The Minneapolis City Council voted to create the city’s first Labor Standards Board on Thursday, despite pushback from restaurant owners and others in the hospitality industry.
The ordinance passed 9-3, a margin that could insulate it from a veto threat by Mayor Jacob Frey, who recently rolled out a plan to revitalize downtown Minneapolis, in part by turning it into an entertainment, sports and dining destination.
Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai, lead author of the ordinance, said the board would give “working people a voice at the table.”
“My father was a mechanic. My mom was a domestic worker. I come from a family of educators. People like me and my family have always been the workers that leaders refuse to listen to, who refuse to hear them,” she said.
The Labor Standards Board will act as an advisory body that could help shape city policy, establishing standard working conditions for different sectors, and addressing issues raised by workers, including wage disputes.
Such boards typically include representatives for workers, local government and employers.
Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, a co-author of the ordinance, said the board would consist of 15 members appointed by the mayor and City Council. The council would have 12 appointees and the mayor would have the remaining three.
Workers rights groups including Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26 have advocated for the creation of a labor standards board for years. But a group of local restaurant owners has pushed back against the proposal in recent weeks.
“We’re scared, because it’s not even a slippery slope,” said Jared Brewington, owner of Official Fried Chicken.
Brewington said the proposal was created without stakeholder input. He said council members met with hospitality business owners but did not take their concerns seriously.
He said the issue goes beyond worker wages and that additional government layers aren’t the way to create change in his industry.
“We’re not out there to hurt our employees or people. We need people and we need employees, so we create our world for them,” Brewington said.
He also said a labor standards board could have a negative impact on efforts to revitalize downtown Minneapolis. Any additional costs business owners take on would likely be passed on to consumers.
“It would absolutely continue the downward trend, because if there’s no problem that they’re fixing, then it seems like they will sniff out a problem,” Brewington said.
Brewington was one of 82 business owners who signed a letter sent to the City Council asking them to reconsider their proposed ordinance.
“This board is unelected and unbalanced. This board will remove decisions about wages, benefits and working hours from the business owners and put them in the hands of unelected individuals who may or may not know our business. The scope of this board is overreaching, soliciting and collecting information in evasive and expansive ways,” read the letter.
Chowdhury said the board wouldn’t be able to make changes on its own. She likened the Labor Standards Board to the already existing Housing Advisory Board that’s given the council advice on policy related to housing issues.
“The influence that they [LSB members] have is coming up with a policy recommendation, doing some sort of study together and coming up with a robust policy recommendation that would come before the council,” Chowdhury said.
Frey’s office said in a statement before the vote that he supports a “balanced” labor standards board.
“The Council’s proposal is not. This lack of balance has led the business community to pull out and not participate. This doesn’t work. The mayor’s position is simple: get participation from both business and labor and pass a balanced board that can benefit good governance,” the statement said.
Frey’s three demands for his support include equal representation from employers and employees on the board along with the power to appoint half the board members. The final request was a supermajority from board members for recommendations to advance to the council.
After the vote, Chughtai denied that the ordinance was “one-sided” and said amendments ahead of the vote addressed some of the issues.
“People have intentionally muddied the waters on what this board is about and what its powers are, and that is because special interest groups oppose giving working people a voice at the table,” Chughtai said.
Estela Tirado, a downtown worker with CTUL, said the passage of the Labor Standards Board is the first time she’s felt hope for changes to come.
“I have been a part of this struggle since the very beginning, and you don’t know how proud and happy I am and I feel to have continued this process and to be at this moment of great victory,” Tirado said via a translator.
She said she’s hoping the board can mandate paid sick days, in addition to vacation time for hourly workers. Tirado ended her speech by calling for the mayor to “do the right thing” with the ordinance heading to his desk.
