Poor Likely to Lose Minimum Pay Debate

Most of America’s working poor are probably not going to get an urgently needed pay hike this year because President Reagan has clearly indicated that he will veto any congressional action to increase the present national minimum wage of $3.35 an hour.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is spearheading the battle for a boost in the minimum, believes there is a slim chance that Reagan will change his mind and not veto a hike that Kennedy believes has a good chance of winning congressional approval. But don’t bet on Reagan deciding to desert his business community allies to help the working poor.

If Reagan vetoes the proposal, there is a fighting chance for an override because there is growing support to raise the minimum, which has lost 28% of its buying power since it was last raised in 1981.

But an override by Congress is dubious. After all, while Reagan may have lost some of his clout on Capitol Hill because of the Iran- contra scandal, the poor are not big contributors to political campaigns of Republicans or Democrats.

Kennedy’s Senate Labor Committee has tentatively set hearings to begin May 12 on his proposal to raise the current minimum in three steps to $4.65 by 1990. He expects the bill to go to the Senate floor in July. The House should get to vote on a companion measure by Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles) by September.

These proposed increases would not even restore the buying power of the minimum wages of past years, but they would help.

More valuable in the long run, though, is the Kennedy-Hawkins proposal to end the perpetual, divisive debates on the minimum wage by automatically increasing it after 1990. The new law would keep the minimum to 50% of the average hourly wage of private, non-supervisory, non-agricultural workers. Today, 50% of that average would be $4.45.

There may be a better measuring rod for future increases, such as the consumer price index. But some system is needed to take the minimum wage out of the disrupting turmoil caused by constant repetition of the same arguments made by both sides since the first legally established minimum went into effect in 1938.

Then, and ever since, management representatives have claimed that increases are inflationary and cause unemployment. The claims are greatly exaggerated, according to almost all independent studies.

And the slight negative impact of the increases is a negligible price to pay to help curb the exploiting of our lowest-income workers. And surely it is a relatively inexpensive way to fight the war against poverty.

The battle to raise the minimum is also going on at the state level. Federal law allows each state to require its employers to pay more (but not less) than the national minimum. Six states now have a minimum above $3.35.

This year, California is almost certainly going to join that group. While the debate will center on how much the present $3.35 minimum should be increased, the conclusion is already clear: Any increase will be very small.

Hearings are set to open today in Sacramento on a proposal by Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne) to raise the minimum to $5 in three steps by 1990. That will be 35 cents an hour more than provided in the Kennedy-Hawkins plan.

But Floyd, like Kennedy, recognizes the deleterious effect of the repetitious minimum wage debates. He would tie the minimum to the wage increases of average workers, giving minimum wage employees the same raises gained by average workers.

On the state Senate side, the minimum wage hike proposal was introduced by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), who wants to raise it in one jump next year to $5.01. And he, too, wants to make future annual adjustments automatic.

Some version of these two measures is probably going to pass the Legislature, but Gov. George Deukmejian will almost surely veto it, just as Reagan will do to a minimum wage hike if it is passed by Congress.

But this state’s working poor are virtually assured of a pay raise anyway because the governor said recently there is “a need to increase the minimum wage. I don’t know what level that should take. It is the job of the Industrial Welfare Commission to find out.”

It takes an act of Congress to boost the national minimum wage. In California, however, the state Industrial Welfare Commission can do it without legislative action. But the IWC has refused to raise it has since Deukmejian took office in 1981.

However, now that the governor has told his appointees he is ready for an increase, the IWC should take action before the end of this year and the process is already in the works.

Yet no one doubts that the majority of the IWC is going to raise the minimum much less than the legislators have proposed.

Therefore, the Legislature should pass an increase anyway as a guide for--and to keep pressure on--the IWC, even though Deukmejian will veto a law giving the minimum a meaningful hike and tying future increases to a non-contentious measuring rod.

The working poor of California will get some comfort from any rise in the minimum wage on the old theory that half a loaf is better than none.

It would be better if the Democratic majority in the Legislature shows some courage, sets the minimum at a rational level then battles strenuously to override the governor’s veto.

There is less chance of that, however, than there is to override a Reagan veto of the Kennedy-Hawkins plan if it passes Congress.

Politicians Still Want Blessing of AFL-CIO

The 1988 presidential hopefuls don’t scare easily.

Fourteen cases in point: That’s the number of would-be presidents--Democrats and Republicans alike--who have formally asked the AFL-CIO for its early endorsement despite dire warnings from most political pundits that the labor organization’s endorsement amounts to a “kiss of death” because of the perceived unpopularity of organized labor these days.

Maybe the Democratic candidates ignored the warnings because they just don’t believe them. After all, Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic Party’s 1984 nomination largely because the labor federation endorsed him in October, 1983.

But, while conceding that point, many political experts then argued that labor’s endorsement is really dangerous in the general election because, after all, Mondale was clobbered by President Reagan mainly, they say, because of his labor backing--an argument that no one has been able to prove.

Well, maybe, as some contend, the current batch of candidates doesn’t really want the endorsement, which will come next October if a candidate wins a two-thirds majority vote at the AFL-CIO convention that month. According to that view, the candidates asked for the endorsement only because they don’t want to offend labor.

But if they don’t want labor support, they are showing their true feelings in an odd way--every well-known Democratic and Republican presidential hopeful not only asked for it, they have been pleading their cases on videotapes that will be distributed, starting today, to unions across the country.

And today in Washington, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland will give reporters written transcripts and viewings of the videotapes.

After union leaders and members have had a chance to pick their favorites with the help of the videotapes, membership surveys will be taken and an endorsement will be made if a candidate has the required two-thirds majority.

Those vying for what, on balance, is the valuable support of the 13.5 million-member AFL-CIO are:

Democrats: former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Illinois Sen. Paul Simon and Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore, Jr.

Republicans: Vice President George Bush, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. DuPont IV, the Rev. Pat Robertson, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and New York Rep. Jack Kemp.