Industry sign banking minnesota work order simple
well good morning everyone thank you for joining us we have another opportunity today to highlight the work Minnesota law requires that when bills show up on the governor's desk I've got three days to sign those or to send them back or to veto them it doesn't give us an opportunity to bring in the folks especially in this case our legislators our advocates and our Commissioner to highlight the work that was done around the topic of wage theft this one's also unique too because we're able to bring during this signing ceremony the Attorney General here and working together on this important issue to make sure that people are treated fairly the law is followed and we also have a level playing field for the ethical employers who are doing the right thing but it put a disadvantage when bad actors come in so we're going to get the opportunity here to talk a little bit about this we will have the ceremonial signing of this bill but it is more important than this because this is truly one of those pieces of legislation than the folks that are standing behind me the thoughtfulness that they put into this understanding that the education and the implementation of this was going to be the most critical factor and with that it is my pleasure to to welcome up Minnesota's attorney general Keith Ellison Thank You governor thank you very much governor you know when we talk about the United States and Minnesota being the land of opportunity part of what I always have in mind is the idea that if you work hard you mean you throw your back into it that you're gonna be able to do better for yourself and your family it's gonna pay off eventually that hard work is gonna make your family's life better except if there's weighing stuff if there's waive stuff you could work as hard as you want to but your wages are stuck and not only are they stuck you're not even getting the money that you've worked for and this is why it is particularly wrong it's not just dollars and cents it's a matter of dignity and honoring Labor and honoring the hard work people do and let's not forget those employers who do the right thing who live by the rules who say you know what we value our employees and if they work hard we're gonna pay them what we told we were gonna pay them I think that today is an important acknowledgement that Fairplay hard work and that American Dream should be in the grasp of everyone I've been working on issues of wage theft for literally years and years and I've been very pleased to be able to work with the advocates in the world of work and worker advocates on this issue I want to say that thank you to all of them I want to give a particular strong thank you to to the advocates first people in organized labor people in the community that advocates for workers people in the business community who supported this and said yes I support wage theft even though I'm a employer because I play by the rules and my business is going to treat everyone with dignity and respect I thank them specifically I also want to say thanks to members of my staff and a few others Karlee moline from my staff worked very closely with advocates with the governor's office with our esteemed Commissioner of the Department of Labor Nancy Lepik who's a pure star with representative Tim Mahoney great friend of mine for many years advocate fighting for people every day Thank You Carly I want to thank Jason plague and cool whose also was right there advocating explaining helping people understand Kelly Kemp also from my office and I also want to highlight that in mind in the attorney general's office we have actually built a wage unit and we hired two people recently and we have other people with supporting and working on them but we have at least two people who don't do anything but make sure people get their wages and those people are Jonathan Moeller who's an assistant attorney general whose practice focuses on economic and social justice issues he's now our wage theft lead and we hired an investigator why because we recognize that a lot of workers they may not trust the lawyers they need a worker to work her conversation when it comes to bringing justice in the situation Anna Vergara joins the Minnesota Attorney General Office general's office as a wage theft investigator I'm not sure John and Anna Anna are here today because they told me they were working on this topic right here right now and maybe can't be here because they're doing what they supposed to do and so I want to say thank you in their absence if they couldn't make it this morning we're grateful for them and also I want to say thank you to teary Gerstein who's been who's up professor at Harvard who came out here to help us pull together our unit and has been instrumental and I want to thank everybody who worked on at our office on a continuing legal education seminar we took out the whole day to train on wage stuff so that no member of our staff would be unaware of this work and how to be effective about it the point is that in Minnesota people get the money that they've worked hard and have hard for and have earned and that's going to be that is now the law of the land as the governor steps forward to sign the bill thank you very much legislators get an opportunity to work on many issues and many of those issues flow through this through the process and you get them done I've had two that I will always remember the day that we passed them and the day that we sign we've got him signed when was the second chance coalition on people coming out of prison and the other one is this one men and women go to work every day for eight hours and they should get paid for eight hours and the idea that in the state of Minnesota for the last 7,500 years it's always been just an administrative issue that had to be dealt with through without the power of law behind it today although I expect most of it to all be administrative we now have a felony charge against these thieves that are stealing money from working people that's amazing we now have the toughest wage theft law in the nation and the governor is earlier speaking to the fact that he's already been contacted by other states so of I on how to do this so that we can protect working people across not just Minnesota but across America that is the goal here at the end of the day we cannot continue to treat working people that way it's amazing we have now when you go to work you have a list of the of the deductions that are legal to take required to be handed to you we've never done that most law most employers do and that's the SEM the symptom symbol that our our employers in this state a hundred and sixty thousand plus are good employers but for the bad apples that steal from people we have to do this is it 40,000 people were applied for help to get their money and they recovered twelve million dollars I think it was this is not the beatin numbers from last year but the year before and we have to go through all of this because of a few bad apples but twelve million dollars is a lot to put on somebody's table for dinner or a roof over their head this is a great day it's been a great session and it's a great bill and we'll protect more and more people and for the businesses in the state of Minnesota they are now on an even playing field the other piece that I'm very happy to see today as some of my colleagues that I work with from the advocates out in the audience here although the lights are a little bright and I haven't seen them for a month or so so after I'm done here I want to say thank you to all of them because they've done a great job I want to thank my colleague and the Senate senator Pratt for sitting through three and a half weeks of negotiations on fine points you must are you a lawyer in another life I want to thank like the commissioner Attorney General the governor all of those but my staff who sat throughout those three and a half weeks have were amazing and very very helpful so I appreciate all of that with that I'm going to end by saying thank you to everyone who's been involved in this and I'd like to introduce senator Pratt thank you Thank You representative for those that don't know me my name is Eric Pratt I represent Senate district 55 which is most of Scott County shakopee Prior Lake in Jordan it's it's a pleasure to be here today talking about this bill because it really shows that we can put aside partisan differences to do what's right for Minnesotans we agreed on the core value if you earn a wage you should be paid a wage it's that simple and if you're stealing somebody's wages if you're in tempting to defraud somebody you should pay a penalty because as as Attorney General said work has dignity and we want that work to be dignified and we want those wages to be paid to represent that dignity represented Mahoney and I started talking about this bill very early on in session it was I think once we got to the very point where we agreed on the on the value we were able to work through all the little details but it was I'm proud of this bill I'm proud that is being modeled by other states and I'm proud that we were able to take a very balanced approach and in looking at the needs the rights of workers along with the needs and responsibilities of employers to make sure that they all balanced out and everybody could walk away knowing that we're going to try to be fair here in the state of Minnesota so with that I'll let Commissioner Olympique make a few comments thank you I'm Nancy Leppink and I'm the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry and I don't have the same comfort comfort at talking off the cuff as as my esteemed colleague senator Pratt and representative Mahoney but I do have a few things to say some of them reiterate those things that have already been said so in Minnesota we hold fast to the belief whether you're the owner of a business or a worker employed by that business if you work hard and play by the rules you can achieve the American dream you can put food on the table and a roof over your head you can raise healthy and educated children and even put a bit away for retirement but that American Dream is stolen when businesses don't play by the rules when a competitive advantage is achieved by businesses who don't pay their workers the wages they've earned the consequences those businesses who do play by the rules go out of business and the workers lose those good jobs those employers create wage theft is a term that has become a rallying cry against illegal practices such as not paying workers for all hours worked not paying workers for overtime worked not paying workers illegally required and agreed to rate delaying the payment of wages or worse not paying them at all and the first step in combating wage theft is to enact strong laws that empower workers with needed information about the terms and conditions of their employers and protect them from retaliation when they believe their employers are not playing by the rules it supports businesses that are playing by the rules to create strong deterrence for businesses that don't and ensuring agencies responsible for enforcing the law are able to do their jobs effectively and efficiently through the efforts of the governor's office the House and Senate in particular the conference committee chairs and people who I consider friends representative Mahoney and senator Pratt and their hard-working staff and to the many stakeholders committed to combating the significant threat to the prosperity of our communities we are sick we have successfully taken that first critical step it is now for my agency in collaboration with the Attorney General and other law state law enforcement agencies to achieve compliance with this new law and we think it a privilege to be given the responsibility of that challenge thank you hi my name is Francis Hall and I live in Aldrich Minnesota I myself along with multiple other home care workers in my area were victims of wage theft we experienced our agency taking our wages and or just not paying us the agency called it recapture this ended up being thousands of dollars in wages with the support of our union SEIU health care Minnesota I was able to file multiple grievances against the agency for all of us that were victims of this since then with the diligence from our union and myself DHS and the attorney general's office looked at this and knew this was not right and they took action against the agency but other victims of wage theft are not so fortunate they just give up and never get their lost wages for many working people in Minnesota even losing a couple hundred of dollars a month could mean them paying their rent mortgage or putting food on the table for their families in ways that can be devastating to try to recover from wage theft is not okay everyone deserves to be paid for the work they have done with this new wage theft law in place hopefully it will deter other companies from doing this to the hard-working people in Minnesota thank you well thank you to Frances and and thanks for the advocates who are here you heard very articulately and specifically what's involved here I think it's important sometimes and you heard the the language that tries to soften this the impacts on this financially are three times more than robberies in the state of Minnesota so this is the same thing as if they walked in and took the money from you but it's insidious and that it undermines our faith in our system and I think as you heard say and this so I'm really proud and then representing Mahoney and Senator Pratt with with Commissioner Leppink this sounds very simple and in it our values are shared but the devil is in the details on this and to watch these these three work and work together to find the compromise to craft something that you have heard is the model legislation for the country that protects workers it brings fairness around those values it makes sure those who are playing by the rules are not penalized and we were able to get this thing done in a bipartisan manner with the advocates who are sitting out here making sure they saw their concerns reflected in legislation so I am going to proudly sign these for the advocates who are here we will then take question and answers on this topic I'm assuming there may be further questions after this groups leads today so I will be here to answer those but I appreciate all of you being here today focusing on what I think was a major achievement of the legislative session in this piece of legislation and the credit goes to the folks who are here and the advocates that have joined us today so with that here we go a large you have behind the governor here please please go ahead thank you all for your advocacy the space analysis that we can get a big airport better applicants who are joining us this is 1902 chapter 7 and this is related to state government appropriating money for jobs economic film and energy commerce establishing wage theft prevention again sounds very very simple when you stated this is work that has not been replicated anywhere else the only one that comes close to is the state of Colorado right now and that is a testament to the folks here and I would say as I put my name on this a testament to the value toward the Attorney General so clearly articulating senator Pratt the dignity of work and so with that in my pleasure to put Minnesota to the forefront of protecting workers protecting ethical employers and living by our values that a day's work means a day's pay [Applause] [Music] with that with that we will take questions specifically dealing with wage theft and at that point in time we'll clear our advocates and we'll come back and have ample time for any other questions [Music] [Music] Attorney General of the to better post I have to tell you that I'm gonna answer for them the questions that they were asking and the thoughtfulness that went into this address those questions proactively on the front end I think you heard representative Mahoney joke about senator Pratt being a lawyer in another life they they focused that way so my thought is this is and I think we're getting the feedback a very well-written piece of legislation governor is that you know in the United States people have the right to civ
l redress so you anybody can sue anybody for anything at any time but I don't think that there is a good-faith challenge to be made against this legislation it's thoughtful it's clear and guess what you can't steal people's wages and there's no court who's gonna say you can so I think we're in solid ground and and we're prepared to defend this issue with senators Pratt and senators Mahoney who were in addition to passing a strong law I'm sorry represented my excuse me I did I didn't do that during negotiations so I probably part of the reason we were successful so of course it was understood that when you pass a strong law that makes promises to citizens that you have to back that up with the resources and the competency and capacity to effectively achieve compliance with those laws so I think we have a very strong down payment both the money that was appropriated in the last legislative session and now in this legislative session to be able to be in a much more proactive manner tackling this issue there's not an law enforcement agency on earth who wouldn't say they could could use more resources but I believe the state of Minnesota has made a very strong downpayment on what is needed [Music] my my belief is that we have sufficient resources to have an impact on on compliance and so therefore we will do everything we can with the resources we have the resources were in this biennium was three point zero nine two million for this biennium and next that will primarily purchase human resources so this will enable the agency to increase the number of investigators that we have enforcing compliance with this law at this point we're looking at between seven and eight new investigators who will be added to the agency and it's in addition to how many you already have we have approximately eight folks now who are responsible for particularly minimum wage and overtime obligations and so therefore you as you can see this is a would double that number I mean as I discussed this with representative Mahoney and Senator Pratt you kind of think of a water brigade and you know for a water brigade to be effective you need to have enough to get the water from the river to the burning house and with the resources that we have we have enough resources to get the water to the burning house with regard to wage theft and we will use those resources very strategically we have no interest in investigating employers who are in compliance with the law and we have every reason to use our data and our resources to very much focus on those industries and sectors where we know there are challenges and that means not only enforcement about working with those employers to come into compliance with the law [Music] yes this is a multi-faceted strategy one the agency will be looking very carefully at who we hire because who we hire is really part of our strategy so if we want to reach out to vulnerable communities vulnerable workers we need people who are able to communicate with those communities and are able to understand the context in which they're working so that so we will not only be waiting for them to call us but we will be actively engaging with community organizations with advocacy groups with employer organizations to be able to ensure everyone understands what their rights and responsibilities are and they get the assistance that they need to comply and also to express their to bring their complaints forward but we're also hoping to be much more proactive in terms of not waiting for complaints but actually working on focusing on sectors where we know that there are issues and working in advanced with communities to better understand what is going on they should call the Department of Labor and Industry so sorry I don't have a number but and also they can which they can get on our website to to seek assistance sometimes it's simply requiring into additional information sometimes it is to file a complaint so they should definitely be contacting the Department of Labor and Industry either by email or by telephone and that we will then work with them to to provide them with the assistance that they need [Music] so Minnesota so first of all vulnerable workers are come in all varieties and so consequently its sometimes it is their legal status sometimes it is because they have a disability sometimes it is because they're in an isolated working situation sometimes it's because they have they have limited skills there's all sorts of things that make in workers vulnerable to being taken advantage of and so consequently there's no no one thing that they characterize as vulnerable workers that are vulnerable under Minnesota law if you work you have a right to be paid who alleges wage and a few folks who that indeed happen you enforce that law in the case yes that's a yes let me just say this you are not entitled to steal people's wages based on their immigration status or lack thereof we will enforce that law and so we know that the good employers pay people properly and abide by all laws those there are some folks who we know seek out undocumented people because they think there won't be enforcement action those people are mistaken and they should abide by the law well we don't seek out conflict with the Trump administration but we have never failed to step up and defend the rights of Minnesotans whenever it was warranted we will stand on the side of basic human dignity and and we will not put people at risk or dehumanize anyone due to their status one person that didn't get thanked was Senator gazelka he insisted that human trafficking be included in the language in this bill now human trafficking is typically believed to be prostitution but I think most people in this room also understand that human trafficking comes in the form of labor trafficking where one person gathers ten or twenty workers and then figures out a way to say I'm gonna pay you in cash you want it to pay taxes you want it to pay Social Security or anything else and then steals that money so through senator Pratt senator gazelka insisted that that be part of this particular so not only immigrants legal status or not we're gonna go after anybody that steals money from people who work for a living and we will I have no doubt that that will happen here but we will be checking in on on it legislatively both in the Senate I suspect in the Senate and in the house what happened with the Lakeville trucking company that was the point of the case for Wake Tech originally when they been closed and changed names and so with the assistance of the Attorney General's Office the department was able to reach a settlement in the bankruptcy court to obtain the payment of workers that were harmed by the that company's actions and so consequently that settlement provides for the payment of back wages to those workers out of that bankruptcy proceeding what sectors are the main ones in a Commissioner you said certain sectors will be targeted over them I'm sorry there was a question for the commissioner and I'll you know I just want to reiterate what represented Mahoney said one of the first meetings I had with the Attorney General was talking about wage theft as being one of many crimes that was happening and so if this can be a gateway into an investigation with a bad employer to find some of these other more egregious charges then then by all means we should be doing that you know as far as the resources one of the reasons we made this law so tough is we want to send a signal to bad employers out there that you cannot do business in Minnesota period we don't want you here and so I think one of the things when we start talking about budgeting is we're going to be looking at how much we can we really need in order to enforce the law we're not opposed to spending money where it's it's effective and where it's needed but my hope is that with this law we will be able to deter those bad actors from even coming here and protecting our good Minnesota employers with that again I think you're the commitment that's up here this is a great day to sign this into law I think it's also something you're seeing that I have been told is not all that usual you see the Department of Labor industry working with the legislature hand-in-hand in both the crafting of this and now talking about enforcement and the governor's office standing with the attorneys general's office working hand-in-hand to get those things done that is not necessarily the norm we believe it's the best way to make this happen so Minnesota workers are going to be respected Minnesota's good employers are going to be protected and as we said this is what we do in Minnesota we lead with our values and craft legislation accordingly so thank you all we'll make a little break here and then I'll be back
