Jay Inslee returned to his Washington DC roots over the weekend, and decided to consider taking a page out of President Obama’s playbook and investigate unilaterally raising the minimum wage for state workers and contractors.
The minimum wage debate is being driven here by Inslee campaign contributors at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775NW, as a way to both coerce employers to consider unionizing their workforce and raising the wages of already-unionized workers who will argue that if $12 or $15 is the new minimum wage floor, experienced workers should be well above that floor.
For Inslee, holding a press conference outside the White House was an easy way to get attention, far easier than actually getting Speaker Frank Chopp and the Democrat-controlled State House to take a vote to raise the state’s minimum wage. Since he couldn’t get anything done at home, Inslee decided that pandering in Washington, DC would have to do.
Leave a Reply