Tuesday, June 15, 2004 | 9:46 a.m.
No full-time worker should struggle to make ends meet in Nevada's thriving economy, union and Democratic activists said Monday.
Yet a full-time minimum wage worker earns less than $11,000 a year.
On Monday, Democrats and union activists held a rally to promote a new petition aimed to raise the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour.
A $1-an-hour increase would net the average worker an additional $2,000 a year.
About 100 people gathered in support of a constitutional amendment, which would require Nevada's minimum wage to be changed so that it is always $1-an-hour over the federal minimum wage. It also would go up when the cost of living increases.
"It's going to have a positive effect on our economy because minimum wage earners spend their money, and they spend it where they live," said Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO.
Supporters said they turned in about 80,000 signatures, more than the roughly 50,000 they would need to qualify for the 2004 ballot. If they have enough valid signatures and the measure passes, voters would have to approve it again in 2006 for it to go into effect in 2007.
Yet the proposal already has sparked complaints from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and other pro-business advocates who say the minimum wage increase eventually would force companies to cut jobs and drive up costs of goods and services that everyone, including minimum wage earners, must buy.
The national minimum wage has been $5.15-an-hour since 1997, though a new bill proposed now by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would raise the federal minimum wage to $7 an hour.
The Nevada proposal also would allow up to a 3 percent minimum wage increase each year based on the Consumer Price Index.
"The petition specifically ties the minimum wage rate to cost of living increases, which makes it difficult for businesses to do any sort of financial planning," said Catherine Levy, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Chamber. "You never know what those cost of living increases will be."
Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, called the initiative "a pro-union, pro-labor initiative petition."
"It will hurt small business owners," said Tiffany, who owns a small business that buys and sells items on eBay. "You have mandates forced on us to either make us close down our doors or hire less people, and that's why I'm always very, very concerned on forced labor mandates."
And Keith Schwer, director of The Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said more inexperienced workers will suffer.
"Anybody that's relatively new coming into the workforce would be at a disadvantage," he said. "The supply of labor is greater than the demand."
Yet supporters of the minimum wage increase point to people like Leticia Alonzo Valencia, a 46-year-old grandmother who struggled to support her younger children and two grandchildren on the minimum wage income she earned picking fruit and working in factories in California.
Alonzo Valencia moved to Nevada looking for a better wage and is now attending the Culinary Training Academy in hopes of making more money as a guest room attendant.
The money she has been making "isn't enough to feed her kids, for school, for health," said Democratic State Party Chairwoman Adriana Martinez, who translated for Alonzo Valencia.
Another worker who asked not to be named for fear of losing his job said he is a busboy at the Grand Lux Cafe at The Venetian. He said he makes minimum wage and can't buy the best health care for his wife and two children, which would cost $150-a-month.
"I work more than hard," he said. "I think I deserve more than $6 an hour."
Supporters said Monday that six out of 10 minimum wage earners are female, and more than 25 percent are single mothers.
An estimated 101,000 workers in Nevada make less than $6.15 an hour, and an estimated 51,000 workers make the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, Thompson said.
"The key to all of this is people need to make a decent living," said Democratic Congressional candidate Tom Gallagher, a former casino executive who said he supports the initiative.
"If they can't, then they end up in a situation where we all bear the costs," Gallagher said.
The minimum wage increase would help more than just the bottom of the pay scale, said Antonio Villaraigosa, a Los Angeles City Councilman and a former Speaker of the California Assembly who was at the rally Monday.
"It's setting the (higher) floor that pushes everyone up," he said.
Villaraigosa was there on behalf of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Villaraigosa said Kerry supports the proposed minimum wage increase in Nevada.
"In America, the right thing to do is to honor the people who help make that economy strong by raising the minimum wage," he said.
Some states already have higher-than-federal minimum wages. Alaska's for example, is $7.15 an hour, Oregon's is $7.05, and Washington's is $7.16.
The minimum wage petition was the third turned in so far to amend Nevada's constitution. Today is the deadline to turn in petitions for initiatives to appear on the November ballot.
Four initiatives are still in circulation and could be turned in for signature verification -- an initiative to regulate marijuana so that adults could legally possess up to one ounce, two initiatives designed to decrease insurance costs, and an initiative to institute a cap on property taxes similar to the Proposition 13 measure California voters passed in 1978.
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