16.5 - Right-wing trying to change rules on minimum wage

Right-wing trying to change rules on minimum wage

And speaking of the minimum wage, it provides another example of what I keep telling you: The right-wing attitude is that if they lose under the rules, then you have to change the rules to suit them.

In November, voters in four states approved referendums raising the minimum wage in their respective states. Excellent news for low-wage workers and for the economies of those states.

But in three of those states - Arizona, Maine, and Washington - corporations have been using the courts and their influence over state legislatures to in an effort to undo what the voters did.

In one of those states - Arizona - they have already lost: On March 14 the Arizona state Supreme Court unanimously rejected a suit by business groups trying to have the November victory overturned on a technicality.

Arizona is also the state, by the way, that as I mentioned last show is responding to victories via citizen initiative by trying to make it as hard as possible for one to ever get on the ballot in the future.

Meanwhile, a corporate lawsuit in Washington about the minimum wage is still pending, with the first hearing scheduled for April 3.

And in Maine, the state legislature, lobbied by the state Restaurant Association, is changing that state's new minimum wage law in a way to benefit the industry by reinstating the "tip credit," under which tips can be counted toward meeting the wage requirement.

The public voted to have that credit be phased out stating in 2018. But that's not what the corporations want and the legislature may well be prepared to do their bidding.