Shocking!

Not the DFL

The Democratic Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota is on a serious tear.

Having control of the Governor's manshuion and both state houses, they have passed a plethora of progressive legislation, most notably major pro labor legislation:

Minnesota Democrats say a sweeping labor bill they passed on Tuesday could be the most significant worker protection bill in state history.

“This bill is a big damn deal,” said Sen. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, during a news conference.

The labor bill (SF3035) includes a Democratic wish list years in the making that will affect virtually every worker in the state. The bill mandates paid sick days, bans noncompete agreements, boosts funding for workplace safety inspectors and increases protections for workers in nursing homes, Amazon warehouses, meatpacking plants, construction sites, hospitals and public schools.

Democrats are also advancing a host of other labor bills that will create a statewide paid family and medical leave program, expand unemployment eligibility for hourly school workers and give hospital nurses a greater say in staffing levels.

Here are nine major labor changes in the labor bill passed by the Legislature, which the governor’s office says he’ll sign.

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Unionized teachers will be able to negotiate over adult-to-student ratios in classrooms and student-to-personnel ratios, which could include school psychologists, custodians, or other staff. They will also be able to negotiate over student testing beyond what the state mandates.

The new rule won’t guarantee that schools will have smaller class sizes. Rather, teachers may now bargain over these provisions in labor contract negotiations with school districts.
New board will set industry-wide pay and benefits at nursing homes

Minnesota will create a first-in-the-nation board with the power to set minimum pay and benefits for workers at all nursing homes across the state. The Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board comes close to the sector-wide bargaining — common in Europe — in which labor groups negotiate pay and benefits for an entire industry rather than with individual employers.

The board is a leap forward for unions like SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, which represent about a quarter of nursing home workers in the state. Having minimum standards removes an incentive for nursing homes to fight union efforts, and raises the floor against which unionized workers bargain for better treatment.

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The bill also bans no-poach agreements, which operate as shadow noncompete agreements. Franchise owners within the same franchise — such as McDonald’s or Sbarro — agree not to hire from each other, which labor experts say suppresses wages.

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General construction contractors will be liable for wage theft by their subcontractors and will have to make workers whole if they aren’t paid all that they’re owed.

Construction projects are often completed through a byzantine hierarchy, with general contractors hiring subcontractors who themselves may hire subcontractors. Sometimes even individual workers are treated as subcontractors, which means they don’t receive overtime pay, Social Security benefits or workers’ compensation insurance.

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Currently, workers who have their wages stolen must hire an attorney or report it to government authorities. Such cases often take months or even years to be resolved.

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Companies that operate warehouse distribution centers like Amazon will have to tell workers what work quotas they’re held to and provide workers with their individual productivity data.

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The bill also directs state labor officials to investigate companies if injury rates are 30% higher than the average rate for comparable workplaces.

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Employers won’t be allowed to require workers to attend anti-union presentations or any other meetings to hear about the employer’s religious or political views.

The so-called captive audience meetings are often the primary way employers discourage their employees from unionizing and can be highly effective. Union organizers argue the meetings give employers an unfair advantage and violate people’s rights to organize free from interference or coercion.

It produces some real and universal benefits, and it provides some real incentives for unionization.

In most states, and certainly in the US Congress, the so-called moderates would have been busy knifing their fellow Democrats in the back.

I am not sure how the DFL managed this, but bravo.