House OKs new minimum wage
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 11, 2007
The House overwhelmingly approved a raise in the minimum wage yesterday, hailing the first increase in 10 years as a principle of basic fairness that will lift millions out of poverty.
"This is a matter of fairness," Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon, said of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, the second of the six bills that new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised her party would pass. "This is a matter of human decency. This is a matter of human dignity."
The bill, approved yesterday on a lopsided 315-116 vote that prompted cheers from the new Democratic majority when the roll call was announced, would raise the minimum wage over two years from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25, with intermediate steps at $5.85 and $6.55.
Democrats backed the bill by 233-0, while Republicans opposed it by 116-82.
But what Mr. Lewis called matters of fairness and human decency and dignity will not reign over all U.S. soil.
Although the legislation specifically extends for the first time the federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, it exempts American Samoa, another Pacific island territory that would become the only U.S. territory not subject to federal minimum-wage laws.
"It's ironic to me that one of the first bills they bring up that promises across-the-board fairness for all has an exception," said Steve Forde, Republican spokesman for the House Education and Labor Committee.
Democrats agreed yesterday that pay rates in Samoa should be raised and that the minimum wage should be uniform across all U.S. territories. But, they said, the working conditions in the Northern Mariana Islands are "screaming out" for immediate attention.
The loophole pleases the tuna corporations that employ thousands of Samoans in canneries there at $3.26 an hour -- an industry-specific rate set by the U.S. Department of Labor. They have lobbied Congress for years, arguing that imposing the federal minimum wage on Samoa would cripple the economy by driving the canneries to poor countries that don't require a minimum wage.
One of the biggest opponents of the U.S. minimum wage there is StarKist Tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans, or nearly 75 percent of the island's work force. The other plant belongs to California-based Chicken of the Sea.
StarKist's parent company, Del Monte Corp., is headquartered in San Francisco, which is represented by Mrs. Pelosi.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Pelosi said yesterday that the speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte.
:shrug:
co-winkey-dink or does something smell fishy? (sorry, had to)
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 11, 2007
The House overwhelmingly approved a raise in the minimum wage yesterday, hailing the first increase in 10 years as a principle of basic fairness that will lift millions out of poverty.
"This is a matter of fairness," Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon, said of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, the second of the six bills that new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised her party would pass. "This is a matter of human decency. This is a matter of human dignity."
The bill, approved yesterday on a lopsided 315-116 vote that prompted cheers from the new Democratic majority when the roll call was announced, would raise the minimum wage over two years from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25, with intermediate steps at $5.85 and $6.55.
Democrats backed the bill by 233-0, while Republicans opposed it by 116-82.
But what Mr. Lewis called matters of fairness and human decency and dignity will not reign over all U.S. soil.
Although the legislation specifically extends for the first time the federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, it exempts American Samoa, another Pacific island territory that would become the only U.S. territory not subject to federal minimum-wage laws.
"It's ironic to me that one of the first bills they bring up that promises across-the-board fairness for all has an exception," said Steve Forde, Republican spokesman for the House Education and Labor Committee.
Democrats agreed yesterday that pay rates in Samoa should be raised and that the minimum wage should be uniform across all U.S. territories. But, they said, the working conditions in the Northern Mariana Islands are "screaming out" for immediate attention.
The loophole pleases the tuna corporations that employ thousands of Samoans in canneries there at $3.26 an hour -- an industry-specific rate set by the U.S. Department of Labor. They have lobbied Congress for years, arguing that imposing the federal minimum wage on Samoa would cripple the economy by driving the canneries to poor countries that don't require a minimum wage.
One of the biggest opponents of the U.S. minimum wage there is StarKist Tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans, or nearly 75 percent of the island's work force. The other plant belongs to California-based Chicken of the Sea.
StarKist's parent company, Del Monte Corp., is headquartered in San Francisco, which is represented by Mrs. Pelosi.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Pelosi said yesterday that the speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte.
:shrug:
co-winkey-dink or does something smell fishy? (sorry, had to)
