Republicans in Reverse: Congress Contemplates Vote on Minimum Wage

by Mike Hall, Jul 26, 2006

Listen carefully. Hear a noise like a car going in reverse? It’s the sound of Republican congressional leaders backing away from their long-standing roadblocks to a minimum wage hike.

The Boston Globe reported today that House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said House leaders, who this year have blocked a vote to raise the minimum wage—just as they have for 10 years—have relented. They plan to schedule a vote sometime before the fall elections.

This afternoon, 48 Republicans presented a letter to House leaders calling for a minimum wage vote this week—before the House leaves for its August recess. But Hill insiders say that’s unlikely.

It would make a fine feel-good story to say the politicians finally have seen the error of their ways, and that after a decade of refusing to boost the minimum from $5.15 an hour, Republican leaders now embrace the concept that full-time workers shouldn’t live in poverty.

Unfortunately, such a story would be a fairy tale. In short, it’s an election year, and the union movement’s organizing campaign about the need to raise the federal minimum has put the issue back on the congressional agenda.

As the AFL-CIO’s America Needs a Raise campaign has focused a spotlight on the outrage of a $5.15-an-hour wage in the richest nation in the world, some 80 percent of the public now says it supports boosting the wage. Meanwhile, in more than 20 actions around the country, union activists this month are highlighting the galling hypocrisy of House lawmakers who have raised their own pay nine times while refusing even to vote on a minimum wage bill for 10 years.

Meeting representatives in their home districts are activists such as those in Cincinnati, where union members yesterday marched on Ohio Republican Steve Chabot’s district office. Chanting “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, 5.15 gotta go,” they handed out fliers detailing his six votes against raising the minimum wage. Chabot and other House members will receive pay raises Jan. 1, putting their salaries at $165,200 a year.

Today, activists taking part in the July mobilization to mark the 10th anniversary of the last time Congress voted to raise the minimum wage will rally at district offices in Tampa and West Palm Beach, Fla., and in Albuquerque, N.M.

Following the decision by Republican leaders to schedule a vote, the question is: Will House leaders approve a clear vote on a bill (H.R. 2429) like the one sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour? Or will they find a way to weasel out of a real increase by cobbling together a package with a smaller increase and adding deal-breaking poison pills as they have in the past—eliminating overtime pay for millions of workers or exempting millions from the new wage?

While Republican leaders concoct their strategy, the America Needs a Raise campaign rolls on. See you in your home district.

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