Restaurants warn NY push for $15 wage could close hundreds of businesses

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Free Beacon:

Critics are blasting a New York Wage Board decision to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food establishments that threatens to close hundreds of businesses.

 

The International Franchise Association, which represents tens of thousands of major chain restaurants and their franchisees, said that the decision could lead to massive job losses and closed stores.

 

The "New York wage board decision to discriminate against the quick service food industry will cost jobs and potentially cause small businesses to close," IFA president & CEO Steve Caldeira said in a statement. "Applying a new mandatory minimum wage increase to a narrow group of businesses creates an un-level playing field for owners that provide important entry-level jobs and valuable experience for millions of workers across the state of New York."

 

A wage board consisting of two labor friendly appointees and one entrepreneur voted to hike the starting wage to $15 -- more than double the $7.25 federal level and a 70 percent increase from the $8.75 statewide wage -- after several weeks of hearings. The board convened after a years-long pressure campaign by labor giant Service Employees International Union (SEIU) targeting McDonalds and other fast food establishments. SEIU spent more than $20 million on front groups that sponsored protests at McDonalds locations across the country in 2014.

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Unions get their wage hikes. Now there's no place to eat.

[Valin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMG3j9bwTY0

[Valin]

N.Y. Will Be First State With $15 Minimum for Fast-Food Workers

Freeman Klopott
Sept. 10 2015

 

Governor Andrew Cuomo set New York on a path to become the first state to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 per hour.

 

The governor announced Thursday at a joint appearance with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that his labor commissioner had approved a recommendation that the wage floor be raised to $15 by 2018 in New York City. It would rise by 2021 in the rest of the state. The change will apply to more than 150,000 workers at large chain restaurants, Cuomo said.

 

Taking the plan a step further, Cuomo told a crowd of union members in Manhattan that he’ll push for the $15 minimum to be expanded to all industries, a move that would require legislative approval. The plan heralds “a new economic contract with America,” the Democratic governor said.

 

“We’re putting our steps together to form a march toward economic justice,” Cuomo said. “A march that says if you work full time, you should not live a life in poverty.”

 

(Snip)

 

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Progressive Economic Theory At Work....well actually Work is the one thing it won't do.