$15 minimum wage backers ‘ready to fight’
Legislation could undercut the new amendment
Backers of raising Florida’s minimum wage to $15 per hour say they’re prepared for a fight if the Republican-controlled Legislature or business groups try to undercut Amendment 2.
The amendment, which passed Tuesday night with the 61% supermajority needed to become law, raises the minimum wage to $10 in 2021 and then $1 a year until it reaches $15 in 2026. The current state minimumwage is $8.56.
Although studies found the proposal could lift millions of households out of poverty, it was vehemently opposed by business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, which argued itwould force small businesses already struggling through the pandemic to eliminate job sandor shut down completely.
Some of the state’s top Republicans also spoke against it, and on Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged voters to shoot down the measure, saying“now is not the time.”
Supporters said they worry the GOP might introduce legislation to undercut the amendment.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do or what they’re going to try ... but if they try to undermine the will of the people, I’ll do what I did last time, and I’ll sue the state, and I’ll win,” said John Morgan, founder of the Morgan & Morgan law firm who bankrolled the Amendment 2 campaign.
The most worrying scenario that Morgan and other proponents pointed to was 2018’s Amendment 4, which, led by the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, garnered 64% support to restore voting rights to ex-felons who had completed their sentences. The following year, Republican legislators pushed through a bill to exclude those who owed fines or fees, meaning as many as 775,000 former felons in Florida couldn’t vote in this year’s presidential election.
Afederal judge ruled the requirement was unconstitutional because it equated to a “pay-to-vote system,” but a federal appeals court later struck down that decision after De San tis’ administration appealed.
Similarly, after Morgan passed an amendment in
2016 that broadly legalized medical marijuana, the state banned smoking it. Morgan sued the state, and a Leon County judge ruled the ban was unconstitutional and went against the amendment voters had approved.
“They interfere with the will of the people every chance they get, whether it’s cannabis rights, voting rights restoration, or in this case, increasing awage,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando. “And so we’re going to have to be incredibly aggressive in building grassroots support around preventing the Legislature from passing any type of interference bill, and then, of course, putting pressure on the governor to veto if something does get to his desk.”
The Florida Chamber of Commerce did not answer an email asking if it would attempt to challenge or restrict the wage increase. The Florida Retail Federation told the Tampa Bay Times, “The decision has been made and Florida retailers will work to meet the new requirements while keeping asmany jobs on the payroll as possible.”
Incoming Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, also told the Times the Legislature would respect the voters’ decision.
“Certainly we are not looking for mischievous opportunities to change it. It’s pretty clear what voters voted on,” Simpson said.
DeSantis’ office and incoming House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, did not return requests for comment.
The Florida Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Orlando that studied the potential impact of the amendment, estimated it would increase wages for2.5 million part-time and fulltime workers, most of them women and people of color working in the tourism and service industries. It also found it could help narrow the wage gaps that exist between men and women, as well as between white workers and workers of color.
Tsedeye Gebreselassie, director of work quality for the National Employment Law Project, didn’t immediately anticipate ways the amendment could be undermined.
“Florida has a 16-year history with working with a state minimumwage. The only thing that Amendment 2 does is revise the minimum wage that was passed by voters back in 2004, so it’s a very straightforward initiative,” Gebreselassie said. “I don’t think there’s anything that would weaken that.”
But Stephanie Porta, who has advocated for higher wages since the early 2000s and is now the executive director of Organize Florida, said she wouldn’t put it past the Legislature to try to water down the amendment’s implementation.
“We thought we were solid in 2004, too,” she said, referring to the first time Florida passed a constitutional amendment to raise the state minimum wage to $6.15 and tie future yearly increases to the inflation rate.
The day after thatamendment passed with 72% of the vote, the business groups that had opposed it said they were considering suing and claimed that proponents had used illegal tactics to collect signatures to get the measure on the ballot.
And later, the Legislature also tried to pass a law that would have required workers themselves to provide written notice of violations of the amendment to their employers, which Porta recalled being concerned about because it could have put workers at higher risk of being fired or retaliated against.
Another law also was passed that minimized the damages violating employers would have to pay if they could prove they had “reasonable grounds for believing” they were not violating the amendment.
Port a said she wouldn’t be surprised if the Legislature introduces similar bills this time around.
“We know that the Republican powers in Tallahassee will do whatever it takes to defend their big business special interests, and we have to be prepared for that ,” Porta said. “We will have to be prepared for anything.”