Skip to main content

One to Keep An Eye On: Colorado's Amendment 70


As with many employment and labor law related cases (and bills) being litigated around the country, there are always a few that stand out.  This is one to keep an eye on.


Similar to the minimum wage fight in Arizona (and Washington & Maine), there is a pending minimum wage ballot measure that will go before voters this November.  If approved, Amendment 70 would raise the minimum wage rate in the state from $8.31/hour to $12/hour by 2020.  Last week, U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez voiced his support for Amendment 70 and indicated that the Obama administration backed the ballot measure as well. 

Given that Colorado is a swing state this election cycle (well, depending who you ask) and tends to be a more liberal state, I think this ballot measure stands a good shot of becoming law.  With that being said, one of the holdup a could be the fact that this is a 'flat' increase to $12/hour across the state.  While Oregon implemented different minimum wage rates for urban and rural areas (as did New York...and something that Hillary Clinton seemed to support previously), that intentionally was not incorporated into Amendment 70.  That could be a sticking point for some voters.  Whether it will be enough to prevent s minimum wage hike is doubtful, but 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

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
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