The Minimum Wage

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Every where you turn (radio, TV, etc...) Democrats are vowing to fight for a decent minimum wage.
It's their loudest (and only) battle-cry these days.

Way to raise the bar after the November election, dumbfucks. I'm sure that's exactly why voters chose Democrat...



DumbfuckCrats ask for bread (Iraq withdrawal, Health care, environmental issues...) and instead they get
circuses (minimum wage strawman bullshit).

If you voted Democrat, you deserve every abuse being heaped upon you. You idiots.

[BSmack]

Every where you turn (radio, TV, etc...) Democrats are vowing to fight for a decent minimum wage.
It's their loudest (and only) battle-cry these days.

Spouting GOP talking points much?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Every where you turn (radio, TV, etc...) Democrats are vowing to fight for a decent minimum wage.
It's their loudest (and only) battle-cry these days.

Spouting GOP talking points much?

Open a newspaper.

[See You Next Wednesday]

Well there is this http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/T ... rules.html

House Democrats hurried yesterday to put the finishing touches on ethics reforms that would ban lawmakers and staffers from accepting trips, gifts and meals from lobbyists and prevent the new majority from holding votes open to change the outcome.

Democrats will adopt and then amend the House Rules package tomorrow to ban all travel paid for by lobbyists or organizations that employ lobbyists, require the ethics committee to pre-approve travel paid for by outside groups, enact a total gift ban, and require lawmakers to pay the market cost of flying on a corporate jet, said Democratic staffers and officials with government watchdog groups.

And, because they feel they lost the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit vote because GOP leaders held it open for three hours, during which they flipped opponents into the “yes” column, Democrats will include a provision in the rules to prevent any sort of repetition, said aides to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

[Dinsdale]

There's some backass states out there.

Around here, we couldn't give a fuck what the fed minimum wage is. Went up to $7.80 here, as of Monday.

[At Large]

Fuck those working stiffs. What are Dems thinking of raising the minimum wage? Why can't they focus on cutting taxes that only benefit the top 1%?

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

"They're changing the subject. Every time I talk to these new Democrats about Iraq, they say we're busy raising the minimum wage or stem cell, they're quick to change the topic, even Jim Webb he did it now. It's great, he said what he said. But he said, I ran on other things besides the war. Why is he changing the subject now when he didn't during the campaign?"

"To get elected, is that all they wanted?"

[Mister Bushice]

First off, congress just began this years session. Secondly, it's logical to wait to see what Bushs new strategy will be.
Third, there are already rumblings in congress they won't put up with more bush doublespeak.

Supposedly his plan includes a troop increase.

Good luck with that. It's only a matter of time before he runs into trouble with congress if his "new" war strategy resembles his old war strategy, but on a bigger scale.

Figures the naysayers start whining on day 2 of the new year.

[Mister Bushice]

True. Like I've said. We just replaced one set of shitheads with another.

There is no quick fix to iraq, but so far Bushs method hasn't been working, and more of it isn't a solution.

[BSmack]

Every where you turn (radio, TV, etc...) Democrats are vowing to fight for a decent minimum wage.

As long as it doesn't conflict with their own corporate constituents' bottom line.

So, was the minimum wage EXTENDED to Northern Mariana Islands or was it TAKEN from American Samoa?

[BSmack]

Struggling with reading comprehension or intellectual honesty?

Either way you're a fucking idiot.

I guess answering the fucking question would be too much to ask. Leave it to the bitter backbenchers to manufacture lemons out of lemonade.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Angry Samoans.

[Cuda]

Never, NEVER honk your car horn at them

[BSmack]

The bill also extends for the first time the federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. However, it exempts American Samoa, another Pacific island territory that would become the only U.S. territory not subject to federal minimum-wage laws.

You mean it allows the previous exemption for American Samoa to stand while repealing the previous exemption for Northern Mariana Islands.

Of course you do realize that more than a little back room wrangling goes into making sure a bill like this has a veto proof margin.

Right?

[BSmack]

I thought Chemical Peelosi had pledged to end this type back room wrangling and earmarking? This was going to be the most ethical Congress in history, remember? Now she's long dicking Samoan workers to placate her corporate cronies?

I guess 100 hours refers to the length of time necessary to expose her as a lying, hypocritical tard.

10 minutes is all it take to expose you.

AN ACT

To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007'.

SEC. 2. MINIMUM WAGE.

(a) In General- Section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) is amended to read as follows:

`(1) except as otherwise provided in this section, not less than--

`(A) $5.85 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after the date of enactment of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007;

`(B) $6.55 an hour, beginning 12 months after that 60th day; and

`(C) $7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day;'.

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act.

SEC. 3. APPLICABILITY OF MINIMUM WAGE TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS.

(a) In General- Section 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206) shall apply to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

(b) Transition- Notwithstanding subsection (a), the minimum wage applicable to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) shall be--

(1) $3.55 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after the date of enactment of this Act; and

(2) increased by $0.50 an hour (or such lesser amount as may be necessary to equal the minimum wage under section 6(a)(1) of such Act), beginning 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act and every 6 months thereafter until the minimum wage applicable to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under this subsection is equal to the minimum wage set forth in such section.

Let me know when you find the reference to American Samoa in this bill.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c ... c110sHp0kR::

[BSmack]

Let me know when you find the reference to American Samoa in this bill.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c ... c110sHp0kR::

There isn't one, you fucking dipshit. That's the point.

So tell me, what are they TAKING from American Samoa?

[Mikey]

I wouldn't want to accuse your right wing sources of selectively reporting the story, but it seems that there's a little more to it...

Minimum-Wage Bill Stirs Controversy in Pacific Islands
Democrats Aim Raise for Northern Marianas but Not Samoa

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; A04

After years of protection from the likes of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, employers on the Northern Mariana Islands would finally have to pay workers the federal minimum wage under legislation before the House tomorrow.

Hypocrite much, Republicans?

Democrats have long tried to pull the Northern Marianas under the umbrella of U.S. labor laws, accusing the island government and its industry leaders of coddling sweatshops and turning a blind eye to forced abortions and indentured servitude. But Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican lobbyist now in federal prison, spent millions of dollars from the island and its business interests currying favor with Republicans, aligning support with conservative interest groups and thwarting every effort to intervene in the Northern Marianas' economy.

But Republican leadership aides accused the Democrats of using a double standard by imposing the higher minimum wage on a government with a Republican representative to the United States while continuing to exempt a territory with a Democratic delegate. American Samoa and the tuna industry that dominates its economy would remain free to pay wages that are less than half the bill's mandatory minimum.

Ever since Abramoff's lobbying scandal broke, top Democrats have been eager to highlight the labor-rights records of the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands were a top client of Abramoff's and had close ties to DeLay, the onetime House majority leader from Texas, and other Republicans. Those Democrats asserted that by finally bringing the islands under U.S. minimum-wage law, they could demonstrate that their party had broken through the steel ring of protection erected by Abramoff and his allies.

But Samoa has escaped such notoriety, and its low-wage canneries have a protector of a different political stripe, Democratic delegate Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, whose campaign coffers have been well stocked by the tuna industry that virtually runs his island's economy.

Faleomavaega has said he does not believe his island's economy could handle the federal minimum wage, issuing statements of sympathy for a Samoan tuna industry competing with South American and Asian canneries paying workers as little as 66 cents an hour. The message got through to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the minimum-wage bill that included the Marianas but not Samoa, according to committee aides. The aides said the Samoan economy does not have the diversity and vibrancy to handle the mainland's minimum wage, nor does the island have anything like the labor rights abuses Miller found in the Marianas.

The wage bill coming to a vote would raise the federal minimum from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over two years, the first such increase since 1997. The 10-year stretch between wage increases is the longest since the mandatory minimum was created, and passage is expected to be overwhelming.

By including the Northern Marianas, Democrats say they hope to end abusive sweatshops, especially in the garment industry. Miller has told harrowing stories of meeting veiled or masked indentured servants and wage slaves in Mariana Islands churches, who told their stories under the threat of grievous retaliation from their employers. But Miller's efforts to bring the islands under U.S. labor laws were thwarted repeatedly by Abramoff allies, who maintained the islands have been a business-friendly model of free enterprise in the Pacific.

"I have been trying to fix the deplorable situation in the Northern Marianas since I first held hearings on the issue in 1992, 15 years ago," Miller said. "But under Republican control, the House never even held a hearing."

American Samoa has had a smattering of its own negative publicity, and an Education and Labor Committee aide said yesterday that Miller probably will seek a review of the island's labor relations. Just last month, the U.S. District Court in Hawaii upheld the conviction of a Korean sweatshop owner, who held 17 workers in involuntary servitude in American Samoa, imprisoning them in his garment factory compound.

But in American Samoa, it is the tuna industry that rules the roost. Canneries employ nearly 5,000 workers on the island, or 40 percent of the workforce, paying $3.60 an hour on average, compared with $7.99 an hour for Samoan government employees. Samoan minimum-wage rates are set by federal industry committees, which visit the island every two years.

Faleomavaega's aides said yesterday that the delegate was in American Samoa for the opening session of the island's government and would not comment. But he is no stranger to the minimum-wage issue. When StarKist lobbied in the past to prevent small minimum-wage hikes, Faleomavaega denounced the efforts.

"StarKist is a billion-dollar-a-year company," he said after a 2003 meeting with executives from StarKist and parent company Del Monte Foods. "It is not fair to pay a corporate executive $65 million a year while a cannery worker only makes $3.60 per hour."

But after the same meeting, Faleomavaega also said he understood that the Samoan canneries were facing severe wage competition from South American and Asian competitors. Democratic aides familiar with the issue said Faleomavaega is not about to allow the federal minimum wage to reach Samoa -- and perhaps for good reason.

Department of Interior testimony last year before the Senate noted that canneries in Thailand and the Philippines were paying their workers about 67 cents an hour. If the canneries left American Samoa en masse, the impact would be devastating, leaving Samoans as wards of the federal welfare state, warned David B. Cohen, deputy assistant secretary of the interior for insular affairs.

[BSmack]

So tell me, what are they TAKING from American Samoa?

About $2 an hour, dumbfuck.

You can't take something that was never there to begin with. Keep spinning DreidelSCAL.

[smackaholic]

So, the clothing sweatshop workers in the marianas need their wages raised, wearas their tuna sweatshop pacific bretheren in the samoas can't have their's raised as all the cannery yobs would flee to thailand?

I have a small problem with this. Do the textile workers not have similar sweatshop competion where the pay is a few pennyes an hour and a bowl of rice? Sure they do.

There is a difference. I suspect that the samoans are used for canning for a few reasons. First, they are a US territory which makes doing bidness there less risky. Second, I'd be willing to bet that all that fukkin' tuna happens to live in local waters. Third, they work cheap.

Two of these very good reasons for canning there are unaffected by raising their pay.

How 'bout coming up with something other than Pelosi apologists.

One other thing. Ever look at your average samoan? They gotta run two fitty-three hunit avg. And that's just the chicks. Why the fukk don't they try eating some of that tuna, they might drop a few pounds.