Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of the Minneapolis City Council’s proposal to create a Labor Standards Board reveals a startling unwillingness to ensure a voice for the city’s most vulnerable workers. Framed as a move to “encourage collaboration, not division,” Frey’s veto and counterproposal, which demands a supermajority for decisions and a 50/50 membership split between employees and employers, undermines the very idea of balance.
The proposal in question is for an advisory board—one that would have no power to enact or enforce policy but simply to bring recommendations to the mayor and council. Yet even this modest step toward giving workers and community members a voice has been rejected. This raises a troubling question: Why is amplifying the voices of the most vulnerable considered too much?
The council’s original proposal for a 15-member board — composed of five employers, five employees, and five community stakeholders — is a well-considered approach to address labor issues collaboratively. It acknowledges that workers and employers are not the only parties affected by labor standards. Communities also bear the weight of unjust wages, unsafe workplaces, and economic inequality. By removing community stakeholders in his counterproposal, Frey would erase their voices entirely, shifting the balance of power further toward employers.
More problematic is Frey’s demand for a supermajority vote to approve any recommendations. This structure ensures that even modest proposals can be easily blocked. The veto doesn’t foster collaboration; it erects barriers that protect the status quo. Frey’s plan would hand employers disproportionate power over a process already stacked against workers and the vulnerable.
In politics, there’s a long history of denying the most vulnerable a say in shaping the policies that govern their lives. Low-wage workers, immigrants, women, and people of color are often shut out of these conversations, even though they are disproportionately affected by injustices. Frey’s veto perpetuates this inequity, reinforcing a system where wealth and power dictate the terms.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1968 speech in Memphis, Tennessee supporting striking sanitation workers:
“If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you’re commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth.”
The council’s proposal isn’t a demand for power—it is a demand for dignity. The Labor Standards Board is a chance to amplify voices that are too often silenced. It isn’t a threat to employers or government officials; it is a mechanism to bring forward the lived experiences of workers, to ensure that their struggles are not ignored.
Even neighboring St. Paul has demonstrated what’s possible with a commitment to labor protections. Its successful implementation of a Labor Standards Advisory Committee and a wage theft ordinance shows how cities can uplift workers without succumbing to fear of imbalance. Instead of following this example, Frey has chosen to block even the most basic step toward equity.
Frey’s veto should concern anyone who values fairness. His counterproposal, with its demand for a supermajority and exclusion of community stakeholders, doesn’t just obstruct progress—it undermines the principle of collaboration he claims to support. By vetoing an advisory board, Frey has sent a clear message: the voices of workers and their communities are not a priority.
This moment is about more than just a labor board. It’s about whether we believe in a system that values every voice, not just those with wealth and power. Collaboration cannot exist without equity, and equity cannot exist without listening to those who are most vulnerable.
Minneapolis workers deserve better. They are not just workers — they are our families, our friends, our neighbors. They deserve a government that doesn’t just listen but acts. And they deserve leaders who understand that the dignity of labor is a reflection of the dignity of our entire community.
