Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week: Hourly Wage Rates Edition

 

This week was chock full of updates about hourly wage rates around the country.  Whether it be minimum wage legislation advancing past committee in Delaware, McDonald’s workers striking for higher wage rates, Rhode Island’s Governor signing a $15/hour minimum wage bill into law, or the Maine House of Representatives approving legislation to raise the wage rates for public school workers in the state, there is something here for everyone. 

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


Delaware House Committee Advances $15/Hour Minimum Wage Legislation

Late last month, the Delaware House Economic Development Committee advanced SB 15 which would raise the hourly minimum wage rate in the state to $15/hour by 2025.  The  legislation would raise the state’s hourly minimum wage rate by $1/hour starting next year.  (Currently, the hourly minimum wage rate is $9.25.)  It is worth noting that the Committee, which is controlled by Democrats, advanced SB 15 with an 8 - 5 vote along party lines.  Whether this legislation can make it through the Delaware Legislature and become law remains to be seen.  However, if I were a betting man, I would keep my eye on this one as likely to eventually reach the finish line. 


McDonald’s Workers Strike In Support of Higher Wage Rates

Readers might recall that McDonald’s had recently announced a pay raise, although this pay raise would only impact workers at its corporate owned locations.  On the heels of that announcement (which is expected to only impact 5% of McDonald’s locations, McDonald’s workers in 15 cities decided to strike this past Wednesday to bring awareness to their fight for higher wages.  Joining these workers in their strike was Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who voiced their support on a livestream for higher wages for these McDonald’s workers.  Whether the strike and support from members of Congress leads to any substantial change is unclear at this point, however.


Rhode Island Minimum Wage Rate On the Rise

The Associated Press reported that Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee has recently signed into law minimum wage legislation that will raise the hourly wage rate from $11.50/hour up to $15/hour by January 1, 2025.  Notably, the tipped minimum wage rate will remain at $3.89/hour.  Regardless of the fact that the tipped minimum wage rate is staying the same, this is a notable wage hike in yet another state.


Maine House of Representatives Advances $16/Hour Wage Rate For Public School Workers

By a 73 - 71 vote, the Maine House of Representatives has narrowly approved legislation that would raise the hourly pay rate for all public school workers to $16/hour.  The $16/hour pay rate would apply to all public school workers:  teacher aides, janitors, staff, etc.  As The Bangor Daily News notes, the legislation will now move to the Maine Senate where its passage is anything but assured.  Part of the resistance to this legislation is concern that smaller school districts in rural areas would struggle to afford this increase in labor costs.  Whether that concern is enough to derail this legislation remains to be seen.

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