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Advocates for a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis will rally Wednesday outside City Hall, the day after the Minnesota Supreme Court hears the city’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that the matter should be on the November ballot.
The rally will start at 9:30 a.m. in front of City Hall, 350 S. 5th St. “The City of Minneapolis is wasting taxpayer money to defend poverty wages,” 15Now Minnesota said in announcing the event.
Advocates gathered nearly 20,000 signatures on petitions to put the issue before voters in November. Their proposal calls for phasing in the $15 minimum wage between 2017 and 2020 for employers with 500 or more workers and between 2017 and 2022 for smaller employers. It also calls for the wage to be automatically adjusted each subsequent year to keep pace with inflation.
On Aug. 3, several Minneapolis City Council members expressed support for a higher minimum wage, but said they were swayed by City Attorney Susan Segal’s opinion that it would not be legal to put the issue on the ballot.
The Minneapolis $15 campaign appealed, and on Aug. 22, Hennepin County Judge Susan Robiner issued a decision ordering the city to put the $15 minimum wage charter amendment on the November 2016 ballot. She ruled the City Council’s action to block the amendment lacked basis in Minnesota law.
A day later, the council decided to appeal the matter to the state Supreme Court, which is hearing the case after Hennepin County’s Aug. 26 deadline for the November ballot to be finalized.
“The county has bent the rules to accommodate the appeal and accommodate big business, extending the deadline to print finalized ballots,” said Ginger Jentzen, executive director of 15Now Minnesota. “Now we need to go back to court a second time to defend our democratic right to decide minimum wage, when we should be preparing to take on big business with one of the biggest grassroots campaigns Minneapolis has ever seen.”
The campaign also is running phone banks and urging Minneapolis residents to call their council members and urge them to drop the appeal of Judge Robiner’s decision.