Labor and business leaders push for faster environmental permitting — and other labor news

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: a bipartisan push to speed up permitting; masonry contractor pleads guilty to tax evasion; construction worker pleads guilty to rape on job site; Trump administration lays off nearly all recent hires; Minneapolis marks $2 million milestone in recovered wages; and First Avenue workers ratify first union contract. 

Unions and businesses say permitting delays are killing jobs

Trade unions and business leaders have unified around a bipartisan bill aimed at speeding up the environmental permitting process, which they say has choked off investment and cost the state thousands of good-paying jobs in construction, manufacturing and mining.

“We’re doing nothing to change (Minnesota’s) environmental or labor standards with this bill. What we’re doing is we’re trying to make it easier for applicants to go through the process,” said Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, during a news conference on Thursday.

The coalition of business groups and unions — including those representing laborers, carpenters, operating engineers and ironworkers — say Minnesota’s current laws allow opponents to delay projects to death. For example, Minnesota’s air permitting review takes about six times as long as Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, according to a study by the Minnesota Chamber Foundation.

Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids, pointed to a proposed OSB board factory in his district that was expected to create 150 jobs. Huber Engineered Woods scrapped plans for the plant in Cohasset because of lengthy permitting delays following objections from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe over potential pollution.

“If they were still in this state, they would still be in permitting. And they are open in another state right now operating,” Eichhorn said.

The Minnesota Chamber Foundation estimates the state could gain $260 million to $910 million in economic activity if it operated like other states.

The bill (HF8/SF577) would speed up the permitting process by creating more stringent deadlines for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to approve or deny permits, requiring the agency to issue separate permits for construction and operations, and limiting local governments to one 60-day extension in making wetlands conservation determinations.

The bill also creates an “ombudsman for business permitting” and requires petitions for environmental reviews to include 100 people who live or own property near the proposed project. (Currently, petitions can include signatures from anyone who lives in the state).

Last year, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill that shortened and streamlined permitting for clean energy projects and power transmission lines. That bill enjoyed broad support among Democrats, but some appear skeptical of the new, more comprehensive effort to speed up environmental reviews.

During a committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Sydney Jordan, DFL-Minneapolis, voiced opposition to the provision putting geographic limits on who can petition for environmental reviews, even for projects on public lands.

“We’re talking about land that is owned by the people of Minnesota,” Jordan said. “It feels very upsetting to hear that we feel like they should not have a voice on their land, the water that they drink and the air that they breathe.”

Environmental groups called the bill “a solution in search of a problem,” pointing out the vast majority of permitting decisions on priority projects already meet statutory timelines, and when they don’t, it’s because of changes to the project, incomplete applications or other deficiencies.

Masonry contractor pleads guilty to tax fraud

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi claimed victory on Wednesday in the first major wage theft case his office has closed since hiring a dedicated wage theft investigator in 2022 — though no one was actually charged with or convicted of wage theft.

Todd Konigson, the owner of Stillwater Masonry Restoration Inc., pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and will pay $70,178 to the Minnesota Department of Revenue for failing to file a quarterly withholding tax return in 2018. Konigson, who now lives in Florida, will be on probation and barred from operating a construction business in Minnesota for up to three years or until the debt to the state is repaid. At that point, the felony conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanor.

Choi’s office originally charged Konigson with 16 counts of tax evasion and fraud in December 2023 following a criminal investigation by the state Department of Revenue. Prosecutors allege Konigson pocketed money withheld from workers’ paychecks instead of sending it to the Department of Revenue. They also alleged Konigson misclassified workers as independent contractors but claimed them as employees to receive a Paycheck Protection Program loan.

Konigson’s company was a union contractor at the time, and the president of the bricklayers’ union, Doug Schroeder, said there were workers who were shorted pay and cheated out of health insurance, pension payments and vacation money for years. The union-related benefits fund was able to recoup fringe benefits for about a dozen workers through third parties such as general contractors.

Konigson’s lawyer, Thomas Beito, rejected prosecutors’ portrayal of the guilty plea as a triumph over wage theft.

“He didn’t plead guilty to any wage theft nor was he charged with any wage theft because there wasn’t any wage theft,” Beito said in an interview. “If they had the evidence to go after him for wage theft, you can be darn sure that they would have.”

Choi said his office pursued tax charges rather than wage theft as “the path that would be most favorable for a conviction.” During the Wednesday news conference he also said they have “a lot of cases in the pipeline.”

“We want to put contractors on notice that we are out there investigating,” Choi said.

Minnesota made wage theft in excess of $1,000 a felony in 2019. There have been no convictions since then, although charges are being pursued in at least two cases in Hennepin and Stearns counties.

Construction worker pleads guilty to rape on job site

A construction worker pleaded guilty on Thursday to raping a co-worker in an apartment bathroom during construction of Viking Lakes, a sprawling multi-use Eagan development built by the Wilf family, owners of the Minnesota Vikings.

Juan Diego Medina Cisneros, a 31-year-old Mexican citizen, was charged in Dakota County two-and-a-half years ago but wasn’t apprehended until last June by border patrol agents at the Gateway International Bridge in Texas. Medina Cisneros will serve 36 months in prison followed by 10 years probationary release.

The assault came to light as the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters union was helping workers report allegations of wage theft on the Viking Lakes development by two subcontractors — Absolute Drywall and Advantage Construction.

Absolute Drywall employee Norma Izaguirre told her supervisor about the rape in an apartment bathtub she was cleaning, but the company determined it was a consensual relationship and owner Dan Ortega fired Izaguirre soon after.

Izaguirre watched Thursday’s court proceeding over Zoom, wiping away tears as Medina Cisneros admitted to the assault in Spanish through an interpreter. She also has filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which is investigating her allegations of sex discrimination, and could bring a lawsuit against the contractor.

Trump administration lays off nearly all recent hires

The Trump administration continued its assault on the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all workers who had not yet gained civil service protections — potentially numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, told agency leaders to lay off probationary employees, who typically have less than a year on the job, the Associated Press reported.

The layoffs hit agencies across the government, from cancer researchers at Veterans Affairs to food inspectors at the Department of Agriculture. There are about 18,000 civilian federal employees in Minnesota, although it’s unclear how many will be let go.

The cuts are expected to be just the first round of layoffs as billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency looks to slash agency budgets by 30 to 40% on average, the Washington Post reported.

Meanwhile, a judge ruled this week that the White House’s buy-out offer to federal employees to be paid through September may stand, even as Democrats and union leaders warn workers the offer is illegal. The White House said 75,000 people had accepted the offer, or about 3% of the 2.4 million federal civilian employees. That’s short of the administration’s goal and less than the 6% that typically retire or resign in a given year.

Minneapolis recovers $2 million in wages

The city of Minneapolis announced it had reached an important milestone this week in its effort to crack down on wage and hour violations, recovering $2 million for workers through various enforcement actions since 2018.

The city highlighted $145,000 settlements with Unparalleled Parking and Unparalleled Security for alleged sick leave violations, a $43,000 settlement with Amigos One Stop for alleged overtime pay violations and a $22,000 settlement with Plymouth Academy preschool for allegedly paying subminimum wages. Two of the cases highlighted were brought to the city’s attention by the nonprofit worker center Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL).

First Avenue workers ratify first contract

Some 230 unionized service and event workers across First Avenue’s seven Twin Cities venues ratified their first union contract over the weekend. UNITE HERE Local 17 said the three-year contract includes “big raises” — 25% or more for non-tipped workers over the life of the contract — plus longevity pay and improved scheduling. The contract also requires the company to use workers’ stated names and pronouns, which the union touted as protections for LGBT workers.