Labor and Industry commissioner’s head rolls

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In a surprise move that made Democrats see red, the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday suddenly fired Minnesota Labor and Industry Commissioner Nancy Leppink.

Leppink, who helped formulate the state’s 2019 wage theft law and who helmed the agency as it has processed more than 2,000 COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims, lost her job effective immediately.

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, said Leppink has been “hostile” to business and that she overregulated industry. He said he prevailed on Gov. Tim Walz earlier this year to replace her, but the governor did not act.

Gazelka said has been planning to move her confirmation to the Senate floor ever since. But he was twice interrupted, he said: Once, by the March 13 COVID-19 emergency declaration, a second time by the crisis surrounding George Floyd’s May 25 death.

“I have heard case after case of harassment from so many senators, telling me about their constituents that have been harassed,” Gazelka said Wednesday while introducing the resolution to put Leppink’s confirmation to a vote.

A DLI commissioner should represent the government interaction with business statewide, Gazelka said. But Leppink, he suggested, has been biased toward labor. At one point, he said, she unethically invited “union bosses” to non-union shops to collect documentation without permission. Gazelka called those “union intrusions.”

“The Department of Labor and Industry has to have somebody that can connect to labor and connect to industry, and work with them in what feels like cooperation,” Gazelka said. “Not as a hammer that’s about to come down every time they make a misstep.”

He had a list of accusations for the commissioner. Gazelka charged Leppink with creating “wage theft confusion,” by reinterpreting the 2019 law, then distributing misleading information to businesses. It took eight months to set things right, he said.

She also torpedoed two agreements on COVID-19-related workers’ comp without offering reasonable alternatives, the senator said. Eventually, stakeholders reverted to their first agreement and the Legislature approved it, he said, but the delay left first responders hanging.

She also mishandled youth exemptions for summer employment, Gazelka said, forcing lawmakers to pass specific legislation allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to mow lawns and work as ride operators at the Brainerd-based Paul Bunyan Land amusement park. Meanwhile, she placed undo pressure on wedding barn operators to install expensive sprinkler systems, he said.

“I do this with great seriousness,” Gazelka said. “This is not something I take lightly.”

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DFLers livid

Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent reacted angrily, accusing Gazelka of blindsiding her. She said she and the majority leader spoke by phone the night before and that he informed her that “nothing controversial” would be brought to a vote. Gazelka denied it.

“I want to say that this is outrageous,” Kent said. “It is a travesty and it is absolutely not fitting of the Minnesota senate to handle something of this serious nature, without due notice that this would be discussed,”

Voting down Leppink’s confirmation, she said, would have “massive ramifications” for both labor and industry.

Gazelka pointed out that on May 6, the Senate Jobs and Economic Growth committee took up the commissioner’s confirmation and passed it off to the Senate floor without recommendation. “Which is a strong warning of things to come,” Gazelka said.

Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, read a statement from Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis. Champion is the DFL lead on the Jobs committee, but did not attend Wednesday’s hearing because the Senate is still observing social distancing and he was not aware the confirmation was on the agenda.

Through Dibble, Champion said Leppink has worked well with business, is not a hindrance or hostile and follows the law. She has never accused of malfeasance, he said. “She just has differences in approaches” Champion said. “There are no sufficient grounds for taking this action today.”

The Senate ultimately voted 32-34 to fire Leppink. According to Dibble, the vote required her to clear her desk out by the end of the day Wednesday.

‘So disappointed’

At a press conference Wednesday night after the special session’s adjournment, Walz confirmed he was not aware the confirmation vote was coming.

Democratic reaction to the firing was swift. Walz office issued a statement, supportive testimony from trade unions, businesses associations and two former DLI commissioners — one from each political party — all supporting Leppink.

Walz said that former House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, wrote a letter of recommendation for Leppink when she was a candidate for the job.

House Speaker Melissa Hortman suggested sexism lay behind the Senate’s treatment of the commissioner. “It’s disgraceful that Senate Republicans are removing a woman leader because she is good at her job,” she said.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison also weighed in, accusing the Senate of using Leppink as “collateral” in the Republicans’ efforts to force Walz to surrender his COVID-19 emergency powers. Senate Republicans on Wednesday passed the latest in a series of resolutions to end the governor’s emergency powers, but the DFL-led House did not follow suit.

“They’ve thrown Nancy Leppink out of her job for protecting Minnesotans’ lives,” Ellison said in his written statement.

“We will continue to fight to protect workers,” said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. “We will not be deterred or succumb to Republican threats to hold more commissioners hostage to their partisan gamesmanship.”

After Wednesday’s vote and just before the Senate adjourned the season’s third special session sine die, Gazelka suggested there is reason to believe other commissioners’ jobs might, indeed, be on the line.

He said that over the next months, there will be a series of informational hearings on other commissioners’ confirmations.

While those would likely be interim hearings during which formal committee votes would not be allowed, they could pave the way for rapidly moving more confirmation votes to the Senate floor at the beginning of the 2021 regular session.

A Senate GOP spokesperson offered no indication whose jobs might be on the line next, saying only, “Stay tuned.”

In his impromptu press conference Wednesday night, Walz said Leppink is among the most talented workers’ safety experts in the nation. Among her duties, the governor said, she made sure that frontline health care workers have protective equipment to deal with the coronavirus.

She also has helped meatpacking plants, forced to close because of the outbreak, set up safety measures that allowed workers to feel confident enough to go back to work.

He faulted Republican for putting her in the middle of “a petty political move.”

“I am so disappointed that Senate Republicans are not taking COVID seriously and not taking the safety of Minnesotans seriously,” he said.