Republican state senator calls for minimum wage cut during pandemic

[TexasTowelie]

State Sen. Stacey Guerin, a Republican member of the legislature’s Labor and Housing Committee, said Wednesday that the Mills administration should consider cancelling a cost-of-living increase to Maine’s minimum wage, scheduled for the beginning of next year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of a more than four-hour long video briefing with the Labor Committee on the state’s unemployment insurance system by Maine Department of Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman, Guerin also suggested the state look for ways to limit employers’ liability should their workers become sick on the job.

“I think another thing that we should be looking at, and the department should be recommending, is a freezing of the minimum wage increase that is due next January, because we know employers are barely hanging on. Many are already going out of business,” a masked Guerin, who represents parts of Penobscot County and owns a restaurant equipment supply company in Veazie, told Fortman.

Maine’s minimum wage was raised to $12 an hour last January and, beginning in 2021, will be raised each year based on inflation because of a successful 2016 ballot initiative.

Read more: https://mainebeacon.com/republican-state-senator-calls-for-minimum-wage-cut-during-pandemic/