Following strike, court interpreters on track to win raise — and other labor news

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Court interpreters likely to win raise; Uber and Lyft update; lawmakers vote to eliminate subminimum wage for disabled workers; 9th Minnesota Starbucks unionizes; Tennessee VW workers vote on unionizing; and Florida bans local heat protections for workers.   

Strike translates into higher pay

Minnesota lawmakers are likely to fund a 15% pay increase for state certified court interpreters after an unprecedented seven-week strike forced the court system to postpone hearings and turn to lesser qualified interpreters, sometimes through an expensive phone service.

Yet court interpreters, who are independent contractors and not unionized, say the higher pay of $75 an hour still won’t be competitive with other state courts or the private sector, and the Minnesota Judicial Branch will continue to struggle to uphold its constitutional mandate to provide interpreters to all court participants who are deaf or non-English speakers.

Esperanza Lopez-Dominguez, a court-certified Spanish interpreter, told the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday she rejects nearly all the offers she receives from the Minnesota courts because they only pay $65 an hour whereas she can earn $130 to $170 per hour in the private sector.

“I could never pay my mortgage … pay my medical bills or send my kids to college if I only relied on the income the judicial branch generates,” said Lopez-Dominguez, who has worked as an interpreter in the Minnesota court system for 26 years.

Interpreters say the higher pay in the private sector and other courts reflects their advanced skills: not just speaking two languages fluently, but also being able to simultaneously translate conversations using technical vocabulary and emotional intelligence.

“We are the voice of persons who are expressing traumatic experiences … Moments later, we are the voice speaking legalese of attorneys or the judge or of an expert witness rattling off scientific terminology,” said Marj Evans-de-Carpio, a Spanish court interpreter, during Wednesday’s hearing.

Pay for Minnesota court interpreters has barely budged over nearly three decades. In 1997, court interpreters made $50 an hour. They made $56 an hour until Jan. 8, when new rates increased their pay to $65 an hour. That’s when interpreters began what they planned as an indefinite strike, demanding $96 an hour to match the buying power they had in the 1990s.

The interpreters, over 125 of whom signed a petition in support of the work stoppage, called off the strike last month while continuing to urge lawmakers to appropriate more money. Both the House and the Senate have included funding for pay increases in their judiciary budget bills.

The House version would send more than $1.2 million in additional funding to the courts over the next three years to increase interpreter wages and pay for travel time. Currently, the courts don’t compensate interpreters for potentially lengthy commutes to assignments that may last only two hours. That makes it especially hard to find interpreters in greater Minnesota.

The Legislature has a tighter budget this year than last, when lawmakers had a historic $17.5 billion budget surplus and were able to fully fund numerous requests, including pay increases of 26% to 72% for public defenders.

“What we do with our budget this year is going to be insufficient. I’m sorry we can’t do better,” Senate Judiciary Chair and defense attorney Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, told interpreters during the hearing on Wednesday.

Uber and Lyft update

A small group of Democratic lawmakers is continuing to work behind the scenes on a deal to raise driver pay and improve working conditions while keeping Uber and Lyft operational in the state.

While the companies and lawmakers have reached agreement on insurance requirements, the major disagreements continue to be over minimum pay rates, independent contractor classification and preempting local cities from enacting their own standards.

Asked what she was hearing from drivers in her district, Rep. Hodan Hassan, DFL-Minneapolis, told the Reformer this week that “nobody wants Uber and Lyft to leave.” She said people came up to her at the DFL endorsement convention last weekend asking her to not let the two companies leave.

That anecdote was affirmed by an Uber-sponsored poll of 336 drivers by Democratic-leaning Impact Research, which found 90% of respondents want lawmakers to find a solution that keeps the company operating in the state.

Given the ongoing negotiations, the poll serves dual purposes for Uber: it reminds drivers of its threat to leave the Twin Cities over Minneapolis’ minimum pay ordinance and provides the company with data that drivers are on their side as they try to negotiate down minimum pay rates.

The poll also included a question about the New York state settlement with the companies, which guarantees drivers $26 per hour (before expenses) while en route to a rider or transporting a rider. Two-thirds of drivers said they support the same rule in Minnesota, although most drivers are already earning far more than that. A state study of more than 18 million trips in Minnesota in 2022 found drivers in the Twin Cities earn on average nearly $35 per hour for the time spent between accepting a fare and dropping off a passenger.

Minneapolis passed minimum rates higher than those proposed in the report. The new rates are scheduled to take effect July 1, and a slew of competing ride-hailing apps are racing to enter the market to capitalize on the public’s attention over the potential exit of the two tech giants.

House approves eliminating subminimum wage

The Minnesota House voted this week to phase out subminimum wages for people with disabilities by 2028. Under a federal program, employers may pay people with physical or mental disabilities far less than the federal minimum wage.

Opponents of the program say it’s unfair and demeaning to pay disabled people around $3.50 an hour, while proponents — including some families of people with disabilities — say it allows people who aren’t otherwise competitive applicants to enter the workforce. They fear ending the program would eliminate one important pathway to participation in society.

Democrats also aim to eliminate the lower minimum wage of $8.85 per hour for small businesses, employees under 18 years old and foreign workers on J visas in the hospitality industry. If signed into law, virtually all employees would be guaranteed the statewide minimum wage of $10.85 per hour. The bill also raises the threshold on annual inflation adjustments from 2.5% to 5%, allowing the minimum wage to rise more in years with high inflation.

Ninth Minnesota Starbucks votes to unionize

Starbucks Workers United has gained momentum in the weeks since corporate leaders agreed to work on a “foundational framework” for workers to organize and reach agreements on labor contracts.

The union announced Thursday a successful unionization vote at a ninth location in Minnesota: 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. Since 2021, Starbucks Workers United has organized more than 420 of the coffee chain’s 9,000 stores, despite fierce opposition from the company that has included closing union stores, firing pro-union workers and rewarding non-union stores with pay raises and the option to receive credit card tips. No store has yet won a first labor contract, governing wages, benefits and working conditions.

The union had been in an organizing slump through 2023, especially in Minnesota, where it withdrew petitions for elections at two stores before successfully unionizing stores in Duluth, Moorhead and the latest Minneapolis location this year.

VW workers vote on union

Workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., factory are voting on unionizing with the United Auto Workers. It’s the union’s first election since it kicked off a national campaign to organize foreign automakers following significant wage gains in its 2023 strike against the Big Three American automakers.

The election marks the third attempt to organize more than 4,000 workers at the German automaker’s only non-union plant in the world. As in previous union drives, the company has remained neutral while Republican leaders have been outspoken opponents.

Some 5,000 Mercedes workers in Alabama will vote on unionizing with UAW in May.

Florida bans local heat protections for workers

Florida cities and counties may not enact their own requirements on employers to provide outdoor workers with protections against heat exposure under a bill Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last week. The state preemption law quashes a proposal considered in Miami-Dade County to guarantee workers have access to water and 10-minute breaks in the shade every two hours on extremely hot days.