by Mike Hall, Jul 31, 2006

In what likely will be the final round of the fight to raise Massachusetts’ minimum wage, the state Legislature is expected to vote today to override Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) July 28 veto of the minimum wage legislation.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco (D), a sponsor of the legislation to raise the wage from $6.75 an hour to $8 an hour, says:

I’m optimistic we have the necessary two-thirds in both houses to override the veto and to ensure that the minimum wage worker who has gone without for the last five years, will finally get a raise that is just and equitable.

The bill was sent to Romney earlier this month and on July 21 he rejected it and asked instead that the Legislature approve just a 25-cent-an-hour increase. When that failed,  he officially vetoed the bill July 28.

Massachusetts advocates for a higher state minimum wage are among activists in nearly two dozen states across the nation seeking to boost the minimum wage through state legislatures or ballot initititives. At the federal level, Congress has not raised the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage for 10 years and Massachusetts is one of 19 states where the AFL-CIO America Needs a Raise campaign has mobilized to win minimum wage increases through legislation or ballot initiatives.

Find out more here about how AFL-CIO union activists are working to raise the minimum wage in their states.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress continues to block a real minimum wage increase. Early Saturday morning, House Republican leaders manuevered a cynical package that attached a minimum wage increase to a $750 billion estate tax cut for multimillionaire families. Click here for the details.

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