Minimum wage workers and supporters of the $10.10 minimum wage clapped, cheered and hugged in front of the Las Cruces City hall, in celebration of the passed ordinance to raise the Las Cruces minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017.
Councilors voted 4 to 3 in favor. But Sarah Nolan, Executive Director of Cafe ,the group that collected petitions to get the minimum wage proposal before the city council says the fight is far from over.
“Today minimum wage earners got a raise, today they will have to fight to keep it.” she says
“We think they have plans in the works to undermine the $10.10 an hour and actually water it down and make it very similar to the ordinance that they passed a few months ago”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgV8RPLs84o&feature=youtu.be
Councilor Miguel Silva says the $10.10 minimum wage will have to be “reconciled” with a measure the council passed to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 by 2016.
Silva voted in favor of the measure with along with Mayor Ken Miyagishima and councilors Ceil Levatino and Greg Smith. The same group who voted for the $8.50 proposal.
Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce President Bill Allen says he will be working with the council to determine an increase that Las Cruces businesses can handle.
“We’d like to keep things as close to what we had as possible” he says.
Councilors Nathan Small, Olga Pedroza, and Gill Sorg are in favor of the $10.10 minimum wage increase, but voted against it. They expressed the need for voters to have their say on the $10.10 minimum wage proposal in the November election.
Small said there is legal basis to the claim the $10.10 ordinance has to be reconciled with the previous $8.50 ordinance. He says it seems like it was a way to reduce public input.
"The choice was made by the majority of the council to deny citizens and voters the opportunity to have their voice heard on this issue on an election, which was the reason, the only reason I chose not support the ordinance" he says
"It seems to me a way specifically designed to exclude people from the process and have less public involvement".
Small says by keeping the measure off the ballot and out of voters hands councilors opposed to the $10.10 increase are keeping the debate over the Las Cruces minimum wage increase in city hall, where the majority favors the smaller wage increase.
Mayor Ken Miyagishima says he expects the Las Cruces minimum wage to be resolved by January 2015.