Workers Win Big in Minnesota’s 2023 Legislative Session

In November 2022 Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party* won control of both legislative houses as well as the governorship. Minnesota’s unions and grassroots community organizations seized the moment and advocated successfully for a wide range of new laws crafted to benefit Minnesota’s workers, families, BIPOC and other marginalized communities, and the environment. 

Workers Confluence grantees and their labor partners were a major part of achieving these changes, which are being hailed as “the most significant worker protections in state history” (Minneapolis Labor Review). Minnesota is now being called “the best state for workers and their families” (The Guardian).

Some highlights:

-The Teamsters and Awood Center led the way to passage of the Warehouse Workers Protection Act, over the strenuous objections of Amazon, whose East African immigrant workers are the focus of Awood’s organizing. For the first time, Amazon will be forced to reveal the secret worker productivity quotas which result in alarmingly high rates of injuries as workers race to work as fast as the algorithm says they should. Learn more about this victory from this Nation article co-authored by Awood Executive Director Abdirahman Muse.

–The Building Trades and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha fought for and won the Construction Worker Wage Protection Act. It is estimated that in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties alone every year $3 million in wages are stolen from construction workers and $11 million robbed from Social Security and Medicare due to contractors fraudulently classifying employees as independent contractors, and this new law will give workers and advocates powerful new tools to address these conditions. Learn more in this Saint Paul Union Advocate article, which was published in March, before the bill was passed and signed.

–Through their partnership with Education MN, Kids Count on Us ensured that the voices of childcare workers were centered in the campaign that won a historic increase in state childcare funding, as well as the creation of a new state Department of Children, Youth and Families. KCOU’s statement notes that this new permanent funding will “move childcare teachers one step closer to being able to afford to choose childcare as their career.”

While none of this would have been possible without electing lawmakers committed to championing these policies, there’s certainly more to the story. Unions and progressive community organizations have spent years laying the groundwork for this wave of legislative wins through collaboration, relationship-building, and organizing. From an article in the Minnesota Reformer:

“Consider, by contrast, New York state, which also features a Democratic trifecta, but is continually bogged down in internecine conflict and dysfunction. Name the issue, however, and Minnesota Democrats chose progress, be it on major issues like taxes and spending and abortion, or less heralded policies like a cap on interest rates for payday lenders…”

‘Organizing has been the heartbeat,’ said JaNae’ Bates, communications director for ISAIAH, a progressive ecumenical group.”

We at Workers Confluence could not agree more. We look forward to working with our grantees and union partners to assure that these legislative victories are properly implemented so that even the most vulnerable workers in our state benefit as intended, and to building on these wins so we can make even more powerful change together in the future. 

Further reading: Minnesota lawmakers approve 9 major worker-friendly changes – Minnesota Reformer

*The DFL is the Minnesota version of the Democratic Party. The name commemorates a 1944 merger between our state’s Democrats and the larger, more left-leaning Farmer-Labor Party.