GOP Reps Want to Take Away Cities' Right to Pay More to Blue-Collar Workers
Fair-pay rights for the people who build houses, install piping, or wire electrical circuits have been slowly but surely crippled over the past 50 years. Unions have been broken, worker protections have been destroyed, and formerly blue-voting laborers have increasingly turned to people like Donald Trump to ensure their messages are heard instead of supporting a Democratic Party that has become blind to their economic struggles.
But that doesn't mean anyone should trust state or local Republicans to fight for workers' rights. This past Tuesday, two Florida House Republicans filed a bill that would deal yet another blow to workers' rights in the Sunshine State.
The bill, filed by the Panhandle's Jayer Williamson and Volusia County's David Santiago, would make it illegal for cities to regulate how much money public contractors pay their employees. In other words, if a city hires an outside company to build an affordable-housing complex, the city can't demand the company pay its workers a living wage.
If the changes that the bill is proposing here seem small, they aren't. The state already bans local governments from setting citywide minimum wages, thus placing wage decisions solely in the hands of the Republican-dominated state Legislature. Public contracting is one of the only areas left where Florida cities can still control how much people get paid. Last year, City of Miami Commissioner Ken Russell persuaded his constituents to raise the city contractor minimum wage to $15 per hour, which means anyone who installs a light bulb or fixes a pothole on the City of Miami's dime will get paid enough to survive.
Read more: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/gop-reps-want-to-take-away-cities-right-to-pay-more-to-blue-collar-workers-9112205