June 20, 2006

Minimum Wage in the Senate - A Call for Support

Filed under: Labor by Kombiz Lavasany @ 11:49 am

From AFL-CIO Now by Mike Hall. You can sign the petition to the Senate by adding your name by contacting Congress.

It’s showdown time on the minimum wage in the Senate this week. Senators will chose between a real minimum wage increase of $2.10 an hour and a phony alternative that’s not only smaller but likely laden with “poison pills” that would hurt workers.

The Senate action follows last week’s House Appropriations Committee approval of a minimum wage hike that Republican leaders are keeping from a vote. Also last week, members of Congress voted for their ninth pay raise since the minimum wage was last raised in 1997, boosting congressional pay by nearly $35,000 a year since that last minimum wage increase.

It’s been 10 years since Congress passed the last minimum wage raise in the summer of 1996. Minimum wage workers have been earning $5.15 an hour since 1997 when the wage went into effect—a wage that pays a full-time worker just $10,712 a year, far below the poverty level for even a small family.

In the Senate, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who long has championed raising the minimum wage, will offer a minimum wage bill (S. 1062) that raises the wage by $2.10 an hour to $7.25. Kennedy is offering the minimum wage increase as an amendment to the Defense Department Authorization bill (S. 2766).

As they have in the past, Senate Republicans are expected to respond with a poison pill- proposal. Last year, when Kennedy brought up a similar increase in the minimum wage, Republicans countered with a proposal to raise the minimum wage by $1.10 an hour—while reducing overtime pay for workers by replacing the 40-hour workweek with an 80-hour, two-week work period. The proposal also would have eliminated wage and hour protections for more than 7 million workers and actually lowered wages for millions of workers who earn tips… (More at the AFL-CIO’s Blog)

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  • Sorry to do this-I know it’s rude-but I can’t seem to contact anyone at the UFT online to straighten out a problem with using ‘the grapevine’. According to the website I am not a member of the the union. Funny but scary. Cheers!

    Comment by northbrooklyn — June 21, 2006 @ 6:32 pm

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