Minneapolis - St. Paul Metro

The energy transition sweeping across the U.S. offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform Minnesota’s economy and workforce for the better.

As Minnesota works to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 as well as a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, we are addressing the risks and impacts that climate change is having on our citizens, businesses, and infrastructure while also building a solid foundation for good-paying, high-quality jobs that will sustain our local communities for generations to come.

Minnesota’s clean energy sector is already leading the way, and this year’s 2024 Clean Jobs Midwest report further underscores the tremendous growth potential that lies ahead.

Today, 62,102 Minnesotans work in a clean energy job — a new state record.

Thanks to landmark legislation like the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act — along with the state’s 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 law providing policy certainty — Minnesota’s clean energy jobs are growing nearly five times faster than jobs in the overall economy. This growth creates opportunities for all Minnesotans; 38% of these jobs are based in greater Minnesota, delivering economic benefits beyond the Twin Cities and into rural communities. Veterans account for 11.2% of the state’s clean energy workforce compared to 4.0% in the broader workforce, showing that clean energy jobs appeal to those who have served our country and are looking for fulfilling careers back home.

Small businesses, which account for 71% of clean energy jobs in Minnesota, are the backbone of this thriving sector, driving growth and supporting local economies. Clean vehicles represent the fastest-growing subsector, with jobs increasing by 13.2%, while manufacturing has also seen a significant boost, adding over 436 new clean energy jobs in 2023. With clean energy job growth expected to surge another 6% over the next year, Minnesota is poised to expand its leadership in this space while further strengthening and diversifying the state’s economy.

But to accelerate a just transition to a net-zero economy, we need smart policies that support the businesses, workers and communities driving this transition.

Policymakers must defend the federal clean energy and clean vehicle investments that are propelling job growth across the state. Developing and funding workforce development programs at both the federal and state levels will ensure Minnesotans have the skills needed to meet the rising demand for these high-quality jobs.

Additionally, investing in transmission infrastructure and continuing to modernize permitting processes will ensure the state remains open for clean energy businesses and jobs while meeting the growing demand for clean, affordable and reliable energy.

Finally, Minnesota’s policymakers must continue to advance the state’s clean energy policy leadership that complements and leverages federal initiatives to solidify and grow a thriving clean energy workforce.

As Minnesota leads the charge to a carbon-free future, stable and predictable policies are critical to helping usher in more good-paying, family-supporting clean energy jobs that are building stronger, more resilient communities in all corners of the state.

The transformation of our energy system is an opportunity to redefine what’s possible for our workforce, our economy and our future.

With our highly educated, innovative and skilled workforce, Minnesota is perfectly positioned to continue our record-breaking clean energy jobs success if we choose to seize this moment.

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Jury selection begins in federal court Monday for two men accused of human smuggling. The charges stem from the January 2022 deaths of the Patel family from India.

Jagdish, 39, Vaishaliben, 34, Vihangi, 11, and Dharmik, 3, died while attempting to cross into the U.S on foot during a snowstorm. Their bodies were later found by Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a field near Emerson, Manitoba, just yards from the international border.

Steve Shand, 49, and Harshkumar Patel (no relation to the family), 28, will stand trial for their involvement in an illegal operation based in the Indian state of Gujarat. U.S. authorities said it used fake student visas to smuggle migrants from India into British Columbia and then into the United States. Once in the U.S., they would be transported by vehicle to Chicago to work in a restaurant chain.

Gujarat police told U.S. authorities that they suspected the restaurant owner facilitated the smuggling to find people “to work in his restaurants for substandard wages.”

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Shand, of Deltona, Fla., after allegedly finding him a mile south of the border driving two undocumented people from India in a 15-passenger van. Authorities found five others walking nearby. All were from Gujarat.

Shand allegedly told federal investigators that Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national who was in the U.S. illegally and had been living in Florida, recruited him to pick up people from India who crossed the border into Minnesota and drive them to Chicago.

According to an earlier criminal complaint filed against Harshkumar Patel, Shand “described five total trips he had made to the international border in Minnesota in December 2021 and January 2022 to transport Indian nationals.”

For one trip, Harshkumar Patel allegedly paid Shand $3,500 in cash up front and an additional $8,000 after delivering people to Chicago.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial is expected to last five days.

On August 2, not long before he was selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was asked on Ezra Klein’s podcast what the Democratic Party’s top priority should be in 2025, should it win a governing majority.

“I think paid family and medical leave,” the then-VP candidate quickly answered. “We’re the last nation on Earth basically to not do this.”

Three months later, casual or even close observers of the Harris-Walz campaign would have to be forgiven for not knowing this was ever part of the platform.

Progressives were eager to spin Walz’s nomination as a victory for the left when it was first announced. By the standard of Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, Gov. Walz is a moderate, which thereby places him squarely to the left of the average U.S. politician. This includes the remaining coterie of inoffensive white dads the Harris campaign assembled for her VP short list. Unlike Pennsylvania's Gov. Josh Shapiro or Arizona's Sen. Mark Kelly, Walz had opposed military interventions while in the U.S. House, signed a bevy of progressive legislation as governor, expressed support for Medicare for All and legal marijuana, and even mounted a polite defense of the Uncommitted movement on national television.

As the Biden-Harris era has shown, on substance, vice presidents are of little consequence. Running mates can matter when it comes to crafting a narrative, however.

In the early stages of his candidacy, Walz did provide optical value to the campaign, which giddily released a video of Kamala and Tim poking fun at the governor’s low spice threshold. Walz's image—rural Midwestern National Guardsman, football coach, and hunter—gave the pundit class a few solid weeks of fodder. But when the spotlight turned back to the top of the ticket, it became evident that Walz’s selection was not indicative of a larger turn toward populism.

Even the “weird” epithet that rocketed the little-known Minnesota politician to cable news stardom was abandoned after Kamala’s advisors determined it had lost its mileage. In retrospect, Walz’s entrance on the national political scene was a short burst of good feeling in an otherwise confused and rudderless campaign.

It wasn’t that Vice President Harris jettisoned paid family and medical leave the way she had done with the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a humane immigration policy, and a host of other left-wing policies she ran on before her 2019 presidential campaign self-destructed. Like support for the PRO Act and a higher minimum wage, paid leave was buried on the Harris-Walz website’s "Issues" tab beneath the subhead “Support American Innovation and Workers” and a long paragraph touting President Biden’s accomplishments. Aside from a pledge to crack down on price-gouging and some tailing of Trump’s “no tax on tips” proposal, Harris presented little economic vision of her own.

The Harris-Walz team was positioned to lean into the policy wins of a governor who had just enacted not only paid leave, but major investments in education, infrastructure, affordable housing, a ban on non-compete agreements, ambitious decarbonization targets, free school lunches, and codified abortion rights. It'd be hard to spin that agenda as boutique and coastal when it had been signed into law by an average gun-toting, walleye-hoisting Tim from flyover country.

The point of elections, as Gov. Walz famously said, is “not to bank political capital, you win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.” As postmortems for the Harris-Walz campaign have illustrated, its literal capital apparently was spent more on celebrity appearances, consulting fees, and ominous orbs than helping Americans understand how our lives would be improved should Vice President Harris get a promotion.

When the moment presented itself, Harris failed to break with the unpopular incumbent, perhaps afraid to offend her boss or his dwindling diehards. Four years ago, Biden pitched his presidency as a “bridge” to a new “generation of leaders.” While he didn’t anticipate this metaphorical bridge would have to be lowered through threat of force, once it was, his successor had an opportunity to complete the transition away from the timidly centrist Democratic Party of yore. It was Joe Biden, after all, who won in 2020 after synthesizing his platform with that of Bernie Sanders and won, like Barack Obama, by activating the base.

Yet Harris, preoccupied with courting the scarce, elusive never-Trump Republican, managed to elevate Trumpian concerns like the "border crisis" at her own peril. It can’t be easy to craft an exciting, modern New Deal when your economic team is made up of venture capitalists and Blackrock alums, Wall Street guys who likely accept the orthodox explanation that this latest round of inflation came from excessive government spending. Adding to that swerve away from economic populism: Harris's brother-in-law, top Uber exec Tony West, acting as the campaign's "guiding hand." Tim Walz, ever the good soldier (or "joyful warrior"), was forced to watch as his running mate quadrupled-down on losing Democratic strategies.

On October 21, Walz made an appearance on The Daily Show, where host John Stewart asked, “the Cheney thing… do we really have to do that?” For a brief moment, the Minnesota governor was flummoxed. “Uh… look,” Walz stammered before underscoring the big-tent nature of the campaign: “Bernie Sanders. Dick Cheney. Taylor Swift.” Stewart appeared less than convinced: “What country did Taylor Swift get us to invade?!”

It’s now widely accepted, even by never-Trump Republicans, that making Liz Cheney a centerpiece of the campaign was a major mistake. The few voters who were persuaded by the Cheney family’s endorsement? They didn’t need Liz at forum after forum with inauspiciously phrased “Country Over Party” banners to reinforce their decision. As reporter John Nichols observed, these events ate up precious time that could have been spent trying to win back support from minority neighborhoods where Trump was able to make considerable inroads, or doing a tour of union halls with fresh faces like United Auto Workers' President Shawn Fain, AOC or, for that matter, Harris’s own running mate Tim Walz.

Most successful Democratic presidential campaigns win with an eye to the future. Despite the relative youth of the candidates, the Harris-Walz campaign maintained an odd and misbegotten fixation on the past. Leaving aside Harris’s paeans to the pre-Trump Republican Party, two of her most active surrogates toward the end of the race were former presidents with political instincts trapped in their respective eras: Bill Clinton lecturing Palestinians about the history of Judea and Samaria and Barack Obama trying to motivate Black men by accusing them of sexism.

Think of what we could have had with a campaign that actually met the moment. Instead of yet another platitudinal town hall where Liz Cheney recounts January 6, imagine if Harris sat down with working class people to talk about what their lives would be like with paid leave, a living wage, or a union. Better yet, imagine if she had a governor at her side from a state that had enacted things like that and more. A running mate who could lay out why immigration is not a threat, how fighting climate change can provide more economic security, or how the “weird” cultural hangups of Republicans are meant to distract people from achievable progressive policies that will make the world a better place. But, in all likelihood, the real obstacle to Harris and her advisors running a campaign like that was more foundational: Not believing in all of those things in the first place.

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The Minneapolis City Council adopted a new code last year that prohibits fur stores in the city. This decision follows numerous other U.S. cities and the state of California that have prohibited the sale of new fur products. More than two dozen countries have either voted to ban fur farming or prohibit the raising of particular species for fur, or introduced stricter regulations to curtail the practice.

While the fur industry is on a steep downward trend, tens of millions of wild animals like foxes, mink and raccoon dogs are still suffering in fur factory farms across the world. The majority of them are in China, though about 100 remain in the U.S., including a few mink and fox farms in Minnesota.

Animals killed for fur are confined their entire lives in cramped, unsanitary conditions. Zoologists who studied captive mink found that despite generations of being bred for fur, mink suffer greatly in captivity. They lack any behavioral enrichment, and they suffer in tiny wire cages no bigger than a microwave. These animals go stir-crazy, resulting in self-inflicted wounds and cannibalizing of cage mates, and only death — usually by anal electrocution, gassing or neck breaking — brings an end to their misery.

Now, evidence is mounting that beyond their evident cruelty, fur factory operations pose additional harm to humans and wildlife.

For example, some fur farms operate along — and threaten — important bodies of water.

Water samples collected by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency just a few miles downstream from a fur farm were described by the agency as, “not always suitable for swimming and wading due to high bacteria levels caused by the presence of human or animal waste.” Another report analyzed the water consumption used to produce mink, fox and raccoon dog fur, finding that fur products ranked the worse among all other fashion materials in water consumption, surpassing acrylic by 104 times, polyester by 91 times, and cotton by five times.

Fur production also adds to greenhouse gas emissions. One recent study found that per kilogram, fur generates the most greenhouse gas emissions of any fashion material — 31 times higher than cotton and 25 times higher than polyester.

Lastly, fur factory farming poses serious biosecurity and public health risks. Mink fur farming has produced three different variants and 13 different mutations of COVID, and there have been COVID outbreaks on 450 mink farms in over a dozen countries, including in the U.S. The outbreaks have infected farm workers. Numerous European countries have closed or restricted fur farming operations because of COVID-related concerns.

In the U.S., including in Minnesota, there are essentially no regulations or oversight of these facilities. Most states don’t even require a permit to operate a fur farm, let alone require any regular inspections — and because fur-farmed animals are not raised for consumption, humane slaughter and animal welfare laws do not apply.

Providing basic veterinary care to sick or injured animals is entirely up to the fur farm operator.

Fortunately, Minnesota agencies and legislators are beginning to recognize the need for oversight. Last year, state agencies released a report detailing some of the risks fur farms pose and the need to strengthen regulations to protect public health. The report notes that, “[m]ink are susceptible to and can transmit multiple reportable infectious diseases that can infect people including but not limited to SARS-CoV-2, influenza, leptospirosis, rabies, and toxoplasmosis.”

After the report’s release, state Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, and a bipartisan group of legislators passed a bill mandating oversight of fur farming in our state. The new law requires fur farmers to register with the Department of Natural Resources and gives the agency authority to inspect these facilities and test for disease.

Fur factory farms will continue to pose great risks to all of us, however, in the absence of strict regulations requiring proactive testing for infectious diseases; mandatory inspections; environmental contamination limits; and basic standards animal welfare.

With so many options available for environmentally friendly, cruelty-free fashion materials, we simply shouldn’t give fur a pass in light of its substantial harm to animals, the environment and human health.

Minnesota legislators can take steps to prohibit fur factory farming altogether in our state, and in the meantime, at the local level, city councils can eliminate the sale of new fur products, joining many other cities that have already done it.

There should be no vexing or divisive issues in regard to fur, but rather, the simple moral and practical imperatives that lead to the inescapable conclusion that it’s time for us to consign this failing industry to history.

In most eminent domain cases, landowners fight city hall when their property is in the path of a public works project. But the four Abumayyaleh brothers, who own Cup Foods and other businesses at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, want a judge to order the city to buy them out.

In a new lawsuit, the business owners at George Floyd Square are demanding that the city of Minneapolis take over their property through eminent domain.

They say operating there has become increasingly difficult since George Floyd's murder in 2020.

The brothers allege that the concrete barricades the city left up for a year created “severe economic hardship” by cutting off traffic, and that the “abandonment of law enforcement in the area” led to a spike in violent crime.

The city has yet to file a response to the litigation.

It comes after a judge in September dismissed a previous lawsuit by the brothers in which they sought more than $1.5 million.

Meat processing giant Smithfield will pay a $2 million penalty to resolve a child labor compliance order with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, the largest child labor enforcement action in DLI history.

The fine will have almost no impact on the company’s bottom line, however, given annual revenue of parent company WH Group Limited tops $26 billion.

A consent order with the company will also require the Chinese-owned Smithfield to conduct industry outreach related to child labor compliance; require child labor compliance with its labor staffing agencies and sanitation contractors; and take other steps to ensure future child labor compliance, according to a DLI press release.

A DLI investigation found that between 2021 and 2023, the St. James area plant owned by Smithfield employed at least 11 minor children between the ages of 14 and 17. The children were also working late on school nights and performing hazardous jobs like working near chemicals; operating power-driven machinery, including meat grinders, slicers and power-driven conveyor belts; and operating nonautomatic elevators, lifts or hoisting machines, including motorized pallet jacks and lift pallet jacks.

“It is unacceptable for a company to employ minor children to perform hazardous work late at night. This illegal behavior impacts children’s health, safety and well-being and their ability to focus on their education and their future,” said DLI Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach. “Combatting unlawful child labor in Minnesota is a priority for DLI and it will continue to devote resources to addressing and resolving these violations.”

In fall 2023, DLI entered into a consent order with Tony Downs Food Company in Madelia in another child labor law case.

Also in 2023, Wisconsin-based Packers Sanitation Services paid civil penalties to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division for employing minor children in hazardous occupations at meat processing facilities in eight states, including Minnesota.

In a statement, Smithfield offered an at-times combative response, denying “that we knowingly hired anyone under the age of 18 to work in our St. James facility. We have not admitted liability as part of this settlement; however, in the interest of preventing the distraction of prolonged litigation, we have agreed to settle this matter.”

The company said it uses E-Verify, a federal system that validates employment eligibility based on federal records.

“Each of the 11 alleged underage individuals passed the E-Verify system by using false identification. Each used a different name to obtain employment with Smithfield than the name by which DLI identified them to Smithfield,” the company said in the statement.

Smithfield emphasized that the company is opposed to child labor and has “taken proactive steps to enforce our policy prohibiting the employment of minors.”

The child labor issue has come into focus in recent years, spurred in part by a series of investigative articles in the New York Times that exposed the exploitation of migrant children especially.

“This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota,” the article states.

And child meat processing workers in Minnesota.

Unlike the Costco Guys or Baby Gronk, Max Brunner isn't overly calculated with her social media strategizing. The template for Folks of Minnesota—a person-on-the-street mini biography series akin to Humans of New York—hasn't changed much since launching in early 2023: snap a portrait, spark a conversation, post the reliably humanizing results to the increasingly slop-infested, hate-fueled web.

Brunner's path to creating Folks of Minnesota started a few years back in St. Cloud, where she was working in assisted living with the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict. "The nuns became a part of my family," she says, and they shepherded her into the Catholic faith.

Working in healthcare during Covid wore on Brunner, affecting her mental health and general happiness. So she landed a new job with Independent Lifestyles, a nonprofit that helps disabled people, and eventually relocated to the Twin Ports. But before she left Stearns County, the nuns told her: "Go out and be Christ to other people."

Brunner would seize on that challenge after a couple "lonesome" months living in Superior, Wisconsin. "I was longing for community and human connection, so I started walking the streets with my camera; there was no real mission in my mind." Initially, Brunner struck up conversations with lots of unhoused folks, a community she says maintains a "special place" in her heart.

"They'd tell me their life stories. The first question I began to ask people was: What do you love about yourself?" she says. "It can be really challenging and difficult to answer that question."

The scope of Brunner's project widened to include people from all walks of life—basically anyone she'd bump into along Duluth's Superior Street. Folks of Minnesota has since documented over 500 subjects, most of them in and around the North Shore.

There's Tiffany, a formerly incarcerated mom who stressed to "not take your life for granted." There's Mia, a young hiker who journeyed over 200 miles from Duluth to Canada. There's Sean, who runs a nonprofit called Trans Northland. And that's just a tiny sampling from the past few months.

Brunner says there's often a little trepidation from folks who are approached with a camera, but that tends to melt away as they warm up to the one-on-one conversation. Eventually, she'd like to share stories from rural communities and other cities around Minnesota.

While the Folks of Minnesota channels have grown—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—Brunner isn't a scheming wannabe influencer. (We're looking at you, Baby Gronk.) She says she wasn't inspired by Humans of New York, and there's no charted course for online growth. She doesn't even want to be on social media!

"I try to stay off it as much as possible; I just created accounts to post to Folks of Minnesota," she says. For Brunner, the project provides a sense of validation much deeper than likes, faves, and clicks.

"It has created healing within myself, and it gives me hope," she says. "If these stories of people could evoke a little more kindness and compassion in the viewer, to break down their own stigma or judgement of people? I'd love that."

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Architecturally, Racket has railed against contemporary fast-food design and contemporary commercial design, all while praising urban century homes. Now we enter a much thornier realm: the aesthetics of the modern suburban home.

Thornier because our outlet champions Minnesota’s increasingly diverse suburbs and also because, well, this sort of indictment is directed at the tastes of individual consumers rather than corporations—the ol’ punch up vs. punch down dilemma. But maybe we can let the new-build homeowner off the hook, at least a little bit.

“Developers think they know what people want, and what the people want is what sells,” says John Archer, a retired architectural historian at the University of Minnesota. “So if they put up a bunch of these and they sell, they figure that's what people want. If you're working from a particular template, you're going to say, 'Oh, that worked, let's do some more.'"

(Making salesmanship easier for developers: U.S. homebuilders are still clawing their way out of a housing crisis that has demand near all-times highs.)

That’s the sort of development that caught the eye of Sean Hayford Oleary, a web developer and member of the Richfield City Council. “Unlike boxy, nondescript apartments, single-family homes meet the unique style and preferences of their owner-occupants,” he recently tweeted, directing followers to four nearly identical $450K-ish new homes for sale in rural Dundas, Minnesota. The sameness of the homes jumped out, he says, adding that there’s nothing particularly novel about that observation (more on that later). Rather, his critique stems from what appears to be the prevailing style of new single-family constructions—“snout houses,” as Archer calls them.

“The real thing that made me want to needle those particular listings is how car-centric the design is,” says Hayford Oleary, a bike lover and “transportation geek.” “The front yard is basically half parking lot, and you can barely see the part of the house where humans live. People will argue that cars are just part of modern life, and that's true, but just because they're the main way people get around doesn't mean they need to be the main architectural feature of new homes.”

Architectural critic, author, and journalist Larry Millett didn’t have much to add to Hayford Oleary’s Twitter criticism, saying that new suburban homes “don’t really offer much in the way of style” outside of those at the tippy-top of the market. “In the garage-forward design that's most common today, the house itself reads essentially as an appendage to the garage, with the main rooms usually facing the back,” he says.

To Archer, the rears of these homes are just as head-scratching as the fronts.

"Frankly, if I were to say, 'What is the suburban stereotype?’ It's where a developer comes in on a tract of land, they bulldoze all the trees, reshape the terrain into hills or berms,” he says. “You've got basement walkouts, you’ve got formal front entrances. It's very strange. You drive by the house, and the front gets attention; the ugly backside is completely utilitarian and that's what faces the highway—it seems incongruous to me."

But my attempts to have experts tee off on modern home design proved mostly unfruitful. As Hayford Oleary noted, cookie-cutter crops of suburban housing stock have long been remarked upon. Archer says the post-war mass production of housing baited critics right off the bat. Folk singer-songwriter and activist Malvina Reynolds penned perhaps the most famous example in 1963 with “Little Boxes,” her critique of the monotonous, “ticky-tacky" developments in Daly City, California. "That critique goes back, well, forever. There's a whole raft of popular music critiquing that same thing; there's McMansion Hell,” Archer says. (Click here to read Racket’s conversation with McMansion Hell creator Kate Wager, who’s now architecture critic for The Nation.)

“A good deal of my writing actually argues that the critique of suburbia is misguided,” Archer continues. “It becomes this delicate balancing game: OK, these are people's aspirations, and I may not think they are to my taste, but why am I better than them in condemning their tastes? I can't legislate [my tastes] or, you know, force that on them. The argument becomes circular.”

Adds Millett:

“Since the bungalow era ended in the 1920s, everyday middle-class homes have been pretty simple stuff. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but it’s rare to find any interesting design in today’s subdivisions.”

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Harris-Walz fail to win back working-class voters; most pro-worker ballot initiatives pass; construction workers better off in Minnesota than neighboring states; Minneapolis Labor Standards Board unveiled; and Boeing workers end two-month-long strike.

Harris-Walz fail to win back working-class voters

Running as the successor to the president who aimed to be the most pro-union in American history was not enough for Vice President Kamala Harris to continue Democrats’ 2020 gains with working-class voters after they defected for Trump’s camp in large numbers in 2016.

In 2016, just over half of union households voted for Hillary Clinton, which increased to 56% for Biden in 2020 and then sunk to 53% for Harris, according to exit polling data. The trend with voters earning less than $100,000 and those without college degrees was similar, but more pronounced, especially with white men.

Exit polls are imprecise and the picture could change as more data is released in the coming months, but the results are not surprising nor out of line with trends going back decades: Democrats are losing the trust of working-class voters, paradoxically jeopardizing their agenda to strengthen unions, invest in manufacturing and construction and reduce economic inequality.

“The irony is that no one has done more to help create jobs for construction workers, to protect and raise their wages, and to secure their pensions than Joe Biden. And yet he was not very popular with our members,” said Kris Fredson, director of public affairs for LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota.

Harris’ campaign in many ways focused on reaching these voters. Her pick for running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, is a former union teacher and staunch labor ally. They both made frequent campaign stops at union halls across the industrial Midwest. She had charismatic union leaders like United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain stump for her, while unions ran field operations to turn out their members to vote for Democrats. She rolled out populist economic policies like raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, banning price gouging and expanding the child tax credit.

Trump matched those with his own: ending taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. He promises to increase tariffs across the board to, in theory, promote American manufacturing and raise money for public programs. While targeted tariffs can protect American jobs in critical industries, they have also led to manufacturing job losses by raising costs and instigating retaliatory tariffs. He also had Teamsters President Sean O’Brien speak at the Republican National Convention, and the international union declined to endorse either candidate.

Harris’ campaign faced criticism for not speaking forcefully enough about economic inequality and corporate power and allowing economic concerns to be crowded out by other issues — like Trump threatening democracy. Ultimately, it was not a campaign won or lost on policy ideas but on vibes.

The high price of groceries and everything else was likely too much to overcome for Harris, who shouldered the incumbent’s blame for the economy. Even though wages have outpaced inflation on average, workers living in a perpetual state of sticker-shock have not felt economic optimism. Harris is not alone: Incumbents around the world and across the political spectrum have suffered defeats on the heels of pandemic-fueled inflation.

“People did not feel like anything was improving for them,” said Katie Gregg, senior national campaigns director for the AFL-CIO affiliate Working America, which canvassed millions of voters this election. “The cost of everything in life is going up, and they just did not see the economic gains of the Biden administration.”

That seems to have translated into both more support for Trump and lower turnout among those who might have voted for Harris.

“The piece of information that I’m finding most persuasive in terms of a big explanation for what happened was simply the overall turnout numbers,” said Brian Elliott, political director for SEIU Minnesota State Council, with the caveat that no election can be understood by a single data point.

While voters consistently say economic issues are most important to them, other issues might win out when they put pen to ballot (or chose to stay home): immigration, guns, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza or free transgender surgeries for people in prisons, the latter of which Trump bet millions on.

Fredson said LIUNA members trust the union to fight for wages, health care and benefits. Their members consistently show up to pressure lawmakers to support union-backed legislation. But their political endorsements are often not breaking through.

“(For) the labor movement as a whole this has to be a priority moving forward … to understand why there is a disconnect,” Fredson said.

Pro-worker ballot initiatives pass

Voters across the country backed a wide array of pro-worker policies even as they rejected the Democratic politicians championing them.

Alaska and Missouri residents voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour and provide earned paid sick leave. Trump demurred when asked during a McDonald’s campaign event if he supported raising the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 per hour for 15 years, while Harris backed an increase to $15 per hour.

Nebraskans also voted to require employers to provide paid sick leave, while Arizona residents defeated a ballot measure allowing tipped workers to be paid less than minimum wage.

Voters in Massachusetts rejected a measure that would increase the minimum wage for tipped workers, while supporting an initiative to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.

Arkansas voters approved a measure to allow state lottery proceeds to fund vocational and technical training scholarships.

Minnesota construction workers better paid than peers

Minnesota construction workers earn more money, are more productive and are less likely to be killed on the job than their peers in neighboring states, according to a report from the union-backed North Star Policy Action.

Minnesota construction workers made $83,300 on average in 2022, higher than their peers in Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. Wages were 35% higher in Minnesota on average than the lowest-paying state of South Dakota even after accounting for the lower cost of living.

Health and retirement benefits are also better for construction workers in Minnesota. Over 90% of Minnesota construction workers have health insurance and half have a pension, more than any other neighboring state.

The report’s author notes two factors driving these differences: unions and their Democratic allies. Nearly 30% of Minnesota construction workers are union members, which is significantly higher than in neighboring states. Research shows that unions raise wages for all workers, not just their own, when a significant portion of workers are unionized in a given industry.

Since the Great Recession, Democrats have largely held majority control of Minnesota state government while Republicans have largely been in charge in Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. That matters because Democrats have passed laws in Minnesota more favorable to workers and unions, which have helped raise wages and improve safety.

Nonunion builders say Minnesota’s higher labor costs drive up the state’s construction costs, meaning the state’s residents are shouldering the burden of higher wages for construction workers through higher taxes and prices. Road construction is not particularly expensive in Minnesota and actually cheaper than Wisconsin and Iowa. Housing is more expensive to build in Minnesota, and the higher costs are better explained by strict energy standards, zoning rules and land prices. Not much housing is built with union labor, and even though unions may push up wages across entire industries, there’s still often a wide gulf in labor standards and pay.

Unions also argue their workers are often better trained and more productive, offsetting the higher labor costs. Research is mixed on how construction costs and quality are affected by prevailing wage laws, which require builders on publicly funded projects to pay a union wage.

Minneapolis labor standards board introduced

Three Minneapolis City Council members unveiled a proposed ordinance creating a Minneapolis Labor Standards Board, after it was first endorsed more than two years ago by a majority of council members and Mayor Jacob Frey.

The draft ordinance would create a board with 15 members divided equally, with representatives for employers, employees and community stakeholders. Twelve members would be appointed by the council and three by the mayor. Subcommittees dedicated to specific industries such as child care, property maintenance or restaurants would develop proposals for regulations that would be referred to the board and then the City Council for consideration. Proposals would have to have majority support plus at least one vote from the employee, employer and community stakeholder representatives to advance.

The board would replace the city’s Workplace Advisory Committee, which has a similar role but is not industry-specific and has failed to secure significant participation from employers. There are currently four vacant positions for business representatives.

Labor standards boards have been rising in prominence as a tool to raise working standards across entire industries, especially those that are difficult to unionize. Minnesota created a statewide Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board in 2023, which this year voted to increase the average minimum wage to $23.49 by 2027.

The proposal in Minneapolis has drawn fierce resistance from business owners, particularly restaurant owners, who say any added regulation will be their death knell as they continue recovering from the pandemic and a surge in public disorder. Council Member Michael Rainville also warned it would scare off new businesses from opening in the city, which is already confronting high office and retail vacancies.

“This will do nothing to decrease the amount of empty storefronts in Uptown or downtown. The business community has made it clear that when their leases are up, they’re going to leave Minneapolis and/or just simply close the business,” Rainville said during a Wednesday committee meeting.

Frey said he would support a “fair and balanced” labor standards board but said the City Council’s isn’t.

Boeing workers end strike

Thousands of Boeing employees agreed to end a nearly two-month-long strike on Monday after voting to approve a new contract that will raise wages 38% over four years. The deal will push average pay to nearly $120,000, while workers will also receive $12,000 ratification bonuses and boosted retirement contributions from the company. In exchange for the deal, which was supported by just 59% of voting union members, workers gave up their demand for the company to bring back a defined-benefit pension program.

“Through this strike and the resulting victory, frontline workers at Boeing have done their part to begin rebalancing the scales in favor of the middle class,” said Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751 and Brandon Bryant, president of IAM District W24, in a joint statement.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s return to the presidency could set the stage for sweeping changes in U.S. education policy.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has vowed to “save American education,” with a focus on parental rights and universal school choice — offering a sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s education record.

With Trump’s White House victory cemented, here’s a look at where he stands on education:

Getting rid of U.S. Education Department

Perhaps Trump’s most far-reaching plan for education includes his vow to close down the U.S. Department of Education.

The department — just 45 years old — is not in charge of setting school curriculum, as education is decentralized in the United States. The agency’s mission is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Trump has repeatedly called for moving education “back to the states,” though the responsibility of education already mainly falls on states and local governments, which allocate much of the funding for K-12 schools.

Funding boosts

Trump has proposed funding boosts for states and school districts that comply with his vision for education, including adopting a “Parental Bill of Rights that includes complete curriculum transparency, and a form of universal school choice,” according to his plan.

He also wants to give funding preferences to schools who get rid of “teacher tenure” for grades K-12 and adopt “merit pay.”

He could also ramp up funding for schools that have parents hold the direct elections of principals as well as for schools that significantly reduce the number of their administrators.

Trump’s plan also includes the creation of a credentialing body to certify teachers “who embrace patriotic values, and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children, but to educate them.”

He is also threatening to cut federal funding for schools that teach “critical race theory” or “gender ideology” and vowed to roll back updated Title IX regulations under the Biden administration on his first day back in office.

The updated regulations, which the Biden administration released earlier this year, extend federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The final rule rolls back changes to Title IX made under Trump’s previous administration and then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

A slew of GOP-led states have challenged the measure, leading to several legal battles and a policy patchwork throughout the country.

Student debt and higher education

Trump has criticized the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness efforts, describing them as “not even legal,” and could let go of any mass student loan forgiveness efforts.

Trump could repeal the administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, which is currently on hold while tied up in a legal challenge. The sweeping initiative seeks to provide lower monthly loan payments for borrowers and lessen the time it takes to pay off their debt.

Meanwhile, the 2024 GOP platform called for making colleges and universities “sane and affordable,” noting that Republicans will “fire Radical Left accreditors, drive down Tuition costs, restore Due Process protections, and pursue Civil Rights cases against Schools that discriminate.”

The platform also calls for reducing the cost of higher education through the creation of “additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year College degree.”

Trump has also proposed the “American Academy,” a free, online university that he says would be endowed through the “billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments.”

Project 2025

Apart from the GOP platform and Trump’s proposals, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes a sweeping conservative agenda that, if implemented, could have major implications for the future of education.

Though Trump has disavowed the conservative think tank’s blueprint, some former members of his previous administration helped craft the agenda.

Some of the education policy proposals outlined in the extensive document include eliminating the U.S. Education Department and Head Start, ending time-based and occupation-based student loan forgiveness and restoring the Title IX regulations made under DeVos.

The proposal also states that “the federal government should confine its involvement in education policy to that of a statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states.”

Major teachers unions react to Trump win

“The voters have spoken. While we hoped and fought for a different outcome, we respect both their will and the peaceful transfer of power,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, said in a Wednesday statement.

“At this moment, the country is more divided than ever, and our democracy is in jeopardy. Last night, we saw fear and anger win,” Weingarten said.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest labor union, said in a statement Wednesday that “this is not the outcome we campaigned for, nor the future we wanted for our students and families, but it is the road through history we now must travel.”

Walz Watch: Walz Still Watchable

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz lost his bid for VP last night but, in a way, he kinda won? Local strategists and DFL leaders seem to agree that Walz was overall good for Kamala Harris’s campaign. “There’s no doubt that Gov. Walz helped energize the ticket and bring voters into this coalition,” DFL Party Chair Ken Martin tells the Minnesota Reformer. “It would be really unfair to say that the reason that they lost this race was because of the addition of Gov. Walz, I think just the opposite.”

While it feels way too soon to be thinking about 2028, J. Patrick Coolican and Michelle Griffin posit in that same Reformer article that his VP run could put him in contention for the Democratic nom in next presidential election. “He’s shown himself to be skilled at the retail campaigning that is a staple of early state presidential nominating contests. He’s a proven fundraiser with a newly fat rolodex. And he’s got a long list of legislative victories,” they write.

Ryan Faircloth at the Star Tribune points out that Walz will be under greater scrutiny now. “Some had questioned the upside of picking a running mate from a state that hasn’t supported a Republican presidential candidate in more than 50 years,” he writes. Still, others believe he at least had a hand in Minnesota’s win. “Walz has consistently had an approval rating of more than 50% and his personal popularity has played a role in keeping the state blue,” Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier tells Ana Radelat at MinnPost.

In the meantime, Walz still has two years left as Minnesota’s Governor, and will be tackling the state budget in January.

The Good News and the Bad News

Last night might have been a shitshow on a national level, but Minnesota has... some things to celebrate? Former state Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart (DFL-Minnetonka) won a special election against Republican Kathleen Fowke, which means the chamber will hold its 34-33 DFL majority. The Minnesota House is still tied at 67-67 and most likely headed for a recount, but legislators seem optimistic either way. “The system absorbed a lot of change in '23 and '24 — and so going forward, it was likely to be a less change-oriented session and biennium, regardless of who was in control,” a pretty chill sounding Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman tells MPR. But yes, as it looks now, the DFL trifecta is broken.

Rep. Ilhan Omar was reelected for a fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, as was Rep. Angie Craig, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar easily beat former b-baller Royce “The Bad Guys Won WWII” White. Minnesota's Third Congressional District is getting an upgrade with Democrat Kelly Morrison taking Rep. Dean Phillips’s seat. Phillips, as you almost certainly recall, didn’t run for reelection, instead vying for the presidency in an awkward campaign that lasted about three months.

And then, there are the weird ones. Remember Marisa Simonetti, the family values candidate who was arrested this summer for throwing a live tarantula at a woman she was subletting to? She lost her campaign for Hennepin County District 6 commissioner to Heather Edelson. Meanwhile, for some reason, Nisswa elected Jennifer Carnahan—the ousted MN GOP chair who's buds with imprisoned sex trafficker Tony Lazzaro, ran a sketchy charity org, and got into a fist fight at her husband’s funeral—as mayor. The Star Tribune points out that her new gig pays $350 a month. Sure hope she has a side hustle!

Animals Are Rising Up Against Us

Or, as last night’s election results suggest, people are just getting shittier. That’s my hot take today after learning that reported dog and cat bites in Minneapolis are up 30% from last year, according to Minneapolis Animal Care and Control. That’s 600 bites in 2024 versus 480 in 2023. Why are the gentle beasts of the world attacking us? MACC director Tony Schendel tells Katrina Bailey at The Minnesota Daily that incidents are more likely when residents don’t follow the leash law—something he believes is on the rise. Veterinarian Dr. Kristi Flynn says we need to watch for animal body language cues and respect that not all pets do Minnesota Nice. “If we could just ask that people give each other and their dogs space in public instead of everybody kind of rushing in to meet each other’s dogs and those kinds of things, I think that would help,” she says.

Coors Closes Leinenkugel's, Trove Needs Cash

We’ve seen it before, many times. In 2023, workers at the Leinenkugel's production facility in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, voted to unionize. Now, about a year later, brand owners Molson Coors has decided to shut the site down, Bring Me the News confirmed via a statement. The tourist facility and pilot brewery will remain open, while production moves to Milwaukee. Founded in 1867 in Chippewa Falls, Leinenkugel's is one of the oldest breweries in the U.S. Former Leinie's President Dick Leinenkugel tells Wisconsin's WTMJ that he and his family weren’t consulted or given a heads up before the announcement. “Today, on behalf of the Leinenkugel family, I thank [our customers and clients] again and will toast them this evening with a Leinenkugel’s Original and a tear in my eye," he says.

Over in Burnsville, Trove Brewing Co. is in need of a major cash infusion. We’re talking $75K to help pay for recent rent hikes and the rising costs of beer making supplies. “Right now, the sales aren’t there to keep the company running,” co-owner Jeffrey Crane tells Alyxandra Sego for Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Since opening in October of 2023, the owners say that business hasn't picked up and distribution deals have fallen through. They’ve launched a Givebutter fundraiser; so far 21 supporters have pledged $2,675.

Racket's Jay and Em discussed the topic of failing food and drink businesses that turn to crowdfunding last month on the debut episode of RacketCast, which you can listen to here. How do we feel about this one, gang?

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