Guest opinion /// New minimum wage is a scary thought





The state Capitol building in Sacramento is a popular destination for school groups. The kids tour the historic legislative chambers, while adults explain how laws are made.

A more accurate tour of how laws are made can be found on Netflix. Look for the 1931 horror classic “Frankenstein.”

There you’ll get a good look at how it’s really done. Peek into the laboratory as the mad scientist pieces together grisly remains from the local graveyard, while the villagers assemble outside with pitchforks and torches.

Consider, for example, the $15 minimum wage law.

On the Saturday night before Easter, word escaped from Dr. Frankenstein’s lab that Gov. Jerry Brown had made a deal with labor union leaders and state lawmakers to ratchet up California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and beyond.

In January, Brown warned that a minimum wage hike of that magnitude would “put a lot of poor people out of work” and would be too costly for taxpayers. The state is an employer, too, and those wage hikes would add $4 billion to the annual budget by 2021.

But everything changed because of an unfortunate accident in the laboratory in 2014 that caused the state’s beloved initiative process to mutate. When the smoke cleared, initiatives could no longer appear on the June ballot, but were pushed into a November crowd scene. And suddenly new initiatives were born with a cord around their necks. This allowed their sponsors to yank them back if a deal for similar legislation could be reached in time.

In the latest experiment, two of Dr. Frankenstein’s trusted assistants, the Service Employees International Union state council and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, created competing $15 minimum wage initiatives. The unions hired costly consultants to qualify the measures for the ballot, paying $3 or $4 for each voter signature on the petitions. In earlier years, signatures could be had for a dollar or two, but the crowded field for November pushed prices up.

On March 22, the healthcare workers union announced that their initiative had qualified for the ballot with 423,236 signatures. They put Gov. Brown on notice that unless he signed a state law to raise the minimum wage to $15, they were taking it to the voters.

Four days later, the pre-Easter deal was announced.

Work in the laboratory commenced immediately on a long-buried minimum wage bill that had passed the state Senate in 2015. With a few spare parts grafted in place, the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed it in 90 minutes and sent it to the Assembly floor. Within 24 hours, the creature was passed by the Assembly and state Senate and sent to the governor’s desk.

Soon the thing will be fully electrified and walking around California. You’ll feel it taking extra money out of your pocket every time you shop, eat or pick up dry cleaning.

Out in the streets of the village, the California Restaurant Association and other business groups are massing and angry. They could storm the laboratory and steal the antidote. It’s in the tall cabinet, in a bottle labeled “Referendum.”

The business community could gather signatures for a referendum to repeal the law.

But then the unions could gather signatures for “Bride of Minimum Wage.”

Ballot fights cost many millions of dollars for advertising, but initiatives are inexpensive bargaining chips now that they can be withdrawn after they qualify.

It’s all cooked up secretly in the laboratory or in the back room of the local inn, where sometimes the villagers and their torches win a few concessions.

And that’s how laws are made in California.

Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha.

The author can be reached at Susan@SusanShelley.com or on Twitter @Susan_ Shelley.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *