Skip to main content

Arizona Minimum Wage Initiative Set for November Ballot


Minimum wage issues have continued to develop around the country over the past few months.  Some cities and states such as California and New York have taken steps to raise the minimum wage rates, while others, such as New Jersey and Minneapolis have declined to raise wage rates.  Recently, there has been some movement on the issue in Arizona.  As a result, I think it is important to highlight a few key points in regard to this fight to increase the minimum wage rate in the state:


Judge Tosses Challenge to Minimum Wage Ballot Measure:  A few weeks ago, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joshua Roberts threw out a case that sought to challenge the signatures gathered that would put a minimum wage ballot measure before voters in November.  In doing so, this now paves the way for voters in the state to decide in November whether to raise minimum wage rates to $12/hour by 2020 (the current minimum wage rate is $8.05/hour).

Minimum Wage Issue Could Impact Senate Race:  Given that this is an election year and Senator John McCain is up for re-election, Ryan Heinsius over at KNAU notes that this issue could impact the election.  Currently, Senator McCain opposes a minimum wage increase while his challenger, Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick, supports the effort to raise minimum wage rates to $12/hour by 2020.  However, based upon the apparent support by voters to raise wages, that begs the question:  Will Congresswoman Kirkpatrick's support for a minimum wage increase impact their decision to vote for her in the Senate race?

Voters Appear to Support Minimum Wage Hike:  As AZCentral.com writes, 61% of voters favor raising the minimum wage rate in the state.  Perhaps one of the least surprising results of this poll is the fact that 87% of Democrats support the initiative.  As noted above, assuming these numbers hold, it will be interesting to see what impact (if any) it has on the Senate race.


Given how the poll numbers have played out so far, I think this minimum wage ballot measure certainly stands a fair chance of being approved by voters in November.  While things can change, the vote in Arizona could prove to be a catalyst for other cities and states to put similar minimum wage initiatives on the ballot going forward.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more