by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
Albuquerque city councilors voted 6-3 Thursday to raise the minimum wage in the city.
Mayor Martin Ch†vez has until April 30 to sign or veto the bill. He has promised to sign a bill that raises the minimum wage above the federally mandated $5.15 per hour within four months.
The bill, sponsored by City Councilor Martin Heinrich, would raise the minimum wage in Albuquerque to $6.75 beginning in 2007, $7.15 in 2008, and $7.50 in 2009.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
About 80 people attended the meeting to discuss the bill. About 30 people spoke to the council about their feelings on the bill.
Dede Feldman, New Mexico state senator and chairwoman of the Senate Public Affairs Committee, said she is in favor of the bill, and told councilors she is encouraging a statewide increase.
"You will be able to set the stage for the debate in the next legislative session," she said.
The bill is an improvement over a similar referendum that voters rejected in October 2005, said Bruce Thompson, a city attorney who helped craft the bill.
The bill applies to all employers in Albuquerque, regardless of how many employees they have. The previous referendum only applied a minimum wage increase to businesses with 11 or more employees.
"The definitions are really now much simpler," Thompson said.
However, not everyone at the meeting was in favor of the bill.
Benjamin Lovato, who owned an Albuquerque business and wants to start another one, said the bill would discourage entrepreneurship in Albuquerque.
"I don't think this is justifiable unless it's done at the state or national level," he said.
He said the raise is unfair to Albuquerque business owners because they would have to pay their employees more than competitors that aren't in the city.
Allen Parkman, a former UNM professor of economics, said the bill would hurt the workers with the fewest qualifications.
"One of the things in economics is there is no free lunch," he said. "The burden and the cost of it will fall on the least attractive workers."
He said at $7.50 per hour, businesses would expect their employees to be more qualified. More-qualified employees will also become more interested in jobs that used to be underpaid, and would force less-educated people out of jobs, he said.
One amendment made to the bill allows employers who give their employees benefits of $2,500 or more per year to pay their employees less than minimum wage.
Employers who provide those benefits would be able to pay $5.75 in 2007, $6.15 in 2008 and $6.50 in 2009.
Michael Cadigan, the councilor who sponsored the amendment, said it is meant to give employers an incentive to give their employees benefits.
The councilors voted against an amendment that would have exempted people under 18 from the city minimum wage law.
Only three U.S. cities - Santa Fe, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. - have wages higher than the federally mandated minimum.
Heinrich said the bill will not solve all of Albuquerque's problems.
"It's not a silver bullet, and I realize that," he said. "It is a start, and it is a compromise. I would have liked to have seen more, but compromise is important in and of itself."
