Minnesota - Candidate Kelliher proposes minimum wage boost

Candidate Kelliher proposes minimum wage boost

Margaret Kelliher greets campaign workers

Margaret Kelliher speaks to campaign volunteers

By John Croman

Updated: 7/10/2010 5:23:02 PM


MINNEAPOLIS -- Rep. Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a Minneapolis Democrat running for governor, Friday proposed a boost in the state's minimum wage. It came the same week Rep. Tom Emmer, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, suggested dropping the minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers.

"We're actually behind the Dakotas, both north and south," Kelliher told KARE, "We're behind Iowa, and we're behind Wisconsin in terms of the minimum wage."

Currently Minnesota's minimum is $6.15 per hour for larger employers. Kelliher will ask the legislature to boost that to $7.65, which is higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. She would also like to see the minimum wage for smaller businesses grow from the current $5.25 per hour to a new rate of $6.75 per hour.

Her opponents in the August 10th Democratic primary both agreed with the idea. Former Senator Mark Dayton pointed out that the state is still below the federal minimum wage, while former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza reminded reporters that he helped pass the last minimum wage increase in 2005.

In 2008 Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would've lifted the minimum wage in stages over several years. He objected to the fact that restaurant owners in Minnesota can't pay tipped workers less than minimum wage, which is how it works in most surrounding states.

Federal law allows restaurants to pay waiters and waitresses as little as $2.13 per hour, to account for the fact they receive tips. Restaurant owners have said they could pay non-tipped employees more if they didn't have to pay food servers the full minimum.

In Minnesota Democratic lawmakers have consistently resisted efforts to lower the minimum for servers, something termed a "tip credit" for bar and cafe owners. Pawlenty said he wouldn't sign a minimum wage bill that lacked such a credit.

The issue bubbled to the surface again Monday when Emmer repeated the call for a tip credit for restaurant owners.

"With the tips they get to take home there are people who are earning over $100,000 a year!" Emmer said, "That's more than very people who are providing the jobs, and are investing their life savings and family futures into these businesses."

What was intended to be a routine campaign stop to show Emmer's support for business erupted into ammunition for Democrats, who were quick to seize on his statements. Emmer has since scheduled a meeting at a Roseville restaurant discuss the issue with servers.

"My Republican opponent wants to take tips off food server's tables. Do you think that's a good idea?" Kelliher asked campaign workers Friday night, prompting a loud chorus of "No!" in response.

The same group cheered when they got a sneak peak of Kelliher's first TV ad, which will hit the web Monday and begin airing on broadcast stations Tuesday. The ad, one of three produced by a Washington D.C. agency, provides a snappy biographical sketch using a slick photo album with pop-up figures.

Kelliher's volunteers had gathered at her southeast Minneapolis headquarters Friday to work phone banks and prepare campaign literature as part of a three-day electioneering blitz dubbed "the weekend of MAK-tion."

The staff coined the new word, MAKtion, which starts with Kelliher's initials and rhymes with "action" or "traction" depending on who one asks.