Post by Logan on Mar 1, 2016 11:22:41 GMT -6
AUGUSTA — Business groups plan to unveil a proposal Wednesday for a $10-an-hour minimum wage by 2020, a move that critics are attacking as “back-room legislative maneuvering” to weaken support for a November referendum on a $12-an-hour minimum.
Mainers will vote this fall on a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 to $9 an hour in 2017, followed by annual increases to $12 an hour by 2020. A coalition of business groups hopes to use the “competing measure” option allowed under the Maine Constitution to propose an $8.50 hourly wage in 2017 with 50-cent annual increases to $10 an hour by 2020.
The business groups will detail their plan Wednesday as they seek legislative approval to place a competing measure on the ballot. The effort prompted backers of the $12-an-hour campaign to hold an event Monday and accuse “corporate lobbyists” of attempting an end run around their ballot initiative.
“The competing measure is a smoke screen,” said Mike Tipping, spokesman for the Maine People’s Alliance, the grass-roots group that helped lead the signature-gathering drive to place the $12-an-hour initiative on the ballot. “The lobby groups proposing it actually oppose increasing the minimum wage. They have opposed it and this is an attempt to use (the referendum) as a tactic to confuse and delay.”
Read more: www.pressherald.com/2016/02/29/backers-of-maine-minimum-wage-referendum-blast-more-modest-proposal/
Mainers will vote this fall on a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 to $9 an hour in 2017, followed by annual increases to $12 an hour by 2020. A coalition of business groups hopes to use the “competing measure” option allowed under the Maine Constitution to propose an $8.50 hourly wage in 2017 with 50-cent annual increases to $10 an hour by 2020.
The business groups will detail their plan Wednesday as they seek legislative approval to place a competing measure on the ballot. The effort prompted backers of the $12-an-hour campaign to hold an event Monday and accuse “corporate lobbyists” of attempting an end run around their ballot initiative.
“The competing measure is a smoke screen,” said Mike Tipping, spokesman for the Maine People’s Alliance, the grass-roots group that helped lead the signature-gathering drive to place the $12-an-hour initiative on the ballot. “The lobby groups proposing it actually oppose increasing the minimum wage. They have opposed it and this is an attempt to use (the referendum) as a tactic to confuse and delay.”
Read more: www.pressherald.com/2016/02/29/backers-of-maine-minimum-wage-referendum-blast-more-modest-proposal/