“...and the workers who fill them are not worth the current minimum wage..”
A guy I know has a pizza joint. And because he HAS to pay the worthless employees a minimum wage, he feels that in order to keep his good employees around he pays them more - even though they still probably aren’t worth what the minimum wage is.
Biography
Christine Owens joined NELP as its Executive Director in January 2008. Over her long career as a workers’ rights advocate, she has held a variety of public interest and public sector positions advancing employment rights and opportunities for women, people of color and low wage workers. In 1997, she joined the national AFL-CIO as a senior policy analyst specializing in workplace equity issues, and in 2001, was appointed Director of Public Policy. At the AFL-CIO, she worked closely with NELP and numerous national and grassroots economic policy and worker advocacy groups, along with national unions and state labor federations, to promote reforms such as minimum wage and living wage hikes, pay equity for working women, and state UI coverage expansions. Before joining the AFL-CIO, she founded and ran the Workers Options Resource Center, which coordinated the efforts of a broad-based coalition of national and community organizations to win the 1996 federal minimum wage increase.
Education
J.D., University of Virginia
B.A., College of William and Mary (Certainly not economics)