Senate gets minimum wage bill

SANTA FE – A revised proposal to increase the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 per hour will advance to the Senate floor after the chamber’s Corporations and Transportation Committee moved to have the rule apply only to businesses that employ more than 10 workers.

Senate Bill 416, sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Española, has drawn strong opposition from Senate Republicans and business groups, including the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, who say the required increase in wages would hamper job creation.

Some Democrats on the Corporations and Transportation Committee, however, joined in criticism of the bill, saying the requirement would particularly hurt very small businesses in rural communities.

“To raise their expenditures would cause a lot of them just to shut down, because they can’t afford it,” said Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose. Griego, chairman of the Corporations and Transportation Committee, sponsored the amendment to exempt businesses with fewer than 11 employees from paying a higher minimum wage.

The statewide hourly minimum wage is $7.50. Albuquerque’s is higher – voters approved $8.50 in November – and Santa Fe’s is higher yet, $10.39 and scheduled to go to $10.51 in March.

Another amendment passed by the Democratic-controlled committee would allow employers outside Albuquerque and Santa Fe to pay new workers in training a minimum of $7.50 per hour for their first year of employment as a “training wage” before being required to increase the employee’s hourly pay to $8.50.

After the amendments, the bill cleared the Corporation and Transportation Committee without recommendation on a party-line vote, with committee Republicans voting no. The bill will now go to the full Senate for consideration.

But committee Republicans said that mandating higher wages is risky regardless of whether the rule would exempt small businesses.

“If we mess this up, there are kids out of work, there are families out of jobs, there are businesses that shut down,” said Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque.

Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, the majority whip of the Senate , said he expected the minimum wage increase to win broad support in the Senate despite amendments passed Wednesday that “reduce the impact.”

“It’s still is a minimum wage increase, it’s just an increase for everyone except trainees and really small businesses,” Keller said. “It’s definitely still meaningful.”
— This article appeared on page A6 of the Albuquerque Journal