Building Trades members are keeping up the pressure on the Legislature to pass a bill revoking the property tax exemption for the Lakefield Junction power plant.

The legislation, H.F. 1096 and S.F. 1094, passed the Senate Property Tax subcommittee March 14 and is awaiting a hearing in the full Tax Committees of both houses.

Unionized trades workers say the Legislature was misled about the number of Minnesota workers who would build the plant. Joe Rohrer, chairman of the Minnesota Construction Trades Organizing Association, says the power plant's general contractor - The Industrial Company, of Casper, Wyo. - is using a workforce of 80 percent out-of-state workers.

In 1999, the Legislature granted the Trimont, Minn., plant a property tax exemption estimated at $575,000 a year, with the understanding that construction of the plant would create Minnesota jobs, Rohrer said.

As part of their campaign for the repeal of the tax exemption, Building Trades members held a huge rally at the Capitol March 14, then attended a legislative hearing on the bill.

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