Chiselers, cheats, liars and Republicans (redundant?) have connived, conspired and contested for years to prevent the Democrats in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, from increasing the minimum wage in the City above the State of Missouri’s ungenerous wage floor, now at a miserable $7.70 per hour. In a struggle extending back to 1998, City Hall Democrats in St. Louis have battled Republican legislators at the capitol in Jefferson City and low wage employers, who oppose local efforts to raise up our neighbors and our community by building prosperity based on more livable wages.
Eventually, it was 2015, and Missouri Republicans had jumped on the ALEC bandwagon passing a law prohibiting city’s in our State from increasing local wages above the State minimum. When Democratic then-Governor, Jay Nixon, vetoed the bill, the GOP House and Senate overrode the veto. In St. Louis, where Fight for $15 had been gaining ground, lawmakers had been fixed on a Grandfather Clause in the new State law, that permitted local minimum wage increases so long as they were already in effect on or before August 28, 2015. Galvanized to act in an unusual Summer session, the St. Louis Board of Alderman sweated through the hard work of making sure the Fight for $15 didn’t leave St. Louis completely empty-handed. The fact that our Board of Aldermen presently includes only Democrats, at least nominally, didn’t prevent the business and commerce Democrats from squaring off with wage justice Democrats, over whether the City ought to do anything at all on wages and over how much. They compromised, just in time, on a series of dates when the City minimum wage would climb, step by step, to $11/hour by January 1, 2018.
Republicans and low wage business leaders probably never expected the often-fractious St. Louis Democrats to act in time, but they were wrong. So, in a totally Trump-like move, the aforesaid chiselers, cheats, etc. threw the whole thing into Court. A coalition of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, Cooperative Home Care, Missouri Restaurant Association, Missouri Retailers Association, National Federation of Independent Business, and others, sued the City of St. Louis, claiming that the City’s wage increase conflicted with existing state law, exceeded the city’s power under its charter and was improperly enacted. What all that legal gook actually means is merely that the people suing were upset at having to pay, to lots of other folks, money that they had rather hoped to keep for their own few selfish, dickish selves.
This Injustice League, trying to overturn the law, got lucky when their case came before a Circuit Court Judge with an on again, off again relationship to fairness and constitutional jurisprudence. The Judge struck down the city’s minimum wage increase just hours before it would have raised employees in the city from $7.65 to $8.25. So, that’s where things stood from 2015 until January 1, 2017, when the State minimum wage jumped five cents to $7.70 and the minimum wage in St. Louis did the same.
All that changed today.
It turns out that the City of St. Louis continued the defense of our local minimum wage increase, fighting in the appellate courts with the mugs, pugs and ugly jugs who’d had the temerity to challenge St. Louis’s beloved but betrayed ordinance. And today the Missouri Supreme Court turned out a thoughtful, well reasoned and impeccably supported opinion that all of the arguments against the city’s higher minimum wage, were a bunch of hogwash.
Response from local leaders has been swift.
Tom Shepard, chief of staff to St. Louis Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, told the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday that city lawmakers rushed to get the increase passed under the wire, with Reed calling meetings even while the board was on break.
“Today, the Supreme Court justified our rights as a City to make sure the people in our City can make a living wage," Reed said later in a statement. "The people of St. Louis need to be able to afford groceries for their families and a roof over their heads."
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay also praised the court's decision Tuesday, saying the increase will "help lift hard working men and women out of poverty."
Because of the still-horrible Missouri ALEC legislation, that St. Louis just barely avoided the effect of, at the at the last moment, our city will not have another chance to boost local wages until Missouri can get a lot more Democrats sent to the capitol in Jefferson City. But notwithstanding that cloud, minimum wage earners in St. Louis can see a silver lining today as their pay soon jumps from $7.70 to $10 per hour and to $11 in less than a year.
St. Louis workers received a little wage justice today, and it is as sweet as barbecue pork steak with gooey butter cake for dessert.