BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Veronica Roscoe, who earns $7.75 an hour working at a Burger King here, thought last August that she had won: This city had become the first in the South to approve a local minimum wage.þþ“It was, ‘Wow, victory,’ “ Ms. Roscoe, 55, said. “I was running around the job, acting a fool.”þþBut that was before the Alabama Legislature met, and before a showdown between state lawmakers and city leaders about who should have the authority to set wage policy in Birmingham. The dispute is a particularly ferocious version of a divide playing out nationally as cities increasingly move to raise their minimum wages and some states, particularly those controlled by Republicans, try to restrict their ability to set floors on pay.þþThe Alabama Senate is expected as soon as this week to consider a proposal, which the House approved overwhelmingly last week, that supporters believe would effectively end Birmingham’s ambitions for its own minimum wage of $10.10 an hour. Birmingham officials have reacted angrily and plan to consider a proposal on Tuesday that would put the city’s wage mandate into effect the next day, before Republicans could complete work on the bill making its way through the Legislature.þþIt is unclear what, exactly, will come after this week’s machinations, although partisan hostilities and legal arguments seem certain. At the least, the outcome is poised to reshape economic policy in this state and lead to refined strategies in the national debate about income inequality.þþ“I don’t know if cities are equipped to analyze and determine what the appropriate minimum wage is, and what those impacts are,” said Representative David L. Faulkner Jr., the Republican from Mountain Brook, a wealthy Birmingham suburb, who sponsored the state legislation. “The whole point of this bill is to keep us from having different minimum wages in cities across the state.”þþWith the country governed by a patchwork of laws about compensation, Mr. Faulkner’s fear is already something of a national reality. In 29 states and the District of Columbia, workers are paid above the national standard of $7.25 an hour; last week in Oregon, lawmakers voted to increase the minimum wage to $14.75 in metropolitan Portland by 2022. Five states, including Alabama, have not adopted any form of a state minimum wage.þþIn recent years, deliberations about wages have often played out among local officials. Since 2012, at least 31 cities and counties have approved minimum wages above the federal standard, according to a database maintained by the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Before 2012, only a few local governments had enacted minimum wages, work force historians and researchers said.þþ“You have an explosion of local minimum wage laws, and that extends into more conservative states where you have more liberal metropolitan areas,” Ken Jacobs, the chairman of Berkeley’s center, said. “In response to that, the states are taking action.”þþState legislatures have not merely recoiled at the notion of municipalities setting wage floors; they have also used the force of state law to block local governments on issues like land use, nutrition labeling and paid sick leave.þþThe National Employment Law Project, which supports increasing the minimum wage, said more than a dozen states had effectively prohibited local governments from establishing pay requirements, and that the figure was likely to increase. (The Idaho Legislature, for instance, is weighing a proposal to curtail local minimum wage policies.)þþ“This is the typical playbook,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, a senior staff lawyer for the employment law group. “Over the years, it’s really narrowed the field in terms of what localities around the country can do to raise wages.”þþDebate has hardly been subdued here amid a dispute pitting a predominantly black and Democratic city against a Republican-dominated Legislature.þþ“While we say that we want local control of certain things, I don’t believe the minimum wage is one of those,” Mr. Faulkner said on Thursday. “No one ever envisioned that cities would do this.”þþHours earlier, at a news conference organized by city officials, a supporter of Birmingham’s minimum wage plan raised a sign that read: “LOCAL CONTROL.”þþMr. Faulkner’s bill, which does not mention Birmingham, would bar cities and counties from requiring that any employer offer paid leave, vacation or a particular wage “that is not required by state or federal law.” The bill includes a provision that Mr. Faulkner believes would ultimately allow the Legislature to thwart Birmingham’s effort to salvage its plan: a declaration that “any ordinance, policy, rule or other mandate” that conflicts with the law “is void.”þþAlthough Birmingham’s minimum wage plan has drawn some support from business owners, it has also been the subject of deep skepticism and concern. (Ms. Roscoe’s employer, Burger King, did not respond to a message seeking comment.)þþ“Alabama businesses are already subject to and are complying with numerous government regulations at the federal, state and local level,” William J. Canary, the president and chief executive of the Business Council of Alabama, said in an email. “This bill will prevent even more onerous regulations from being imposed on Alabama businesses.”þþCriticism has not come exclusively from for-profit businesses.þþThe Arc of Jefferson County, a nonprofit group that assists people who have intellectual disabilities, said it was struggling to persuade Birmingham businesses to hire its clients. Chris B. Stewart, the group’s president, said the charity’s traditional partners, including food-service companies and grocery stores, were wary of the minimum wage’s consequences.þþ“With all of the uncertainty right now, they’re not taking on any new placements,” Mr. Stewart said.þþ“We are beating the bushes everywhere we can beat the bushes,” he added. “I think we’re finding more luck outside of Birmingham city proper.”þþYet officials and activists in Birmingham, a city of about 212,000 people, expressed confidence and defiance as they scrambled to preserve a policy they said could affect up to 20 percent of the city’s workers.þþMayor William A. Bell Sr. urged state and local officials to “find common ground.” But others here rely on sharper language and argue that the city must stay on the offensive, with tactics like moving up its timetable for the law, to resist conservative state lawmakers..þþ“They don’t want to see it happen,” said Johnathan F. Austin, the City Council president. “They don’t care about the community.”þþBut Mr. Faulkner noted that his measure would not affect only Birmingham and would also set limits on more conservative cities.þþMs. Roscoe, who has worked in the fast-food industry for decades and has received a single raise, of 50 cents, in four years at Burger King, said she expected the state to prevail.þþ“They’re trying mighty hard to stop it, and they may win, at least this round,” she said. “I thought it was a done deal.”þþAnd even as city officials prepared to take on the Legislature, activists in Birmingham were ready to spread the word in impoverished neighborhoods that the Legislature had spurned an anticipated pay raise.þþ“It feels like they not only want to snatch it out of our hands, they want to deny Birmingham the possibility to grow,” said Scott Douglas, the executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, a social services group. “What’s the worst problem that Birmingham faces? It’s being in Alabama.”
Source: NY Times
