Star Tribune
Minneapolis will require safety training for high-rise window washers — for the first time
For the first time, Minneapolis will require safety training for high-rise window washers — those workers hanging from dizzying heights to make a skyline shine.
On Tuesday, Mayor Jacob Frey signed the city’s first window-cleaning ordinance to the cheers of workers inside a union hall in northeast Minneapolis.
Starting Jan. 1, all window washers working higher than 24 feet without a ladder, unionized or not, will have to earn a certificate after training in equipment safety, first aid and crisis management.
While there are federal workplace safety rules for scaffolds and other tools of the trade, there are no regulations specific to window washers.
Why now?
The ordinance was spawned by Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). About a year and a half ago, union members worked with Council Member Michael Rainville, who represents part of downtown, and with city staff to draft regulations modeled on those in New York City, Rainsville and union officials said.
The union had sought such an ordinance for two decades. A string of deaths rattled the small network of local window washers, culminating with the 2007 death of Fidel Sanchez-Flores. The former Marine was removing snow and ice from the IDS Center’s Crystal Court when a window broke and he fell to his death.
The deaths prompted SEIU to emphasize safety in its contract negotiations. In 2010, they succeeded in creating a state-registered apprentice program. In 2021, workers struck, demanding higher wages and a more robust safety training regimen, which they ultimately got. Minneapolis’ ordinance codifies those training requirements and applies them to all window washers in the city.
How many window washers?
About 45 unionized window washers are employed by three companies in the metro: Columbia Building Services, Final Touch and Apex North. SEIU officials estimate about an equal number of nonunion window washers work at any given time are employed by several other companies, or start their own firms.
Is it a good job?
Under the union’s current contract, entry-level apprentice window washers earn a minimum of $19 an hour, while journeymen receive an hourly minimum of $29.38.
Eric Crone, a high-rise window washer for Columbia who’s been on the job 15 years, said the work has its ups and downs.
His favorite part?
“Definitely the views and getting up early to see them. People who work downtown, they always want the corner office with the view, but my view is better than theirs every day.”
And his least favorite?
“Winds in excess of 25 miles per hour means we can’t work. And the wildlife up there sometimes … I’ve seen a guy get his head split open by a divebombing peregrine falcon.”
Star Tribune
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on the campaign trial, gives a pep talk to the Mankato West High School Scarlets, a team he once coached.
MANKATO – The football players in their pads jogged out to face their rivals Friday night as Gov. Tim Walz, back home briefly as he campaigns across the country as vice presidential nominee, cheered them on.
“Don’t forget to have fun, enjoy,” Walz told players on the football team at Mankato West High School, where he worked as a geography teacher and assistant football coach before launching a political career that carried him to the Democratic Party’s national ticket.
Since choosing Walz as her running mate, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted his background as a football coach, hunter and gun owner, as Democrats reach out to Midwestern voters and look for inroads with men.
Walz’s stop in Mankato is one of a series of media stops in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the governor is talking high school football and hunting.
“This is the best of America,” Walz told reporters after greeting the players of Mankato West ahead of their rivalry game with Mankato East. He said he would visit his old classroom, before heading to watch the game.
A quarter center ago, Walz was the assistant defensive football coach for the 1999 Mankato West football team that won the state championship. That year’s crosstown rivalry game was a spark for Mankato West as it headed toward its state championship, said John Considine, a Mankato West alum and right tackle on that 1999 Class 4A championship team.
“It’s good to have him back,” Considine said Friday.
Local Republicans called Walz’s appearance a stunt. “They’re getting desperate to get the word out,” said Yvonne Simon, chair of the Blue Earth County GOP, adding she’s doesn’t think the governor’s “coach” branding is catching on.
“There’s a fair amount of stuff we’ve digested over the years,” Kerfoot told the Star Tribune at the time of the sale. “It’ll take a while to pick all of it out of me.”
In recent years, he and Sue have spent summers in Minnesota and then traveled back to Missouri to be close to family for the rest of the year.
Visitors love to drop in and talk about Justine Kerfoot or Bruce Kerfoot or the years they spent working at the lodge, Fredrikson said. He’s found that Bruce’s energy seemingly matched that of his mother, who died in 2001 when she was 94.
“He was one of those people that was able to get stuff done more easily or better than other people,” Fredrikson said. “Maybe because of who he was, or maybe because the stars align for this kind of person.”
In a social media post, Kerfoot’s family said they had peace knowing he and his mother “were paddling together to their shore lunch spot.”
Mark Hennessy knew Kerfoot for 40 years, but has had a closer view for the past three years. He said without Kerfoot, the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center, located near the end of the Gunflint Trail, wouldn’t exist. Whenever there was a work project, the executive director said, Kerfoot would show up.
A teenage motorcyclist was killed in a collision with an SUV at a Burnsville intersection, officials said Friday.
The crash occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Burnsville Parkway and Interstate 35W, police said.
The motorcyclist was identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office as Peter Vsevolod Genis, 17, of Burnsville.
An SUV driver was turning left from westbound Burnsville Parkway to northbound 35W when Genis went through a red light while heading east and struck the SUV.
The SUV driver and a woman with him, both from Burnsville, were not hurt.
The other vehicle was a Mercedes SUV. The driver was a 30-year-old male from Burnsville, with a 29-year-old female passenger from Burnsville. Neither of them was injured.
