AFL-CIO Calls for Implementation of Minimum, Prevailing Wage Laws

When the next legislative session begins tomorrow, union leaders from around the state to be pushing a slate of worker protection and compensation bills as part of their 2014 priorities, according to officials.

Members of the AFL-CIO, including its national secretary-treasurer, outlined their legislative agenda for the New Year at a press conference in the Legislative Office Building on Jan. 7, which include implementation of a minimum wage of $9 by 2016 that increases annually with the rate of inflation, pay equality between genders, a prevailing wage for all state and municipal projects, and social media and credit history privacy, among other things.

Unlike 2012, when union activists were organizing to fight right-to-work legislation in a Republican-controlled House and Senate, activists expect a more friendly reception when pressing their agenda now that Democrats control the House and the corner office.

Mark MacKenzie, the president of New Hampshire’s AFL-CIO, pointed specifically to the minimum wage as an opportunity to help the economy, since those workers tend to spend all of their money. It would provide “an increase for those people who live on the margins in this state,” he said. MacKenzie challenged opponents who called the minimum wage “anti-business” and that it only helped teenagers, saying that all the data showed otherwise. He also called for approval of the Paycheck Fairness bill, since women can sometimes earn 24 percent less than their male counterparts make, and aren’t allowed to talk about the issue either, with other employees.

“In fact, it can be grounds for firing,” he said of employees discussing inequities in wages.

MacKenzie said protections needed to be approved to keep employers from paying workers with payroll cards due to the fee structures charged by banks, adding that those fees should be regulated. He also called for rules to prohibit employers from requiring access to private social media and email accounts, a bill sponsored by state Rep. Katherine Rogers, D-Concord, as well as blocking employers from being able to request credit checks before hiring, with the exception of jobs that involve business funds.

Liz Shuler, the national secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said the minimum wage would decrease the income inequality seen in the country currently and would allow those workers, who often work very hard, to put food on the table and pay bills. She said 95 percent of the gains in the economy since 2009 went to the top 1 percent of wage earners and organized labor and legislators had to act to end the inequality.

“We have to do better than that … it’s not just hurting working families, it is wrecking the economy,” she said, “putting more money into the hands of people who work for it (is) what we need to do.”

Shuler called the legislative agenda backed by the AFL-CIO “reasonable” and said it would put money back into the New Hampshire economy.

While labor leaders talked a lot about the benefits of an increased minimum wage, prevailing wages, and other bills, especially for working families, they admitted that they hadn’t done a cost analysis of what the changes might do to taxpayers, businesses, or consumers. They also didn’t know exactly what the prevailing wage should be set at, instead, saying it should be based on the wage determinations made under the federal Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Officials also challenged the notion that a set prevailing wage, something New Hampshire once had but repealed in 1985, would increase taxes or the cost of projects, since the Davis-Bacon Act sets pay scales based on the market that each project is constructed in, based on the wages of the specific community.