Save The Minimum Wage Tomorrow
We were all set to write a little thing about the minimum wage protest tomorrow and belittle it along the lines of "who cares about the national minimum wage when our state's is already the highest in the country" without knowing anything about it (as is our wont), but we accidentally stopped to read what was being protested.
HR 5970, which has passed the House and is now heading to the U.S. Senate, contains two cynical provisions inserted by Republicans serving their corporate masters:* Permanent cuts to the estate tax for very wealthy estates - exempting up to $5 million per person or $10 million per couple
* Invalidation of state laws providing a minimum wage for restaurant and other tipped employees, a provision that will affect thousands of workers here in Washington
Estate taxes don't really have anything to do with us besides the whole "rich people fucking us by not paying their fair share" thing but invalidating state laws pertaining to nearly anything makes our head explode. This is in contrast to a few years back when we were in favor of invalidating weirdo state laws pertaining to abortion bans and various other right wing favs. Things being as they are in the federal government, currently we've had to kind of flip on that one but we still try to stay away from the olde rascist code words like "state's rights" and such. Anyway we rather D.C. stay away from our minimum wage, thanks. Increase it nationally, yes please, but we don't think that food service workers (our beloved saint of the espresso machine included) need to be in any further jeopardy from the whims of the tip.
Minimum wage is $7.63 in the state of Washington, by the way, and the national minimum is $5.15. Only Kansas has a minimum wage lower than the national ($2.65!). So if you're a restaurant worker and you take two hours off to demonstrate you're out $15.26 in the short run and $2.48 an hour until your music career takes off.
Details via Horsesass:
The rally will be held at the Seattle Center tomorrow at 2:15 PM at the base of the Space Needle. Speakers will include Jay Inslee (the organizer) and Darcy Burner. (Note to Wingnuts: the Seattle Center is not in the 8th District. In fact, it is not in Inslee’s 1st District, either. But this isn’t a campaign event now, is it? The Seattle Center is a great place for people in the entire region to gather and protest.)
