A minimum wage for Greensboro
I ran into Marilyn Baird at tonight’s “Take it to Raleigh” meeting, which gave local residents a chance to sound off about things they’d like to see legislators do over the next year.
She came to ask for help with a different problem, but happened to mention that she was helping to circulate a petition to raise the minimum wage in the city.
This is not the proposal the City Council rejected in 2000, which would have mandated a minimum wage of $8.03 for all city government workers.
The current proposal would raise the minimum wage on all businesses operating in the city limits and is being done by initiative petition, a process laid out by the city code that allows residents to propose new local laws. The process was last used here in an attempt to stop construction of the downtown baseball stadium. Voters rejected that 2003 effort.
From the petition document:
“We now adopt a Minimum Wage Ordinance that will ensure that all business in the City pay a decent minimum wage of at least $9.36 per hour. The increase will be phased in to give small business more opportunity to adjust to the change in the minimum wage.”
State legislators raised North Carolina’ minimum wage a dollar to $6.15 last year. The change became effective Jan. 1.
And Congress is considering raising the national minimum wage from its current floor of $5.15 an hour. According to an e-mail from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D of my home state of Maryland, the U.S. House will take up H.R. 2 on Wednesday. That bill would phase in a $7.25 national minimum wage.
Baird said there would be a meeting of those circulating the minimum wage petition at Faith Community Church on Thursday night. Once the group gathers enough signatures, the City Council will have to adopt or reject the ordinance. If they reject it, the ordinance will be put to the voters.
More to come on this, I’m sure.
Comments (5)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
Give a man a fish he eats for a day ... teach a man to fish and he eats always ... or something to that affect :)
I will continue to advocate for an increase in the skills of our citizenry so that our heads of household can support their families based upon learned skills. Wages should be commensorate with the labor performed. We must not be dependant upon government to increase our standings in life but dependant upon our own self-empowerment to rise above any circumstance of life.
Posted on January 10, 2007 11:29 AM
What about NC's dirty little wage secret?
Servers in restaurants earn $2.13/hour - the same amount as 3 decades ago. Sure, tips are supposed to help, and the IRS calculates a % to assess tax (used to be 9% of your own shift totals) - but c'mon! Many other states pay $6 + per hour base wage for servers. 160 hours in one month x $2.13/hour = Approx. $340/month. Subtract FICA, and all other mandatory deductions = a take home guarantee of $200 for the month.
I tip 20% and more...but many do not.
Don't you think a person ought to be able to pay rent from their base wage? This unaddressed shame-wage is proof positive that legalized economic slavery thrives in our country today. Only a handful of servers work in establishments that bring in $100 + per shift. The vast majority do not.
Comments? And don't hand me a bs line about how much overhead it takes to run a restaurant. (Tell it to the Lexus dealer who sold the owner their latest rig.) I know most restaurant owners don't drive "Lexi" - but still, this wage is shameful.
Posted on January 10, 2007 4:35 PM
Wakeup: I don't really have a thought, and as someone who writes about the issue don't really have sympathies with either the business side or the worker-side of the equation.
I would, however, like to hear what's on the minds of others.
Posted on January 10, 2007 4:50 PM
Mark, blogging in classic format is not meant to be a closed conversation. The "you" in my response above is not specific to YOU - it is posing a general question to the general population.
Of course your position is supposed to be neutral, but blogging space is to take the reported information to the next level, and in this case it is to stimulate discussion & debate that could lead to positive change for the working class.
Cheers.
Posted on January 12, 2007 10:50 AM
Wake: I know this, but we're still bringing in new readers all the time who are not hip to our new bloggy world. I'm trying to ease their entry.
And the blog itself is a tool for discussion and debate, but it has the same values and allegiances as a wrench, which is to say, none.
I would suspect that many of our readers have little interest in what you would characterize as "positive change for the working class." Their pushback is welcome as well.
Posted on January 12, 2007 11:01 AM