Oregon Daily Emerald
Friday, April 1, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Tipping the wage scale
Nobody plays a funnier April
Fools’ joke than the restaurant in
dustry. In fact, I’m sure Oregon min
imum-wage earners are laughing
their aprons off.
It must be hilarious to try to feed
your kids while the Oregon Restau
rant Association pushes business
friendly legislators in Salem to freeze
the minimum wage for workers who
earn tips.
The restaurant industry has been
fighting this battle for years. Restau
rateurs hate the minimum wage,
they hate increases in the minimum
wage and they hate not being able to
factor tips into the minimum wage.
The battle has intensified since
2002, when Oregon voters approved
an initiative that raised the mini
mum wage and tied annual increas
es to the Consumer Price Index. Ore
gon now has a $7.25 minimum
wage, the second highest in the na
tion only to Washington.
The minimum wage fight boils
down to a political boxing match. In
one corner stand Republican legisla
tors, who control the state House,
with the restaurant industry playing
the role of trainer. In the other cor
ner stand Democrats, who control
the Senate and governor’s office,
with labor unions cheering on their
pugilists.
Rep. George Gilman, R-Medford,
has thrown a right hook with HB
2409, a bill that would freeze the
minimum wage for workers who
earn tips.
Gilman apparently thinks all those
working mothers earn too much
money — all those hard-working
CHUCK SLOTHOWER
TAKING ISSUE
waiters and waitresses who place
lemon slices in your iced tea,
fetch you an extra stack of napkins
for a messy burger and offer you cof
fee refills.
One might jump to the conclusion
that Gilman, his House allies and the
Oregon Restaurant Association want
to screw over the working poor in
exchange for campaign contribu
tions and higher profits.
No, ORA spokesman Bill Perry
said, restaurateurs simply want to
pay higher wages to their untipped
employees, such as cooks. “We’re
not saying that the servers don’t de
serve their tip income,” Perry told
The Associated Press. “The question
is, how do we get a fair wage to the
back-of-the-house employees?”
Of course. The Oregon Restaurant
Association has been pouring cam
paign contributions into Republican
coffers for years — to the tune of
$147,680 in 2004, according to The
Institute on Money in State Politics
— in an altruistic campaign to raise
wages for cooks.
Now that’s a good April Fools’
joke. And it’s on Oregon’s working
poor.
Amusingly, if Perry were honest in
the quote above, the bill would adhere
rather closely to socialist philosophy.
Think about it: a government plan
lowering wages for one type of
worker in order to give more to an
other type of worker, leveling wages
all around. One wonders if Gilman’s
constituents in the Medford area
elected him to ease class divisions in
the restaurant industry.
Gilman, a longtime dairy farmer,
might not have read a great deal of
Karl Marx, who with Friedrich En
gels described the essence of the
minimum wage more than 150 years
ago in “The Communist Manifesto.”
“The average price of wage labor,”
they wrote, “is the minimum wage,
i.e., that quantum of the means of
subsistence which is absolutely req
uisite to keep the laborer in bare ex
istence as a laborer. What, therefore,
the wage laborer appropriates by
means of his labor merely suffices to
prolong and reproduce a bare exis
tence ... under which the laborer
lives merely to increase capital,
and is allowed to live only in so far
as the interest of the ruling class re
quires it.”
Gilman has done the job of a good
Republican, submitting to the bid
ding of the latest industry to whine
about the cost of doing business.
Simultaneously, he has proposed
to shift the cost of paying waitstaff
from employers to consumers.
One hopes he gets a nice campaign
contribution.
One also hopes that Democrats
have the wisdom to block this
shameless bill.
chuckslothower@dailyemerald.com
■ Guest commentary
World Bank should lay off dam
On Thursday, the World Bank dis
cussed whether to fund the pro
posed Nam Theun 2 Dam in Laos.
As American students studying de
velopment in Northeast Thailand,
we have seen first hand the devasta
tion hydroelectric power dams have
on local villagers. These villagers
have depended on the natural cycles
of the Mun River for generations.
The Pak Mun Dam is a well known
example of a failed development
project, and the World Commission
on Dams has acknowledged it as
such. The Nam Theun 2 Dam prom
ises similar consequences to an even
larger degree. Pak Mun Dam failed
under a relatively stable Thai gov
ernment, while the strict Communist
Lao regime doesn’t allow villagers to
protest or voice their dissent.
In a cost-benefit analysis, the 25
year lifespan of this dam will in no
way offset the permanent loss of
sustainable livelihoods, natural
ecosystems and endangered species
unique to the area that would be de
stroyed if the project passes. Ninety
percent of the electricity to be gener
ated from Nam Theun 2 Dam will go
to Thailand, which ironically has
cheaper, renewable energy alterna
tives. The World Bank’s mission
statement is to lift people out of
poverty. This cannot be accom
plished through the destruction of
the natural resources that citizens
depend on for their livelihood. This
project is unnecessary and destruc
tive. It does not fulfill the World
Bank’s criteria for decision-making.
We have the potential to harness
real sustainable energy. It is time to
put away the notion that hydroelec
tricity is a harmless and sustainable
option. There is too much at stake to
remain idle. As citizens of a connect
ed world, we all have a duty to stand
up for the oppressed Laotian vil
lagers and demand that the World
Bank learn from its past mistakes
and deny funding for this devastat
ing project.
The Council on International
Educational Exchange Students are
currently participating in a study
abroad program in Khon Kaen,
Thailand
INBOX
Legislators must repair
Measure 37's ambiguities
The Oregon Legislature needs to act
decisively to address the many prob
lems with Measure 37. Measure 37 is
not the solution to whatever problems
Oregon’s land use system might have.
Measure 37 has created a mess of the
state’s property law system that will
take too long to resolve in the courts.
It is the responsibility of our legisla
tors to preserve the land use system,
and resolve the legitimate concerns of
citizens.
So far this session, legislators have
invoked the “will of the people” as
their reason for leaving Measure 37
alone. This might be a valid argument
if Measure 37’s effect could be objec
tively understood; however, this is not
the case. Among its many ambigui
ties, Measure 37 does not give guid
ance on how land should be valued,
where the money for compensation
should come from, or what remedies
exist for neighbors harmed by a suc
cessful claim.
Legislators should provide guid
ance in this area by introducing legis
lation to clear up Measure 37’s ambi
guities, and remove its most prob
lematic provisions. At the least, leg
islators should institute a
moratorium on Measure 37 claims to
allow policymakers and state agen
cies a chance to catch up and do a
better job of implementing the law. If
nothing is done, Oregon’s property
system will grind to a halt until the
courts can create workable rules to
navigate the mess that Measure 37
has made.
Jason Hartz
Eugene
■ Editorial
Some news
events find
their own
April fools
In light of April Fools’ Day, the Editorial
Board would like to present a summary of re
cent news events we wish were jokes.
The crap's out of the bag
On Monday night, a San Diego woman expe
rienced a harrowing mugging while walking
her dog, according to an Associated Press re
port. Unfortunately for the criminal, the bag
snatched from the woman’s hand was not full
of money; it was full of her dog’s droppings.
Criminal recklessness indeed.
It pays to be a Trekkie
This week, “NBC Nightly News” ran an in
teresting story on lesser-known, alternative
scholarships available to graduating high
school students. Noteworthy awards include:
$500 to language students from the Klingon
Language Institute; $1,500 from the American
Sheep Industry; and an award to the University
of Chicago if your last name is Zolp.
X-graded
On Wednesday, a California State University
fraternity was suspended after members admit
ted to acting in a porn film, according to an AP
report. They knew something was odd about
that Film 101 class.
The real labor of birth
An Ohio woman failed to get to a hospital to
deliver her baby Hiesday and ended up parking
at a local gas station to give birth in her family
van. The AP reported that a customer at the
service station called police with the woman’s
license number and explained the situation;
however, a mix-up occurred, and officers set
out looking for the woman’s van as a stolen ve
hicle. Luckily the mix-up was set straight, but
before officers could reach the woman, another
caller mistakenly reported that someone was
trying to throw a baby from the van. In the end,
several officers ordered her out of the van at
gunpoint, at which time the whole situation
was quickly resolved.
Selsun Blue: pollution prevention
A WebMD news article suggested Thursday
that especially in the winter months, dandruff,
dead skin cells and other similar cell fragments
could account for notable air pollution and cli
mate change.
When the court starts a-rockin'
The Michael Jackson trial took an intimate
turn Wednesday, according to MTV News,
when witness Cynthia Bell was asked about her
definition of cuddling. Bell offered to show the
court instead, and prosecutor Gordon Auchin
closs was allowed to approach the witness.
However, before things could get too hot and
heavy, the witness chair collapsed.
It's in the punch line
Earlier this week, the AP reported that a New
Orleans family discovered two bricks of cocaine
in its used car. The drugs had most likely been
strapped to the car’s fuel line since the family
purchased it in 1997, eventually resulting in an
ironic deceleration of the vehicle’s speed.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief
Ailee Slater
Commentary Editor
Steven R. Neuman
Managing Editor
Shadra Beesley
Copy Chief
Adrienne Nelson
Online Editor