by Mike Hall, Jul 14, 2006

Raising the minimum wage “is a moral issue and America’s workers are ready to speak out for change,” Wanda Mitchell-Smith, a Kentucky State AFL-CIO recording secretary, told more than 100 Louisville, Ky., union members, community and faith leaders at a special AFL-CIO America Needs a Raise forum today.

U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.), Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), along with state lawmakers and representatives from the education and religious communities joined the discussion. They spoke about the need to raise the minimum wage and the repeated efforts by the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress to prevent low-wage workers from getting a pay raise.

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997 and every attempt to raise it has been blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress, which has found time to give itself eight raises with another due this January—a $35,000 a year pay raise since 1997. (Even Karl Rove and other Bush White House staffers are getting big pay raises. Click here to be outraged.)

Mitchell-Smith, who also is a member of AFSCME Council 62, said:

The minimum wage fight in Congress right now tells the real story about Republican values—they’ll give money hand over first to their corporate sponsors—but after nearly a decade they still won’t give America’s lowest-paid workers a raise.

Miller and House Democrats have been fighting for a vote on a bill (H.R. 2429) to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour but have been blocked at every turn by Republican leaders. The issue has such overwhelming public support—80 percent in the most recent polls—that it could play a role in this fall’s election, turning out voters who will hold candidates accountable for not raising the minimum wage.

Some rank-and-file Republican House members have urged their leadership to hold a minimum wage vote. On Wednesday, 64 joined all Democrats in a symbolic and non-binding vote to raise the minimum wage.

Following the vote, Miller said:

Americans understand that working families deserve a raise, and that it is a moral outrage to expect any worker to make ends meet on $5.15 per hour. Millions of families are living below the poverty line, and are unable to meet even the most basic of needs, such as groceries, housing, and gas. This is unacceptable. I immediately call on the House Republican leadership to allow a fair up or down vote on raising the minimum wage.

The Kentucky forum was one of 20 America Needs a Raise actions this month to mark the 10th anniversary of the last time Congress passed a minimum wage increase.

Click here to read how minimum wage workers have fallen father and farther behind since 1997 in a report by the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee’s Democratic staff. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is fighting to pass legislation (S. 1062) to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

Along with congressional efforts to increase the minimum wage, the AFL-CIO and its allies are pushing November ballot initiatives in six states and have pushed for legislation in 13 others so far this year.

In the latest state-level news, the Montana initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $6.15 has been officially approved for the November ballot. We told you last month that the Montana State AFL-CIO and Raise Montana coalition had turned in enough voter signatures to put the issue on the ballot and the secretary of state’s office certified the signatures. 

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