West County Democrats

When Missouri legislators talk about the process of getting a bill passed, they oft explain that even good ideas take years to become law.

For example, the saga of Jim The Wonder Dog.  Born in Louisiana but spending most of his life in Marshall, Missouri, Jim constantly amazed people with his intelligence and a telepathic ability to sense unknowable things…

• He carried out instructions given to him in any foreign language, shorthand or Morse Code. 
• He was capable of predicting the outcome of future events.  He chose the winner of seven Kentucky Derbies, the World Series of baseball and the sex of unborn babies.

His memorial garden in Marshall remains a tourist attraction. For more info click here.

This year a bill to name Jim as Missouri’s official Wonder Dog has been filed in Jefferson City.   Rep. Dean Dohrman (R- La Monte) introduced House Bill 674 this year, after filing the same proposal as HB 2581 in 2016, HB 910 in 2015…you get the idea.  Alas, to date Jim’s cause has not been granted a committee hearing and the chances of Jim’s fame being immortalized by the Missouri Legislature this session seem dim.  Yes, getting things passed in Jefferson City takes a lot of time – unless “those people” want it done.

Let’s talk about HB 1193 and HB 1194.  For text of the bills click here.   This session all proposed legislation had to be filed by March 1^st.   As the last sands trickled through the hour glass that day, representatives Dan Shaul (R – Imperial) and Jason Chipman (R – Steeleville) submitted those two bills.  The very next day, March 2^nd, both bills were referred to committee, with a public hearing – and the executive session to decide if the legislation should be forwarded to the entire House – almost immediately set for tomorrow, March 6^th.  A friend, all knowing of the workings of the Capitol, predicts that one of the two bills will be passed by the House this week and thence passed by the Senate in time to get the paper on Governor Seal’s desk before the ides of March.

Why the rush?

Remember that the Missouri Supreme Court, on February 28^th, declared that the City of St. Louis could legally, in steps, raise the minimum wage within its borders to $11.00 per hour.  Click here for the report from STL Public Radio.  Horror of horrors, that added steam to the KC ballot issue to raise that city’s local minimum wage to $15.00 in five years! Read the KC story reported here.   

Yes, working people in the state’s two most prominent cities might actually earn enough money to pay more of their bills!  That is not acceptable.

Time for some perspective.  Note that the article on the KC wage plan quotes the usual suspects as saying raising pay will cause the loss of jobs:  similar bovine by-product got spewed on the St. Louis airways last week after news of that Supreme Court opinion. 

1.   The coming increases in pay are modest – probably about $45.00 per week for the typical part-time worker in St. Louis.  That will be around a 27% jump in pay rate but the actual yield is relatively low because those who hire minimum wage help hire a lot of people – so no one gets full time work or eligibility for vacation, health care or other benefits.

2.    Higher labor costs may slightly speed up the urge to automate but since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution every new, reasonable labor-saving technology has found its way into the market place.  When was the last time you saw a business using one of those classic, NCR cash registers with the cute little window where black and white number tabs appeared? 

3.    In much of Missouri, the actual starting wage is already significantly above the state’s current $7.70 per hour.

Note the photo at the bottom of this post.  Since last summer the Burger King on Telegraph Road in Oakville (in far southeast St. Louis County) advertises a base wage of $9.00 per hour.  My cohorts tell me that some other Drury Restaurant Burger Kings in the St. Louis area are a bit higher, hitting $9.25 an hour for new help.  Meanwhile, Drury’s Burger Kings in Missouri’s Bootheel pay just over that $7.70 Missouri minimum.

Yet, here in Oakville they still honor the ‘buy one, get one’ free Whopper coupons and the two for $5.00 specials.  Paying workers up to 20% more than at cheaper locations does not result in higher costs to consumers (though it may not put as many Franklins in the bosses’ pockets).

And, as I’ve said before, if you can’t get enough productivity out of your employees to match your competitors paying the same wages, well, maybe you’re not a good enough business person to be in the game.

Anyway, what we’re left with, friends, is a scary medical condition:  Wage Phobia! 

Yes, big shots at leading employers and their friends in the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Missouri Restaurant Association and their ilk now endure tremors and palpitations over the threat of having to pay honest people an honest wage.  They’ve ordered the Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly to immediately eradicate even the possibility of higher wages!  If you let people earn more money they’ll just demand more – maybe even an end to prevalent sexual harassment of young women.  (More on that soon.)  Profits for the few remain more important than the survival and proper treatment of the many.

So, while Jim the Wonder Dog and his many backers (including my mother-in-law) wait years for satisfaction, Republican campaign contributors get virtually instant gratification.

That’s how – and who for – the Missouri legislature works. 

Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member