Labor leader Jason George dishes criticism on Twin Cities government officials, rent control, crime

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
Updated ·7 min read

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter took to the internet last month to show off that, as a result of President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program, the outstanding payments on the mayor’s advanced degree dropped to zero. “Thank you, Mr. President!” wrote the mayor, on the social media platform X.

The posting drew a range of reactions from some 2,000 user comments and 400 reposts, including a quick retort from a critical union leader and former Carter supporter.

“Hard working Americans like our members are paying your debt off for you, Mr. Mayor,” wrote Jason George, the elected business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49, the state’s largest construction union.

“They also pay your salary,” George went on. “It’s one thing to help working class public servants with debt. To pay off debt of a big city mayor that makes well over six figures is embarrassingly out of touch.”

Social media jabs

It wasn’t the first time George took to social media to make a public jab at the St. Paul mayor, or the St. Paul City Council, or for that matter, the Minneapolis City Council and other proponents of public policies he finds too left of political center.

None of the political candidates his labor union backed for city council won election last November. That setback seems to have only fanned the flames of his ire.

To George, the two cities are increasingly run by “a government of paid activists, career political types. … You don’t have diversity of thought among your political leaders.”

Rent control is a favorite target. “We build things,” said George, in a recent interview. “That’s what my union does. We knew rent control would have a devastating effect on the city … and the mayor supported it. Anything being built right now is being built with huge public subsidy. Highland Bridge is about half of what it should be.”

Violent crime tends to pop up in George’s postings even as statistics show it’s on the decline. “Is St. Paul more safe than it was 10 years ago?” George said. “Maybe than two years ago. But are we OK with just OK?”

Gaza resolution, medical debt relief

He’s been critical of the St. Paul City Council for passing a resolution against Israel’s sustained bombing of Gaza (“I think President Biden has it covered”), and unimpressed by the Carter administration’s efforts to use $1.1 million in federal pandemic relief funding to wipe out more than $100 million in medical debt from some 43,000 city residents.

“Hospitals are never going to collect that debt,” George said. “Under the law, they’re supposed to provide charity care.”

When advocates for sustainable urban planning with Sustain St. Paul recently shared an online map of the city’s drive-throughs and questioned the need for them, George was quick with a response.

“Drive-throughs,” wrote George on X, expressing exasperation. “We talking about drive-throughs? Not actual solutions to climate issues, or serious issues. Drive-throughs.”

Deep roots in St. Paul

George, a St. Paul resident and the public face of the 49ers, represents the construction mechanics and heavy equipment operators in St. Paul Public Works, St. Paul Regional Water and the city’s forestry department, as well as crane operators and other construction workers employed in the private sector — some 15,000 workers in all across Minnesota, North and South Dakota.

His roots in labor — and in St. Paul — run deep. In the early 1900s, the Lebanese side of his family settled on the city’s West Side Flats. The Irish side of his family became police officers. Both of his parents attended Humboldt High School. Raised in St. Paul and West St. Paul, he spent his early years involved in youth sports with the West Side Boosters, through which two of his uncles coached football and baseball, before graduating from Henry Sibley High School.

His mother, a single mom, did the best she could, but George said it would take the involvement of his uncle, Ron Lloyd, a labor activist who represented Metro Transit bus drivers and mechanics as president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, to set him straight.

“I learned everything from him,” George said.

‘A city with so much potential’

He claims to actually like the mayor — his union endorsed Carter during Carter’s time on the city council — but he’s nonetheless proven to be one of the administration’s most vocal critics.

In a city where the Republican Party hasn’t claimed even a minor victory at the polls in years, George has become, increasingly, the face of political opposition to City Hall.

“This is a city with so much potential,” George said. “Sometimes the progressive left forgets that money is mobile. Nobody has to do business in St. Paul. They can go to West St. Paul. They can go to Roseville. We already have the highest sales tax in the state. When I talk to people from other cities, they ask, ‘How much do you pay in property taxes?’ When I tell them, they’re like, ‘Oh my God.'”

Those gasps of dissatisfaction have not translated into votes, at least not within the city limits. George acknowledges that many of his members no longer live in St. Paul. All but “a couple hundred” of his union members, who are largely white men, have gravitated toward the suburbs, and swaying voters in a progressive, multi-racial city like St. Paul, about half of which is composed of renters, has proven elusive.

On Wednesday, the mayor’s office offered limited comment in response to George’s criticisms, except to point out that the city’s new 1% sales tax will create thousands of jobs for unionized workers in St. Paul as it funds construction projects in roads and parks.

“We appreciate Mr. George’s enthusiastic support for many of the mayor’s top priorities,” said Jennifer Lor, the mayor’s spokesperson.

No political wins last November

Last September, with weeks to go before the election of a new seven-member city council, George took the podium at the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters Hall in St. Paul to announce that a coalition of labor unions and businesses with ties to restaurants and real estate would raise more than $300,000 to back their preferred council candidates, focus-group-style surveys, polling and issue-oriented advertising around the need for more affordable housing and public safety.

Pointing to divides over how best to navigate the homeless crisis in cities such as Portland, Ore., George said at the time that St. Paul should avoid ideological impasses over “experimental policies that clearly aren’t working in those cities” and refocus on “core services” such as roads, housing, safe streets and fire services.

George announced that the “Service St. Paul” coalition — which included the Regional Council of Carpenters and the Minnesota Multi Housing Association — was frustrated by St. Paul’s rent-control policy and rhetoric they described as anti-policing. They endorsed Isaac Russell in the Ward 3 city council race, and later backed James Lo and Yan Chen on the same ranked-choice ballot for the Ward 1 seat, David Greenwood-Sanchez in Ward 5 and Gary Unger in Ward 6.

However, none of those candidates came close to winning. In the election, Russell earned 30% of the Ward 3 vote, compared to almost 49% for Saura Jost. Lo earned 37% of the vote, compared to 64% for Anika Bowie. Greenwood-Sanchez earned 27% of the vote, compared to 52% for HwaJeong Kim. Unger earned 38%, compared to 62% for Nelsie Yang, the incumbent council member.

It wasn’t the first time the 49ers had attempted to sway an election in St. Paul. In 2017, when they endorsed former city council member Pat Harris over Carter for the open mayoral seat, Carter walked away with 51% of the vote on Election Day. Harris earned 25%.

Fast forward four years to when the labor union joined the Minnesota Multi Housing Association in urging a “no” vote against the rent-control question when it appeared on the November 2021 ballot. St. Paul voters approved rent control, 53% to 47%, making the city the only rent-regulated municipality in the Midwest.

Asked about a potential run for public office, George said he already had the best elected position he could ask for as the leader of a union spanning 15,000 members across Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

“I’m the elected leader of the largest construction union in the state of Minnesota,” said George, who plans to use that pulpit broadly — and loudly. “I’ve got the best job in the world.”

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