It’s been 10 years since Congress raised the minimum wage and a raise can seem further away than ever. But congressional Democrats are pushing the issue despite the Republican stranglehold on the federal government that’s blocking any progress for working people. Democrats this week introduced a $15 minimum wage bill:
"Democrats have been working to put together a bold, sharp-edged agenda, and this bill will be a part of our agenda — that will be spoken about and lobbied for and pushed for from one end of the country to another," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a press conference introducing the bill Thursday.
Schumer later introduced House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as his "comrade in arms."
The bill would raise the federal minimum to $9.25 an hour this year, with additional yearly increases until reaching $15 an hour in 2024. A rule allowing tipped workers to be paid less than the federal minimum would also be phased out over this period, and raises to the minimum would be indexed to inflation beginning in 2025.
Workers across the country put the $15 minimum wage on the agenda, with laws to make it an eventual reality in California, New York, and Washington, D.C. In Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed his colleagues to embrace $15, after Democratic minimum wage goals rose from $9 to $10.10 to $12 before, now, meeting what workers have been organizing for since 2012.
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● First charter school strike in U.S. history narrowly averted by last-minute-agreement:
For the third time in eight months, Chicago charter school teachers came within a hair’s breadth of going on strike.
After a year of negotiations with management for their first contract since unionizing last spring, close to 50 teachers, paraprofessionals and teacher assistants at Passages Charter School narrowly avoided walking off the job Thursday morning after reaching a tentative agreement with management late Wednesday night. It would have been the first time teachers at a U.S. charter school ever went on strike.
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