Up with the minimum wage:
A MOVEMENT ON THE RISE
Be Cool. Be Safe. Enjoy Your Labor Day Weekend.
ATPA
Administrators of
Employee Benefit Plans
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Raising the minimum wage is popu-
lar. Polls show public support for it is
strong, broad, and durable. It’s so popu-
lar, in fact, that elected leaders almost
never directly bash it, and its hardiest
foes hide behind phony arguments: Big
business opponents howl about poten-
tial harm to small businesses, small
business opponents parade their panic
about the hurt to customers and em-
ployees, and Republican politicians
take cover behind rhetoric about it hurt-
ing the low-wage workers it’s intended
to help.
That’s all camouflage. The fact is, a
minimum wage increase takes money
out of an employer’s pocket and puts it
into a worker’s pocket. That’s bound to
irk a fair number of employers. But in
an increasingly one-sided labor market,
it’s a hugely popular government inter-
vention on the side of those with the
least bargaining power. That’s why min-
imum wage foes try to prevent it from
coming to a vote, or work to tamp down
expectations of what’s politically possi-
ble so that it never comes up.
But the logjam is broken. The ex-
pectations have reignited. And the
tremor that started the avalanche was
last November’s ballot measure in tiny
SeaTac, Washington, that raised the
minimum to $15 an hour for airport
workers. There’d been minimum wage
ballot measures before that, but never
that high. The audacity of $15 upped
the ante. In the nine months since the
SeaTac measure passed, 10 state legis-
latures have voted increases to the min-
imum wage, and minimum wage cam-
paigns have launched in at least eight
major cities, including Chicago and San
Francisco, where campaigns are push-
ing for $15 an hour.
The good old days
Once upon a time, it was the federal
government which set the standard for
minimum pay. The Fair Labor Stan-
dards Act, signed by President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt in 1938, set a na-
tional minimum wage of 25 cents an
hour. And it was hugely popular from
the start — 67 percent in favor, in a
1938 poll.
As the years went by, Congress
raised the minimum over and over
again, until 1968, when it reached $1.60
an hour. That, it turns out, became its
high point in buying power. If you ad-
justed for inflation, that would be
$10.69 today. And if you adjusted it
based on increased productivity, it
would be $22 an hour today.
But after 1968, Congress failed to
keep up. Though America got a few
more raises, business opponents got
better at gumming up the works. Since
Ronald Reagan entered the White
House 34 years ago, Congress has
Wishing all our
Friends in the
Labor Community
a Safe and Happy
Labor Day
From the
Staff
at
ATPA
AUGUST 15, 2014
(Turn to Page 17)
O PERATING E NGINEERS
L OCAL 701
H ONORS
A MERICA ’ S W ORKERS
ON L ABOR D AY 2014
Executive Board Members
7600 SW Mohawk St.
Tualatin, OR 97062
503 454-3800
raised the minimum wage just three
times: 1989 legislation signed by Presi-
dent George Bush, Sr., 1996 legislation
passed when Newt Gingrich was
speaker of the House, and 2007 legisla-
tion signed by President George W.
Bush. There’s been no minimum wage
increase at the federal level since it
reached $7.25 an hour in 2009.
It’s not that there aren’t bills in Con-
gress. Congressman Alan Grayson (D-
Florida) has H.R. 1346, “The Catching
Up To 1968 Act,” which would raise it
to $10.50. And George Miller (D- Cali-
fornia) is the sponsor of H.R. 1010,
“The Fair Minimum Wage Act,” which
would raise it to $10.10 over two years,
and adjust it annually for inflation after
that.
H.R. 1010 has 196 House co-spon-
sors, but the House Republican leader-
ship is preventing it from moving for-
ward. The day it was introduced, March
6, 2013, it was sent to the House Com-
mittee on Education and the Workforce,
chaired by Congressman John Kline
(R-Minnesota). It has moldered there
ever since, without even a hearing. But
Congress has a procedure for prying it
loose, known as a discharge petition.
(That was necessary in 1937, too.) In
February and March 2014, supporters
gathered 195 signatures on a discharge
petition (all but six of the 201 House
Democrats, but not a single Republi-
NELDA WILSON - Business Manager & Financial Secretary
ROBIN WICKLANDER - President
KEVIN MILLER - Vice President
RICKY IBOA - Recording Corresponding Secretary
BOE ELLIS - Treasurer
DAVE CARTER - Conductor
JACK MILLER - Guard
MIKE THUN - Dist. I Rep.
HAROLD CHEVRIER – Dist. II Rep.
CLIFTON G. SMITH - Dist. III Rep.
RAY AKERS - Dist. IV Rep.
RICHARD LAUDERBACK - Dist. V Rep.
DYLAN McCOMISKEY - Dist. V (at-large) Rep.
Dispatch
Deanna Robles
Jon Stoltenberg
Office Staff
Greg Butcher
Loraine Draper
Grace Gasser
Jay Hamlin
Spencer Hardy
Cherry Harris
Bea Jenkins
Elaine Jeremy
Chris Montgomery
Rod Osgood
Nicole Rappaport
Melissa Savage
Barbara Watts
Tom Wishard
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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