Word: minimum
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...zigged and zagged between their conflicting demands. Generally, he has pleased environmentalists far more than businessmen-but he also has proposed a speedup in the licensing of nuclear power plants that dismays some environmentalists. More important, he pleased business initially by asking for an increase in the minimum wage so small that AFL-CIO President George Meany called it "shameful." Now, he is prepared to sign a bill increasing the minimum wage by 45%, to $3.35 an hour in 1981-a boost that businessmen consider highly inflationary...
...headquarters of the AFL-CIO last week-and with good reason. After a series of rebuffs from the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress it had helped elect, labor won its first significant legislative victory of the year. Against the vigorous opposition of business and many economists, Congress voted to boost the minimum wage from its present $2.30 an hour to $3.35 by 1981, an increase of 45%. Unlike in past efforts, the unions pulled out all stops to press for the measure, putting together a potent coalition of blacks, womens' groups, church and labor leaders. Said AFL-CIO Spokesman Al Zack...
Under the new measure, the minimum wage will rise to $2.65 next January, $2.90 in 1979, $3.10 in 1980, and $3.35 in 1981. At present about 3 million people are receiving the minimum wage; by 1981 that figure should increase to an estimated 5 million. Most of those in the lowest pay categories work at less skilled jobs such as retail clerks, bellhops and receptionists, in addition to manufacturing in some Southern textile and apparel plants...
Though it fought hard, labor did not get everything it wanted. For example, Congress refused to go along with the unions' proposal that the minimum wage be tied to raises in the average manufacturing wage rate, in effect a form of indexing for inflation. Moreover, 650,000 workers now covered by the law will be cut out as a result of an increase in the number of small businesses exempt from the law. At present, a store does not have to pay its workers the minimum wage if it has annual sales of less than...
...York Republican Senator Jacob Javits: "This bill represents the very least we can do for those workers who cannot protect themselves and their families from the erosion in their living standards caused by inflation." It is probably premature to say for sure whether organized labor's victory on minimum wage presages a resurgence of union influence in Congress. But one thing is certain. The increasingly powerful business lobby is not likely to let itself be so obviously outmaneuvered in any future congressional confrontation...