| The Legislature and Arnold Schwarzenegger have agreed to a deal on a minimum wage increase from its current position at $6.75 to $8.00. However, there will be no inflation indexing. The Legislative Leaders were forced to abandon the indexing due to threats of veto from Schwarzenegger. I understand the Legislature’s inclination to agree to get some sort of deal passed. Any delay in getting an increase passed costs the poorest workers in the state. That is not acceptable.
Schwarzenegger claims that his previous vetoes of minimum wage increases were because the business climate in the past couldn’t accommodate it.
Schwarzenegger praised the agreement as a boost for low-wage workers and the business climate. "I have always said that when the economy was ready, we should reward the efforts of California's hardworking families by raising our minimum wage," he said. (LA Times 8/22/06)
The problem with that is minimum wage increases do not result in job losses, but rather job increases. But the lack of an indexing provision is a travesty of justice. Card and Kruger have already disproved that one. No, what Arnold is really trying to do is putting the interests of his big business contributors ahead of the state’s working families.
"It's a long time coming, and frankly the reason it's coming is because this is a political year," said Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer of the labor federation.
He said Schwarzenegger, running for reelection in November, had twice before vetoed similar bills but changed his mind this year as part of an electionyear move toward the political center.
Despite expected opposition from Republican lawmakers, a minimum wage bill is expected to win easy passage from the Democratic-controlled Legislature and be on the governor's desk shortly after lawmakers adjourn Aug. 31.
The GOP still can’t bring themselves to support the working poor. Do they respect big business that much more than California’s working families that they will push that hard against the bill? I guess so. Isn't that a bit scary? Yikes.
Indexing does nothing to increase the real wages of the state’s poorest. It merely does what is done for most people in government jobs, ties their earnings to what stuff actually costs. It takes politics out of the equation. If we passed indexing, we could set a real minimum wage once and let the indexing take care of the rest. But now we’ll be back where we started in five years. Hopefully then we will have a Democratic governor who understands the valuable role of the state’s minimum wage workers. |
