EMERGE corrects mistake – but only after it was brought to their attention. So much for knowing what you are doing.
North Minneapolis: A community that needs the immediate infusion of at least 30,000 jobs to build capacity, wealth and independence continues to suffer with a program that provided a position for 1 person, with 5 more that started training on Monday, December 8, 2009. Concerned community stakeholders need to take a look at other north Minneapolis agencies entrusted to bring jobs to our community. I attest this is not the first time this has happened – but a continuation of bad business practices and administrative bureaucracy.
Minneapolis, MN (IBNNNEWS)…Sources close to IBNN informed us of possible transgression as it pertains to the paying weatherization workers for a program within Emerge. Not only in this matter but other questions like: “Why did Emerge have job fair participants to fill out W-4 forms, with critical social security information – and no jobs available?
Does this denote an investigation?
We say yes.
IBNN sent an email titled, “Emerge was illegally paying weatherization workers less than prevailing wage” asking Emerge to clarify its process in this matter.
The following is the email response from executive director Mike Wynne:
Mr. Allen,
Thank you for your inquiry. I understand you have spoken directly with Lance Knuckles at Emerge and the two of you have scheduled to talk tomorrow (12/9) to clarify this matter, however, I decided to respond to your question personally. We recently received a couple of inquiries about the pay level of paid trainees in our Weatherization Insulation.
Installer training program (in partnership with Dunwoody College of Technology). The training, funded by $75,000 City of Minneapolis ARRA (stimulus) funding awarded to Emerge, encompasses a classroom based certification training course provided by Dunwoody followed by a 7-week paid on the job training, on Emerges payroll, at participating contractors.
The Trainees who successfully complete the certification are then eligible to proceed into the 7-week paid on-the-job training with participating weatherization contractors. The program, with limited funds available, was designed to pay trainees an $8.50 training wage, with the goal of graduating 10 trainees into market wages with these same or other weatherization contractors. The program design and trainee wage plan was approved by City of Minneapolis staff upon our funding award.
Due to these recent inquiries, we asked City staff to clarify this question about the prevailing wage requirement. They have since researched the matter and received an opinion from State of Minnesota staff that these workers are, in fact, subject to the prevailing wage requirement. Again, to date, this affects only the two workers who have participated in the on the job training experience thus far. Due to this new information, we are taking steps to immediately correct the pay level of the two trainees in question as well as their past pay for any hours they were in the paid training.
We are pleased to inform you that with this clarification of the rules governing paid training in stimulus funding we have corrected the matter adjusted accordingly going forward. Moreover, we would reject any assertion that we intentionally violated any rules or intended to harm paid-trainees in any way.
In the future, if you have any questions about Emerge’s work or our program policies, please feel free to inquire to Emerge directly about this. Thank you again for this inquiry and interest in equity form members of Emerge programs and our community.
Sincerely,
Mike Wynne, Executive Director
Emerge Community Development
1101 W. Broadway Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55411
(612) 529-9267 office
(612) 529-4743 fax
www.emerge-mn.org
Nuff said!
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