There’s a bill to raise the minimum wage in the state to $12, and it got a hearing in the House Labor Committee yesterday.
Washington, one of nine states where minimum-wage raise bills have been introduced in 2015, would go from $9.47 an hour to $12 in a series of 50-cent hikes every Jan. 1 under the bill.
House Labor Chairman Mike Sells, D-Everett, said the bill “has a lot better chance in the House” than last year’s failed attempt for a $12 minimum wage because it phases in the raise slower. He is one of 41 co-sponsors of the bill, all Democrats. It could face longer odds in the Republican-led Senate, where all but one of the 20 names attached to the bill are from the minority Democrats.
If you’re interested in writing your legislator and telling them, politely, that you support this bill, you can find them here. Either ask you member of the House to support the one that just got the hearing, or your Senator that you’d like the bill to get a hearing. If you’d like to contact a member of the House Labor Committee, you can find them here.
hello, earth to dems! it’s not going to pass the leg. get an initiative going.
if you need to ask how, call $15 Now, they know how.
the Democratic party should be building this initiative campaign now. support is overoverwhelming, and it’s fucking bipartisan, in fact, what a great issue to draw folks into the democratic party.
Does this bill retain the cost of living increases in the current minimum wage law?
@1 While I don’t disagree with your approach, raising the minimum wage is extremely popular, even among Republican voters, so it might have a chance in the Senate.
well @3, we’ll see about that. but the gop line is let the market set wages, the gop donors will hate a min wage increase, and about everything the gop does is to produce lower and lower wage workers, as this is what the 1% thinks its interest is.
iow the gop voters do NOT matter. to the gop. that’s basic politics in america. but yes, the gop can scare them into thinking a min wage hike will take their jobs away.
tell me this, what gop legislator in olympia came up and supported the seatc or seattle min wage hikes?
we all know the answer. thus:
-it’s not going to pass.
-need to get moving on the initiative campaign NOW.
-they aren’t, once again, dems have a totally great policy, with popular support and not a clue about how to get it made into law despite a classic model example being shown to them by the 15 now activists, seattle, murray et al. in fact, if you really want to get $12 state min wage in olympia, filing and starting an initiative would be the way to do it –one setting a wage at $13 an hour, and quicker. you know. THREATEN them with something worse. again, this is basic politics. someone, tell the democratic leaders.