Will Congress Vote on Sham Minimum Wage Increase?

by Mike Hall, Jul 27, 2006

Yesterday we reported that pressure was building on House Republican leaders to allow a vote on raising the federal minimum wage. It looks like the pressure gauge is moving into the red.

But don’t expect an honest effort by Republicans to actually pass a real minimum wage increase as proposed in legislation by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) That bill (H.R. 2429) would raise the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour to help the millions of low-wage workers who have been frozen at $5.15 an hour for 10 years.

Once again, it looks like Republican leaders—just as they did in a sham  Senate vote earlier this year—are going to kill the measure with poison pills.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

The House of Representatives should pass legislation to increase the federal minimum wage by $2.10—from $5.15 to $7.25—without “poison pills” and parliamentary maneuvers designed to prevent a $2.10 increase from becoming law. After 10 years, America’s workers deserve a raise—no strings or roadblocks attached.

The AFL-CIO America Needs a Raise campaign has highlighted how members of Congress have refused to vote on a minimum wage increase while giving themselves nine pay raises. Meanwhile, House Republican leaders are seeking to placate the vast majority of voters—the ones they face Nov. 7 who support raising the minimum wage—without alienating the business groups and campaign contributors with deep pockets.

Such a scenario took place in the Senate in June, when Republicans had a chance to pass a bill by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

First, Republicans used a parliamentary maneuver to make sure the bill needed 60 votes to pass. The bill got a majority in a 52–45 vote but not enough to win.

Then, they offered their own minimum wage measure, which along with raising the wage by just $1.10 an hour, would have allowed employers to cut a worker’s overtime pay by $3,000 per year by substituting an 80-hour, two-week work period for the traditional 40-hour workweek. The Republican bill also would have cut pay by as much as $5.50 an hour for tipped workers by nullifying minimum wage protections for those workers under state law.

And that’s not all: The Republicans’ bill would have stripped minimum wage and overtime eligibility from significantly more than 7 million workers.

As things develop, we’ll keep you posted. Check out the latest actions in the America Needs a Raise campaign by clicking here and here.

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