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Business owners, labor advocates clash over proposed Minneapolis labor standards board

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Business owners, labor advocates clash over proposed Minneapolis labor standards board


Lev Roth works the front desk at a downtown Minneapolis condo building, helping residents use the building’s facilities and keeping an eye on who’s coming in and out. Roth says they have run into frustrations in recent years, like workplace safety concerns and scheduling headaches.

“We are given some amount of vacation time, but it’s so hard to find people to fill the shifts that we miss,” Roth said. “Having some way to make sure that people can use their vacation and sick and safe time would be fantastic.”

Those are the kinds of issues that Roth thinks a city labor standards board could address. Roth has been organizing with their union, SEIU Local 26, to advocate for the creation of a board — and the idea has long had support from the Minneapolis City Council.

After a lengthy process, council members say they plan to share language establishing the board and vote on it soon — but even before that happens, business owners and labor advocates are at odds over the idea.

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What would the board do?

While specific details are still in the works, in general the board — if formed — would be able to study specific industries in Minneapolis, like property services or restaurants.

The board would form subcommittees specific to an industry, made up of workers, business owners and community stakeholders, like consumers and academics. Subcommittees could come up with recommendations for new regulations, to be forwarded to the City Council for consideration.

The standards board on its own could not enact regulations. Its recommendations would still need to go through the council’s full legislative process. 

City Council members voted last winter to draft the design for the board. They are currently still working with city staff to craft the language; neither business owners nor labor advocates have seen a draft of the resolution.

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Minneapolis City Council member Aurin Chowdhury addresses the council during a meeting in January.

Ben Hovland | MPR News file

Councilmember Aurin Chowdhury is one of the resolution’s authors. She says workers need the forum with employers that the board would provide.

“Working people are dealing with rising cost of living, and wages oftentimes not meeting that,” Chowdhury said. “We had a number of different workers come forward and share that they are struggling in different ways.”

Pushback from business owners

But the idea has set off alarm bells for some employers. Several Minneapolis restaurant owners have rallied with Hospitality Minnesota, calling for the standards board to be blocked. 

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Chef Gustavo Romero owns Oro by Nixta, a Mexican tortilla and taco restaurant in northeast Minneapolis. 

Romero said he’s worried about the possibility that more regulations could arise from a labor standards board, creating more challenges for an industry that struggled through the pandemic.

“It looks like we’re finally getting momentum into the restaurant where people are coming out again, and it feels like they’re waiting for us to get on our feet so they can swipe us back,” Romero said. 

A man wears a hat that says Tortillas.

Chef Gustavo Romero prepares ingredients for weekend pickup orders at Nixta tortilleria in Minneapolis.

Evan Frost | MPR News 2021

Romero was one of 120 restaurant owners who signed a letter to the council in June opposing the board. The letter-writers noted that a third of its signatories identify as people of color and said they would be hit hard by new rules.

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Romero said he runs on thin margins, like many minority restaurant owners who struggled to get their businesses running in the first place. He worries that more regulations could mean more expenses, and it’s not easy to bring in more revenue. 

“I cannot charge you $6 for a taco today and $10 tomorrow,” Romero said. “We know realistically that doesn’t work.”

He’s worried members of a city labor standards board won’t understand that. 

Waiting for the draft language

City Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai said the board is designed to avoid those misunderstandings. That’s why any board research into specific industries would include employers and employees, she said.

Chughtai said she believes misinformation is behind much of the backlash. She said the council is working to include as many voices as possible in the creation of the labor standards board.

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Minneapolis City Council first meeting

Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai takes part in a meeting in January.

Kerem Yücel | MPR News

“Community members and workers and local entrepreneurs are left behind in policymaking around labor standards, or feel left behind in that type of policy creation,” Chughtai said. “I think that’s where the support of this type of policy comes in in the first place, is just people feeling like their voices weren’t considered.”

Meanwhile, proponents of the policy say they want to see the process speed up. The idea for a labor standards board was first floated two years ago, when a majority of the City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey came together with labor unions in support.

Brian Elliott is the executive director of SEIU’s Minnesota State Council. He said he thinks it will be easier to negotiate with business owners once stakeholders can see the draft language — which he says is taking longer than with other city policies he’s been involved in.

“When people don’t know, they really go for the worst-case scenario, so one of the challenges we have is actually getting out a draft ordinance,” Elliott said. “For this policy, we are all waiting for a draft.”

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City Council members said they hope to have a resolution ready to review in the coming weeks.

The labor standards board is part of a bigger push, in Minneapolis and nationwide, to give workers a seat at the table. Unionization efforts have gained momentum in recent years, including at several Minneapolis restaurants. Kim’s in Uptown recently unionized, after owner Ann Kim told workers to vote against the effort. Workers at Colita and the four locations of Café Cerés announced their intent to unionize last month. 

Lev Roth says they want that seat at the table.

“The backlash I’ve heard is from employers who say that they know best what their employees need. I can’t imagine that employers know better than employees what employees need,” Roth said. 

City Council members say they’ll schedule more meetings with employees and employers to hear opinions about the board as they continue drafting the resolution.

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Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead

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Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead


A sunny and warm Sunday is in store for the Twin Cities, with even higher temperatures expected on Monday before a chance of rain and cooler air returns later in the week.

Sunday forecast

Local perspective:

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Sunday is starting with some cloud cover before sunshine moves in with highs near 70 degrees around the metro and southern parts of the state. 

Winds will be much lighter than Saturday, coming from the south at 5 to 10 mph with only occasional gusts up to 15 mph. 

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The Brainerd Lakes area will see temperatures in the 60s, while the North Shore will be cooler, which is typical for this time of year. 

Sunday’s weather is expected to be dry and pleasant.

Overnight, temperatures will drop to the upper 30s and lower 40s, with some clouds moving in ahead of Monday. 

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Extended forecast 

What’s next:

Monday could be the warmest day of the week, with highs in the lower 70s for the Twin Cities and some spots in southern Minnesota possibly reaching close to 80 degrees.

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Winds will shift from southerly to southeasterly and then easterly as the day goes on, but should remain light. 

After the warm start to the week, a cold front will move through on Tuesday, bringing a chance for a few rain showers in the early morning. 

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Temperatures will likely drop to the upper 40s by Wednesday and Thursday, with another front possibly bringing showers late Friday into early Saturday.

The rest of the extended forecast calls for temperatures close to or just below average, with highs in the upper 40s to lower 50s.

The Source: This story uses information from the FOX 9 weather forecast.

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Minneapolis, MN

Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire

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Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire


Firefighters are investigating the Minneapolis’s second fire fatality of the year after a man died in a house fire Saturday afternoon. 

Fatal fire on 28th Avenue South

What we know:

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According to the Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD), fire crews arrived shortly after 1:00 p.m. and found smoke coming from the second floor of a single-family home on 28th Avenue South. Bystanders alerted firefighters that someone might be trapped inside.

Crews had to work through heavy debris to reach the upstairs area. It took about 40 minutes to fully put out the fire.

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During the primary search, firefighters found a man in his 60s dead on the second floor. No one else was found after searching all the floors.

Minneapolis Animal Care and Control took in a dog found outside the home.

Assistant Chief Wes Van Vickle said, “The department is grateful to the neighbors who alerted fire crews that someone may still have been inside, allowing them to act quickly.”

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Fire safety reminders and community response

What they’re saying:

“This afternoon’s tragic loss of life weighs heavily on all of us, and we extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased,” said Van Vickle.

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He also encourages the public to regularly check and maintain smoke detectors and fire extinguishers at home.

There were no other injuries reported. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner is working to confirm the man’s identity.

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What we don’t know:

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the man’s name has not been released.

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Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump

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Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump


ST. PAUL, Minn. — Organizers of Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies across the country are predicting that the protests against the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration could add up to one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, with Minnesota taking center stage.

Organizers say more than 3,100 events have been registered in all 50 states, with more than 9 million people expected to participate.

And they’ve designated the rally at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul as the national flagship event, in recognition of how the state where federal agents fatally shot two people who were monitoring Trump’s immigration crackdown became an epicenter of resistance.

Headlining that observance will be Bruce Springsteen, performing “Streets of Minneapolis,” which he wrote in response to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and in tribute to the thousands of Minnesotans who took to the streets over the winter. Springsteen’s Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, which has a “No Kings” theme, kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis.

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Minnesota organizers have told state officials they expect 100,000 people could converge on the Capitol grounds, where last June’s event drew an estimated 80,000 people.

The St. Paul rally will also feature singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda,Sen. Bernie Sanders and a long list of other activists, labor leaders and elected officials.

The White House dismissed the nationwide protests as the product of “leftist funding networks” with little real public support.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events, said in an interview. Countries with constitutional monarchies call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.

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For those unable to attend in person, another activist group, Stand Up For Science, is hosting a “virtual and accessible” event online.

National organizers told reporters in an online news conference Thursday that they expect Saturday’s protests to be larger than the first two rounds of No Kings rallies, which they estimate drew more than 5 million people in June and more than 7 million in October.

“This administration’s actions are angering not just Democratic voters or folks in big blue city centers – they are crossing a line for people in red and rural areas, in the suburbs, all over the country,” said Leah Greenberg, the other co-executive director of Indivisible. “The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,”

Two-thirds of the RSVPs have come from outside of major urban centers, Greenberg said, listing registration surges in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in competitive suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

“Millions of us are rising up from all walks of life, from rural communities to big cities at No Kings,” said Katie Bethell, executive director of MoveOn, another major organizer. “And as we do so, we will send the loudest, clearest message yet that this country does not belong to kings, dictators, tyrants. It belongs to us.”

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