Minimum Wage Rage

Happy Announcement (photo from press announcement)

You should be pissed if you are a minimum wage earner

I haven’t gone off on a good rant in quite some time, so this has been building for a while. Today, I reached my boiling point over the passage of the new minimum wage law by the Michigan legislature. This end-run around the desires of Michigan citizens just goes too far.

The Raise Michigan Coalition has been coordinating a petition drive for the past 180 days to raise the wage in Michigan to a paltry $10.10 by 2017. That isn’t much when you consider that if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation for all these past many years we would be paying McDonald’s and Wal-Mart employees at least $21.00 an hour. But that isn’t the case and the minimum wage is currently $7.25 nationally and $7.40 here in Michigan. I won’t even discuss the tipped wage because that is just CRIMINAL!
 
A few weeks ago the folks at Raise Michigan announced that they had gathered enough signatures to put the minimum wage proposal before the legislature for approval as specified on the petition. If the legislators had taken no action or voted against the proposal, the matter would automatically be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide.

I wish Raise Michigan would have turned the petitions in right then, but they opted to finish out the allotted 180 day span and continue collecting “insurance” signatures. They put in more hours, sent out more volunteers, got tons more signatures. May 28 was their scheduled turn in date. They worked their butts off to get minimum wage employees a fair shake – especially those tipped wage earners that have been getting screwed for years.

During the last few weeks of the petition drive, the no-load legislators in the Michigan House and Senate got busy, led by Republican Randy Richardville, the Senate Majority Leader. They crafted legislation raising the minimum wage in Michigan to an even paltrier $8.50 by 2018. It was crap legislation that would repeal the minimum wage law on the books and nullify the citizen-led petition drive. The ONLY purpose of the introduction of this legislation repealing the existing law was to thwart the citizens of this state and interrupt democracy.

”His strategy — which he readily copped to in a phone conversation Friday afternoon — is to make sure that, even if Raise Michigan succeeds in its bid to amend the current minimum-wage statute, it won’t count, because the statute they want to amend will have ceased to exist.”

 

Richardville, the Senate Majority Leader, admitted that the intended purpose of repealing the current law was to put a stop to the petition drive. How petty can you get? This is a man that was elected to serve you and I. He is supposed to be looking out for you and I in Lansing and ensuring that our voice is heard. Instead, he is drafting legislation that is intentionally designed to STOP US from having a democratic voice in the laws enacted in this state. And he has the NERVE to call that democracy?

If you have been paying attention to Michigan politics, Governor Snyder is constantly using “democracy” to justify his positions on issues. For instance, in 2004, the citizens in Michigan voted to ban gay marriage. There was no argument at the time about that ban being unconstitutional, so it was passed and enacted and allowed to stand for 10 years. Now, in 2014, the mood in Michigan has changed and an estimated 70% of the citizens now support gay marriage.

A recent court challenge was made against the ban on gay marriage and it was determined that the ban was unconstitutional. An immediate appeal of the ruling was made by Attorney General Bill Schuette, claiming that the voters democratically decided they were against gay marriage. Despite all current polling on the subject showing that the opinion has changed in this state, AG Schuette and Governor Snyder are using “democracy” and the "upholding of the Constitution" as the reason they are wasting tax payer monies fighting a battle that cannot be won. They are using “democracy” to force citizens to treat gay citizens unfairly.

"You know constitutions aren't meant to be convenient and casually dismissed," Schuette said during a visit in Grand Rapids Tuesday. He was in town to announce plans to run for re-election. He says no matter the issue, it's his job to defend the constitution. "Right now I am defending Michigan's constitution that protects the pensions of cops and firefighters," Schuette said. "The constitution is worth fighting for and Michigan is worth fighting for."

What about defending the right to petition the government that is clearly spelled out in the Michigan Constitution? Oh, wait - that part isn’t “convenient” for the GOP, so they’ll just ignore that part and get on with screwing the citizens.

In the minimum wage battle, the democratic thing to have done would have been to allow the petition drive to turn in their signatures, let the legislature ignore the request for 40 days or vote against it, and then put the matter on the ballot for the voters to decide. But it is “inconvenient” for them to allow democracy to work that way so they have passed legislation repealing the law that is affected by the petition drive. They did that specifically to stop the voters from having a voice.

They gave their creation Immediate Effect which means that is it law as soon as the governor signs it, which happened before the ink was dry from the Senate and House votes.

So now, when people see what has happened, will they rejoice because the minimum wage is being raised? Or will they be upset because they got shafted once again by a legislature that doesn’t represent the citizens of this state? Personally, I hope that every minimum wage employee in this state is pissed the heck off. Instead of raising the wage to $10.10 by 2017 and tying it into the rate of inflation, we are now stuck with raises to $9.25 by 2018 (yes that is an extra year). Those tipped wages? They get a raise too, but not to the $10.10 they would have received with the ballot proposal. Now they get all the way up to $3.51 an hour. Yep – you can raise a family on that – NOT! 

The only redeeming thing is that they did leave in the part that ties the wage to inflation – but it still isn’t enough since, had it kept pace with past inflation the wage would be more than $21.00 an hour. They’re starting out $14.00 below what the minimum should be, based on inflation that has already occurred, and will never reach that level – EVER.

Remember in November – these legislators that claim to be supporting the Constitution of this state are screwing every minimum wage earner to support their big dollar donors. How many commercials did they earn from Wal-Mart, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, Rick DeVos, and the Koch brothers? Prepare to be inundated during the next Tigers game with wonderful tales of how they worked out this fantastic bipartisan deal screw job that will improve the lives prolong the misery of Michigan’s minimum wage earners.