Proponents of raising Greensboro’s minimum wage go before the city council tonight as the city clerk presents an opinion by the legal staff that the petitions are “insufficient.”
Ed Whitfield, a member of the Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee, contests Assistant City Attorney Terry Wood’s opinion on the initiative in a formal response posted last night on the Greensboro Minimum Wage Campaign blog.
In Whitfield’s view, the council has some latitude to decide whether to accept the city clerk’s certification of insufficiency, and should review the matter because of confusion surrounding which municipal election should be used to set a 25 percent threshold. (For a citizen initiative to be put on the ballot the number of signatures must equal 25 percent of the number of people who voted in the last election.)
Whitfield: “We hope that the city council would consider using their power under Sec. 2.73 of the city charter to clarify this initiative system so that everyone will know what election will be used in determining what constitutes ‘25% of voters who voted in the last previous election’ referred to in the law.”
Whitfield also casts doubt on an assertion by Wood that municipal action to raise the minimum wage would violate the North Carolina constitution’s prohibition against municipalities regulating labor. If the initiative is truly unconstitutional, Whitfield’s letter suggests, then the city is already in violation of the constitution.
Whitfield: “We would also like to understand the ability of our city to offer huge incentives to individual corporations if it cannot be involved in regulating ‘labor, trade, mining and manufacturing.’”
Finally, he argues that Wood’s interpretation of the constitution is selective, and that federal and state labor laws merely set the floor, not the ceiling, on wages. Whitfield quotes the relevant statute as also saying, “The fact that a state or federal law, standing alone, makes a given act, omission or condition unlawful shall not preclude city ordinances requiring a higher standard of conduct or condition.”
2 comments:
Indeed, the City is way out of line as in 2006 Federal courts already ruled on this matter when opponents tried the same trick in Santa Fe, NM. The court ruled that all cities granted broad police powers by the states in which they are located have the right to regulate wages within their own borders.
Greensboro has broad police powers.
It's such a shame that city leaders continue to spread lies without any basis in fact and I suspect this ruling by the City Attorney's office is nothing more than a bluff to draw attention away from their assertion that not enough signatures were gathered.
Thanks, Billy. I wasn't aware of the history of opponents in Santa Fe arguing that a minimum wage ordinance overstepped municipal authority. This is a useful construction to the dialogue, limited as it is.
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