The editorialists at the Providence Journal are worried about low-wage workers coming to eat their brains.
Let us hope Providence City Council members, in seeking to woo some powerful interest groups in an election year, do not inflict even more harm by dramatically hiking the minimum wage. It is expected to take up the matter this month.
My god the defenders of the rich and comfortable do like to turn everything backwards, don’t they. Low-wage workers are “powerful interest groups” now while the people who pay the low wages are their downtrodden helpless victims.
Certainly the activists were out in force last week, clamoring for an ordinance mandating a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Providence for hotel workers, well above the state’s $8.50 minimum, which itself is higher than the federal minimum wage.
How dare they. How dare they clamor. How dare they clamor for a wage they can actually live on in exchange for doing hard work for 8 hours a day. It’s an outrage.
The ordinance would slam into businesses that are vital to the city’s commerce and national reputation: the Dean Hotel, the Hampton Inn Providence, the Hilton Providence, the Hotel Providence, the Omni Providence, the Providence Biltmore, the Providence Courtyard Marriott, the Providence Marriott Downtown, the Renaissance Providence Downtown Hotel and the Wyndham Garden Providence.
Thank you for the detailed list of hotels that pay low wages.
While we all want workers to earn more money, such an election-year stunt divorced from economic reality could do serious damage to those workers, as well as the city, the state and local property taxpayers, by slashing tourism and convention business, forcing some hotels to close or lay off workers and reducing tax revenues.
Oh I think you’re telling a whopper there, Comrade Editorial Writer. I don’t think you do want workers to earn more money. I think everything you say after those words shows quite clearly that you don’t want that at all. Skip the silly disclaimer next time. It’s like saying “Not to be politically incorrect but” – all it does is underline the shittiness of what you’re about to say.
What’s your salary, now that you mention it?