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Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Pushing for a Fair Wage
Duke City Fix has excellent photos of Senator John Edwards and the Fair Wage rally on Albuquerque's Civic Plaza yesterday. Reports are that the petition effort to get the measure on the ballot this October already has more than 20,000 signatures.
State Democratic Party Chair John Wertheim has a good pro-living wage op-ed piece in this morning's Albuquerque Journal. I note the Journal's coverage of the rally focuses on negative quotes about the effort. Why am I not surprised.
Not so startling quote of the day from City Councilor and Republican, Brad Winter, who is also running for Mayor of Albuquerque:
On Tuesday, City Council President Brad Winter, a candidate for mayor, issued a statement saying he opposed a local minimum wage and wouldn't lobby for an increase in the federal minimum wage.
"I will allow our elected officials in Washington, D.C., to determine the appropriate minimum-wage level which will keep America competitive on the world stage," he said.
"Raising the minimum wage on one competitor— whether it is a city like Albuquerque or a country like the United States— offers an unfair advantage to others," he said.
Sounds like ole "moderate" Brad might believe even our current, meager federal minimum wage law is over the top. After all, how can we compete with all those slave wage workers in China and the Third World when we have that inconvenient $5.15 an hour, "non-competitive" requirement to content with!
June 29, 2005 at 08:22 AM in Local Politics | Permalink
Comments
So Edwards comes to town to fight for minimum wage and has a dinner that evening to raise money for issue and charges 250 $ a ticket !!
Whats up with that ?
So nobody that makes minimum wage can attend ?
Posted by: ElChe | Jun 29, 2005 9:35:42 AM
That's why he held the public rally. The only reason to have the additional reception was to RAISE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE for the fair wage effort. You do that with tickets at that level. Also, any organization could get a group together to pool their funds to support this and have a rep there.
Why beef about Edwards doing what he can to support then effort when there are plenty of Dems to criticize, like our own mayor, who work against it?
Posted by: G. Radik | Jun 30, 2005 8:57:10 AM
"I note the Journal's coverage of the rally focuses on negative quotes about the effort."
Really? Here are the quotes in the story, along with my judgment about whether they're "positive" or "negative."
Edwards - positive
Edwards - positive
Winter - negative
Winter - negative
Hurd - positive
Heinrich - positive
Gomez - positive
Griego - positive
O'Malley - you decide
The positive quotes are first, and outnumber the negative quotes. I could imagine someone arguing that the article focuses on positive quotes about the effort, but it's hard to imagine arguing the opposite.
Posted by: John Fleck | Jun 30, 2005 3:09:49 PM
Well I guess you have me on the numbers but they did give Winter a nice long blurb, even though it seems to me it was a rope long enough to hang himself with his comment. And the councilors' positive comments were at the end of the article.
I guess I have a tendency to view the Journal with mistrust given its editorial bent and how it emphasizes certain stories and relegates others to the back pages or none at all.
It would be easier for folks to decide for themselves if the Journal didn't require a subscription to read much of its content online.
Posted by: barb | Jul 1, 2005 9:58:30 AM
Note, after rereading the article, I have to admit it doesn't really exhibit the bias I spoke about. Caught in the act. Isn't the first time and won't be the last!
Posted by: barb | Jul 1, 2005 12:57:46 PM
