In St. Paul, hard work should be rewarded with good pay.
But too often, in Minnesota’s own capital city, ordinances that are supposed to protect workers cannot be enforced, because the city lacks the power to use civil penalties.
My organization, the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, brings together over 100 local unions and nearly 16,000 union members who live in the city. The members of the unions I work for know the importance of having the right tools to enforce the rules, and conversely the precarity of not having a way to hold bad actors responsible for their actions.
City Question #1 on voters’ ballot this year would mean St. Paul joins most other major Minnesota cities to have the ability to use administrative citations to enforce their rules, instead of just criminal convictions.
We were proud our city passed an earned safe and sick time ordinance long before the state of Minnesota and passed a $15 minimum wage ordinance that is higher than state law. We recently added a new wage theft ordinance so city staff can protect the paychecks of every worker.
But ordinances are only as good as their enforcement. I sit on the city’s Labor Standards Advisory Council and too often I hear from staff that they cannot fully enforce our city ordinances.
St. Paul — alone among the 25 largest cities in Minnesota — does not have the power to use administrative fines under civil law. Instead our ordinances, including those to protect workers, must be enforced with criminal penalties.
Too often city staff have to settle cases for less than a worker has earned because companies with deep pockets know that the criminal courts are fully occupied. Criminal judges should not have to have their calendars cluttered up with cases involving wage disputes and unpainted garages.
City staff could resolve cases faster through a civil law process instead of a criminal law process. When a low-wage worker gets shorted on their pay, every week they don’t get paid is a big deal. One short paycheck can snowball as unpaid bills lead to fines and late fees. Too often, bad employers use this dynamic to force settlements that leave a worker short.
You can read the full article at the Minnesota Reformer.