Skip to main content

Suit Filed to Block Minimum Wage Hike in Arizona


Yesterday, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge heard arguments in regard to a legal challenge that seeks to halt implementation of a minimum wage hike in the state that was approved by voters this past November.  Under the approved measure, Proposition 206, the minimum wage rate (currently at $8.05/hour) will rise to $10/hour and then ultimately $12/hour by 2020.

For those who have not been following the matter, last week, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce filed suit to challenge the higher minimum wage rate.  The Chamber, joined by a few other pro-business groups, argued that the minimum wage hike violated the state's constitution because it failed to identify a funding source for its budget implications.

For those who support a higher minimum wage rate in the state, I would not necessarily call this lawsuit disheartening.  Last Friday, a request to immediately block the minimum wage hike was rejected.  As a result, hearings were set on the matter for this week.  Of course, that does not necessarily mean this lawsuit will be rejected...nor does it mean the lawsuit will prevail and block the minimum wage hike.  Instead, this is likely a matter of the judge being thorough and taking the time to allow all parties to argue their position and assert the basis for their suit (or why the suit should fail).  With that being said, the approved minimum wage measure would raise the hourly wage rate in the state to $10/hour on January 1, 2017.  With less than two weeks to go, the clock is ticking.  Stay tuned.



Comments

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

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

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