Vote of Republican Senator from Harlem/Bronx may decide NY Minimum Wage raise
NY is One Vote Away from Raising it's Minimum Wage: Vote of Republican Senator from Harlem/Bronx may make the Difference. What will she do?
A bill that would raise the wage from $5.15 to $7.10 an hour passed the Assembly on March 1 but once again has stalled in the Senate Labor Committee. In what has become a predictable political game, the Democratic-controlled state Assembly approves raising the minimum wage every year, but the Senate, which is in the hands of the Republicans, invariably fails to vote on such legislation. State Sen. Olga Méndez (R-East Harlem, Bronx), chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee, has a golden opportunity to do the right thing for New York's lowest-paid workers. [more]