personnel would not accept the letter to Steinhafel, and union members left the store peaceably.

Outside, Kline’s constituents said they doubted their congressman would get the message.

“With Target being a supporter and advocate of Rep. Kline – and of education – I’m disappointed they would not even deliver a letter for us,” Inver Grove Heights resident Mary deLeon Denton said.

A member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, Denton has “seen the impact of budget shortfalls on special-education programming and staff” during her 34-year career as an educator.

So, too, has Valorie Rolstad, a Local 284 member who works as a special-education paraprofessional in the Columbia Heights district. When she first took the job, Rolstad was one of 60-plus paraprofessionals in the district. “Now we are just maintaining at 30,” she said.

Local 284 is asking supporters to contact Kline and tell him to stop education cuts due to sequestration. Call Kline at 952-808-1213, or e-mail him at kline.house.gov.

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