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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Thursday, May 08, 2008

Minimum wage agreement faces Pawlenty veto

By The Associated Press

ST. PAUL — A legislative agreement to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage in two stages faces a veto threat from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who wasn’t swayed by changes designed to attract his signature.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said the governor would veto the bill if it reached him in the current form.

Under the plan, the bottom hourly wage for workers at large employers would go up 60 cents to $6.75 in mid-July and climb another dollar a year later. Businesses with annual sales above $625,000 are considered large employers.

Smaller employers would have to pay workers at least $5.75 an hour beginning this July and $6.75 by July 2009. The current minimum wage for them is $5.25 per hour.

House and Senate negotiators said Wednesday they met Pawlenty more than halfway by settling on a lower wage than originally proposed and by pulling out an automatic escalator that would cause the minimum wage to rise on its own in future years.

“I’m almost speechless with disgust,” said Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul. “My inclination would be to send this bill to him and hope he’s bluffing.”

Rep. Tom Rukavina, the lead House sponsor, also urged the Republican governor to reconsider his stance, citing his upbringing in a blue-collar household.

“I’m hoping that he remembers his roots and where he came from and protects these lowest paid workers in the state,” said Rukavina, DFL-Virginia. “After all, he’s protected the highest-paid workers in the state.”

Minnesota’s minimum wage last rose in 2005. The federal minimum wage — currently $5.85 an hour — will reach $7.25 an hour in July 2009.

McClung said Pawlenty thinks the bill goes too far.

“The bill could do more harm than good — the increased costs to small businesses have been shown to slow job growth — and that’s not something we need in this already challenged economy,” McClung said.

“All of these people who can’t afford to buy a gallon of gas and a box of Cheerios with today’s prices are going to be left hanging by the governor,” Anderson said.

The bill also raises the state’s training wage, which applies to teenage employees who are on the job for 90 days or less. That wage is now $4.90 an hour and would go to $5.75 when fully phased in next July. The training wage would apply to workers 17 years old and younger, down from 19 and under now.

Labor and Industry Commissioner Steve Sviggum said Pawlenty wanted to have a lower wage for waitresses, waiters, bartenders and other workers who make tips, a concept called a “tip credit.” He also said the training wage provision goes in a different direction than the governor supports and the overall wage hike is too far above the federal standard when fully phased in.

Sviggum said the governor “would be willing to consider a wage that is tick above the federal minimum. Fifty cents is a little bit more than a tick.”

Anderson said the minimum-wage flap could cause problems for Sviggum when the Senate votes on his confirmation, possibly in the final weeks of the session.

“I don’t know that we should kill the messenger because as far as I know Commissioner Sviggum was quoting the governor correctly,” she said. “But we can’t unconfirm the governor.”