Star Tribune
Minneapolis Labor Standards Board plan gets mixed reception
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 policy makers. 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 — 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.”
In compiling a workable plan that shows a way to help families fill the gaps in state and federal aid for childcare, years of planning and advocacy paid off in greater visibility of low-income families’ struggles — and a possible way forward., Loewen said.
“The problem’s not going away, and neither are we,” he said. “We just have to determine what‘s next.”
Star Tribune
Minneapolis Park Board recommends closure of four outdoor rinks partially because of last year’s warm winter
After only one week when people could skate on outdoor ice rinks during a record warm winter last year, Minneapolis wants to scale back its number of rinks.
In late October, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board recommended closing five outdoor rinks in its proposed 2025 budget due to climate change, increased supplies and materials needed due to inflation as well as fluctuating lake ice and warming house costs. The number of suggested rink closures has since been reduced to four, according to Park Board staff.
The rinks that are recommended to close this winter are in Webber, Windom and Powderhorn Parks. The Lyndale Farmstead Park rink will close in 2025-26.
“Powderhorn and Webber are both built on water bodies, and that makes it more challenging to open and maintain than rinks built on land due to changing ice thickness and quality,” said board spokeswoman Robin Smothers.
The decision to close the Windom and Lyndale Farmstead rinks are “based on proximity to other rinks and the challenges of constructing the various sites,” Smothers said.
The Matthews Park rink was originally recommended to be closed, but Smothers said the rink will stay open since the board would not want two rink closures in one district.
All of this is subject to change until the budget gets approved by the board on December 10. If all the proposed rinks close, it would bring the number of Minneapolis outdoor rinks from 22 to 18.
Joe Dziedzic, a former Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey player who went on to play professionally for the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Phoenix Coyotes, grew up near the Windom Park rink in northeast Minneapolis. He said it saddened him to see the city potentially discontinue the rink.
From Chatfield to Duluth, Minnesotans took stock of a resounding victory for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris and kept some of their focus on local races.
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