Call a law that imposes strong penalties on construction industry businessmen and owners who mistakenly classify employees as “unconstitutional” and “strike” independent contractors, two associations of construction based in Minnesota and a contractor ask to prevent the Law take effect on March 1.
The demand was filed on February 14 by the associated builders and contractors of Minnesota and North Dakota (ABC), the Builders Association of Minnesota (BAM) and J&M Consulting based in Rochester. The demand calls on the United States District Court of Minnesota to declare the unconstitutional law and argues that it is prevented by the National Law of Labor Relations.
The complaint claims that the law, which applies a 14 -point test for the construction industry to determine who is an independent contractor versus an employee, “it is waterproof: an ordinary person cannot reasonably understand which behavior prohibits and animates Also arbitrary execution by the defendants. ”
He also accuses the law that violates the Bloc de la vuena amendment into excessive fines by imposing “crowds of massive compounds for even unnoticed, innocent or technical offenses”.
Demand names Nicole Blissenbach, curator of the Ministry of Labor and Industry (Doli), and Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota, as defendants.
The law, which was passed in May 2024, allows compensatory damage and penalties of up to $ 10,000 for each individual that the employer does not classify, represent or treat as an employee and $ 1,000 a day for not providing documents.
If the employer also does not report individuals as employees of a state agency, such as in the unemployment insurance division, they could deal with additional sanctions. Officers, officers or individual agents may also be responsible.
“The new legislation replaces today’s fragmentary response to the wrong classification with an entire government approach,” Blissenbach said in a statement after the law was passed in May. “
A new “test of 14 factors” of the law is not only a strike, but also conflicts with the common standards of the industry, the demand Cobra. The test “invites innocent or inadvertent misconceptions and then punished for these misconceptions,” said Dale Jununen, president of the Minnesota Builders Association, in a statement. BAM represents most members of the open contractor.
The law specifies that an independent contractor operates under a written contract to carry out specific services that must be signed and dated by an authorized representative of both business entities, and must be fully executed no more than 30 Days after the work. It also identifies specific services to carry out and provides for a compensation for a commission, for work or competitively and not of any other basis. In addition, the contract must be signed and dated both by an authorized representative of the company who provides the service and for the person to whom the services is provided. Many construction service providers, such as concrete truck drivers ready and others, operate as independent contractors when they are in multiplier jobs because they allow them to deliver in various places of various different employees, working for various contractors of different concrete a day.
John McGuine, owner and president of J&M Consulting, a commercial general contractor of Rochester, Minn.
“Because JMC does not work mainly on state -funded projects… JMC can never know what their subcontractors or subcontractors pay their employees in salary and benefits; JMC also does not know that the payment structure used by subcontractors. And the subcontractors when they pay wages and benefits to their employees, “he said.
Chad Kompelien, CEO of Mike Kompelien Custom Men, said that it is not uncommon for a subcontractor to forget to sign a document and that “parties are starting to work and care about the procedures later.”
The law allows Doli to order a company to stop working on one or more of its josbits if Doli determines that the business violated the law related to the erroneous classification. The unemployment work order is still effective until the commissioner determines that the company has fulfilled and paid for damage and penalties.
The law states that Doli may order the employer to pay compensatory damage to each worker affected to cover the minimum wage, extraordinary hours, displacement differentials, holiday pay, pay for illness, health insurance, l ‘Life insurance and disability Benefits, as well as contributions from unemployed businessmen, to the Social Security and Medicare.
The lawsuit claims that the state legislature violated the constitution of the State when it violated hundreds of laws in a 1,492 pages of omnibus bill that it approved before midnight on May 19, 2024. The legislators and the public were not given enough time to review or discuss the Omnibus bill and raped a constitutional requirement of Minnesota that no law can adopt more of a subject and the subject must be expressed in the title of the law.
The regional council of Carpenters of the North Central States supports the law.
“This legislation increases penalties and establishes essential cooperation for intersection to empower construction workers to speak and deter entrepreneurs to try to obtain a non -ethical competitive advantage when they are tendered against entrepreneurs who respect the law.” Dir Burt Johnson, lawyer general of the Regional Council of Carpenters.
James Honerman, Doli Communication Director, said that his department is “reviewing the complaint and has no comment.”
