Raising minimum wage is their rallying call
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG -- The shouts of labor union leaders, Democratic legislators and religious groups resounded in the Capitol rotunda yesterday: "Show us the money! Show us the money!"
Led by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who needs labor union support for his re-election bid next year, several hundred workers and their political allies rallied for a higher minimum wage in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Rendell said he'll continue to push the Legislature to raise the minimum wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $6.25 an hour in January and then to $7.15 an hour in January 2007.
By increasing the minimum wage, which has been at the federally mandated level of $5.15 an hour since 1997, Mr. Rendell said, "we will help more than 250,000 working Pennsylvanians get beyond the federal poverty level. In the eight years since this state boosted its minimum wage, the price of basic cost-of-living necessities, like fuel, have skyrocketed."
Some opponents of a higher minimum wage claim it would make Pennsylvania less competitive for business compared with other states.
The House and Senate are controlled by Republicans, who in the past have been cool, if not hostile, to forcing companies to pay higher wages. So despite support from Mr. Rendell, the campaign for a higher minimum wage faces a difficult fight this fall.
"Heating costs are going up this winter, and we have to stand up for minimum wage workers," thundered Bill George, state AFL-CIO president. "This is about working people -- they deserve dignity and respect."
Unions represented at the rally included the Pennsylvania State Education Association, Teamsters, Communication Workers of America, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and United Food and Commercial Workers.
Several Democratic state senators, including Jim Ferlo and Wayne Fontana of Pittsburgh, were present, along with several from Philadelphia, including Vincent Hughes.
"We have to rock the world of these other senators and get them on board," Mr. Hughes said. "We couldn't survive without minimum wage workers and the services they provide."
As speakers addressed the crowd, however, business-oriented groups that oppose a higher minimum wage handed out leaflets.
Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation, said that according to a study commissioned by the conservative think tank, "the proposed legislative effort to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage could lead to a catastrophic $350 million 'hit' on the Pennsylvania economy and the loss of 10,000 jobs."
He said that a higher minimum wage rate is "an artificial increase in the wage floor" and contended it would be "a blunt and ineffective means of assisting low-income employees because most minimum wage earners aren't poor."
(Harrisburg Bureau chief Tom Barnes can be reached at tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 1-717-787-4254.)
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