Click The Logo To Donate
Posted on 07/02/2004 10:16:05 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Industrial Welfare Commission, the five-member state panel that sets minimum wages and other working conditions, has gone out of business because of lack of funding. The commission shut down Thursday after legislative budget writers cut off its $237,000 in state support. Union leaders lobbied for the cutoff.
"We didn't think they were worthy of their money because they're were not fulfilling their mission," said Tom Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation. "They are there to protect low-wage workers. They're not there to protect business."
But Katie Quan, chairwoman of the Center for Labor Research and Education at University of California, Berkeley, said labor standards and minimum wage reviews could suffer if funding isn't restored.
"There is no other body charged with setting those standards," she said. "If you don't have somebody ... things could actually turn into sweatshops quite quickly."
It's the second time in seven years the 91-year-old commission has been forced to shut down.
In 1997, Democrats in the Legislature cut off the commission's funding after it voted to eliminate daily overtime pay requirements. The panel was reinstated two years later after lawmakers restored daily overtime.
"It's too much of a political animal," said Martyn Hopper, California director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "The decisions were not necessarily based on facts, but more on political reality where the wind was blowing."
Doug Bosco, a former commission member and former congressman, said labor leaders may regret the commission's demise if Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes a pending bill that would raise the minimum wage.
I can't believe one of these commissions was eliminated. One down and about a zillion to go!!! Although it was the lefists who got rid of this.
A commission suggests a cost saving measure and is itself unfunded in 1997.
Wonder what the commission just did, or was about to do, that got its funding axed this time around?
I'll bet it had nothing to do with "improving the plight of the common working man".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.