Prevailing Wage Update: Good News For MN Employees!

Last year I wrote about the case of Caldas v. Affordable Granite & Stone, Inc. (AGS), in which I explained how the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the employees who actually did work for the City of Minneapolis were not the intended beneficiaries of the prevailing wage provision of the construction contract.

I am happy to report that my friend, attorney Justin Cummins, almost singlehandedly pushed through new legislation to amend the applicable statutes, Minn. Stat. sections 181.13 and 181.14, to overturn this decision and provide greater protections for Minnesota employees as it relates to their pay. The laws, as amended, can be found here.

The amendments themselves do a number of things. First, they clarify that employees who are hired to do the work are the intended beneficiaries of a prevailing wage rate provision in a contract between the employer and a third party, or when otherwise set by law. So when someone hires a your company to perform a service, and the contract or some other law provides for how much you will be paid, you have the right to seek relief.

Second, the amendments also restore an employee's substantive right to sue an employer when it fails to pay wages or commissions the employee has earned. The Minnesota Supreme Court had previously held that these were nothing more than "timing" statutes that did not provide a party with a substantive claim to recover these amounts.

Third, the amendments define when wages and commissions have actually been earned. As crazy as it sounds, employment lawyers used to fight over this and the courts did not apply our common sense understanding in most cases. Now, wages and commissions are earned when the employee was not paid for all time worked.

Finally, the amendments clarify that employers cannot deduct amounts from your final paycheck for alleged amounts owed to it by the employee. Occasionally, employers would come up with any number of excuses not to pay an employee what they were owed at the conclusion of employment.

This is all good news for Minnesota employees.

Same Sex Marriage And The Minnesota Human Rights Act

Governor Dayton recently signed into law a bill recognizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota. During debate, opponents of the bill introduced an amendment (which was subsequently defeated) to the bill that would have allowed any individual to refuse to conduct business with someone in a same-sex relationship if that relationship clashed with their sincerely-held religious beliefs. In support of this amendment, State Senator Warren Limmer was quoted as saying: “The question for this body is do we offer protection for all or only a few." Later he added: “I’m sorry we don’t have room in our statutebooks for people of faith anymore.”

You may be guessing that the direction that this blog post is heading is to explain the nuances of the Establishment Clause. Or that I may be about to analogize this argument to those people who have sincerely-held religious beliefs which might make them uncomfortable doing business with Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, etc. You would be mistaken, despite the fact these would be very persuasive arguments against Senator Limmer's position.

Rather, I want to simply point out that refusing to do business with someone based on their sexual orientation has been illegal in Minnesota for years. The Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), which I have referred to repeatedly in this blog because of the protections it provides employees in Minnesota, also includes a provision that specifically prohibits business discrimination. Minn. Stat. § 363A.17 states in relevant part:

"It is an unfair discriminatory practice for a person engaged in a trade or business or in the provision of a service... to intentionally refuse to do business with, to refuse to contract with, or to discriminate in the basic terms, conditions, or performance of the contract because of a person's race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, or disability, unless the alleged refusal or discrimination is because of a legitimate business purpose."

 

This, of course, makes Senator Limmer's argument factually erroneous. And the dearth of complaints by people whose religious beliefs oppose homosexuality during the years the MHRA has legally required them to do business with gays and lesbians doesn't help his argument.

 

As a side note, Senator Limmer's statement that "we don't have room in our statebooks for people of faith anymore" is false as well. Numerous laws exist in Minnesota to protect people's religious freedoms and prohibit discrimination based on religion. The MHRA itself provides a myriad of protections for people based on their faith. (See here, here, here, and here.) Moreover, the last time I checked (which was a few minutes ago), Article I, Section 16 of the Minnesota Constitution still provides for religious freedom in Minnesota.

 

In sum, I just thought this was a nice way to provide some information on a portion of the MHRA that is rarely discussed or considered.