Today was a busy day, with CTUL members joining picket lines in solidarity with nursing home workers and a member testifying at the state Capitol for a bill regarding misclassification. But let’s start with this powerful article that came out in MPR this morning: “Worker advocates allege wage theft at Edina apartment project site,”
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In the article, two groups of construction workers who did finishing work and post-construction cleaning on Solhem’s The Fred Project in Edina shared their experiences with wage theft for work done on the project.
“We wouldn’t always see all the hours that will be reflected and then if we worked like four hours over time, we wouldn’t get the overtime pay…And then often we also wouldn’t receive our pay stubs to be able to see our hours,” Socorro Cruz, CTUL member who worked on The Fred, a project of Solhem in Edina.
“During that time that I wasn’t paid, I had to look for different types of support. We would go to churches to be able to ask for free food or we would have to figure out how to put things together…“t just threw us out of balance,” Galdina Sanchez, CTUL member who worked on The Fred, a project of Solhem in Edina.
Solhem is now proposing a new affordable housing project in Edina – Lincoln on the Creek. Solhem has received approval of state funding for the project, and has an initial commitment of an additional funding from Edina. Edina City Council will likely review and vote on a land use proposal for the project in the Spring of 2024. CTUL supports the building of more affordable housing, but it cannot come at the cost of wage theft or other worker exploitation. We are inviting Solhem to be leaders in the industry by joining the BDR Program so that we can both build affordable housing AND ensure basic dignity and respect for all construction workers.
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Later in the day, CTUL construction leader Jose Alfredo Gomez Rosales testified at the House Labor and Industry Finance and Policy Committee in support of a bill that would increase enforcement and penalties for employers who wrongly classify workers as independent contractors, a common practice in the construction industry to reduce labor costs. The impact of this, as Jose’s testimony showed, is that workers pay a higher share of taxes, and lose out on critical benefits like overtime pay, paid sick time, unemployment benefits, and workers compensation insurance.
“Developers play a critical role in solving this problem. They put pressure down the contracting chain to find ways to cut costs on a project. Many times, cutting costs results in contractors and subcontractors misclassifying workers…We need to hold developers accountable for the ways their business practices are robbing workers in order to maximize their profits. That’s why CTUL members are calling on developers to join the Building Dignity and Respect Program to ensure workers have safe and dignified working conditions. And this bill will be an important step in protecting workers, increasing enforcement of misclassification and penalizing those in the construction industry who continue to use this exploitative model.”
Additionally, CTUL members stood with SEIU Nursing Home workers on strike, both on the picket line and at the Capitol. For more photos and coverage of the actions, look for #WinTogetherMN on Twitter and Facebook.
See you in the streets tomorrow!!
