Menard to fly Wis. workers in to staff ND store

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JAMES MacPHERSON

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Home improvement retailer Menard Inc. says it will hire workers from its home base in Wisconsin and fly them to North Dakota to staff a store in Minot, which is near the state's booming oil patch and has more jobs than takers.

The company said in a statement that it plans to hire 50 workers in Eau Claire, Wis., where it has its headquarters, and fly them weekly to Minot, which is also in the middle of an unprecedented building boom as it recovers from record flooding last year.

Menard, which has more than 200 stores in the Upper Midwest, said this would be the first time it has ferried in workers by airplane, but it believes jetting in employees for weeklong stints and housing them in hotels "is going to be a permanent solution for as far as we can see."

Minot is North Dakota's fourth-largest city and had been growing rapidly even before the flooding that swamped some 4,100 homes and displaced thousands of residents. Its population grew from 36,500 in 2000 to about 41,000 in 2010, U.S. Census data show. City officials say the present population is nearing 50,000.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121130/DA2S64JG2.html

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Larry Boutilier, hardware manager, who has been with the Minot, N.D. Menards since 1996, looks over paperwork at the storey in Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. The home improvement retailer says it will hire workers from its home base in Wisconsin and fly them to North Dakota to staff a store in Minot, which is near the state's booming oil patch and has more jobs than takers. (AP Photo/The Minot Daily News, Jesse D. Watson)

[HereSince1628]

1. Does WI have tax reciprocity with North Dakota?

I maintained residency WI and taught in MN for 3 years travelling back and forth as Menards is suggesting...while MN and WI have reciprocity for taxes it resulted in constant hassling with WI Dept of Revenue.

[KewlKat]

2. Something is a miss......

Per wikipedia -

Minot is beset by significant problems with enterprise capital and wage standards. About 30% of Minot residents work two or more jobs, and two-thirds of households earn less than the national median household income.

Maybe the reason they can't find employees is because the pay is too low? If they factor in the expense of flying in employees and paying hotel bills, etc, I can't see why some of these "two job folks" wouldn't opt for just one good paying job?

[mn9driver]

3. They refuse to pay the local prevailing wage.

I go to Minot now and then, and all of the traditional minimum-wage jobs are begging for workers. Why would anyone work flipping burgers or running a cash register when they can make 5 or 6 times as much driving workers or water to the Patch?

I stop at a KFC when I'm there because it's cheap and they have a buffet and there isn't much else available. The last time I was there, the manager was running the drive thu, the counter, the buffet and the kitchen all by himself. He looked about 5 minutes from death, and of course speed, service and quality were all completely in the toilet.

I asked why there was no help, and he said, "Corporate won't let me pay the wage I need to get workers in the door." KFC would rather lose a restaurant in a boom town than set a precedent of paying what the job market requires. Menards is just doing another form of the same thing.

[hunter]

4. Heck, the might as well fly them in from India or somewhere.

They could pay them minimum wage and they could live in the store...