Birmingham leaders vote to expedite minimum wage increase
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to expedite a minimum wage increase as state lawmakers consider legislation to strip local officials of control over employee compensation and other benefits.
The council voted 6-2, with one member absent, to have the ordinance establishing a $10.10 minimum wage take effect Wednesday. Deputy City Attorney Thomas Bentley said the ordinance would be effective on the day it’s published, which he doubts will happen by Wednesday.
City leaders initially sought to implement the first stage of the increase July 1 but voted earlier this month to move the effective date to March 1 as Rep. David Faulkner, a Mountain Brook Republican, filed a bill mandating uniform minimum wages throughout Alabama and preventing municipalities from establishing their own. Alabama has no state minimum hourly wage and uses the federal minimum of $7.25.
The Republican-backed bill has already won approval from the House of Representatives on a 71-31 vote that fell largely along party lines, and the state Senate could vote on the measure this week.
A section of Faulkner’s bill declares as void “any ordinance, policy, rule or other mandate” that doesn’t comply with the law, although the Alabama attorney general’s office has declined to comment on whether the proposed legislation could retroactively invalidate Birmingham’s wage increase if it passes after the city’s ordinance goes into effect.
The two councilmembers who voted against moving the effective date of the ordinance said they support efforts to raise minimum wage but are concerned with the way the city will implement the increase and the affect it could have on business owners.
“We need to modify this so that we’re not putting all these businesses in a legal quagmire and causing them to be in trouble immediately when they haven’t had time to do anything,” Councilwoman Valerie Abbot said. She pointed out that a section of the ordinance allows minimum wage workers to sue noncompliant employers for double the amount of back wages and other penalties.
“I see this as a frivolous political play to beat the Legislature to prove a point,” Councilwoman Kim Rafferty said.
City Council President Johnathan Austin said the minimum wage issue fits into a larger trend of legislatures impeding local governments.
“There’s a move not just in the state of Alabama but across this country to take local control away from us,” Austin said. “That should concern every member of this council.”
