Johnson County’s new ordinance incrementally raising the State’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by this time next year continues getting pushback. Several communities are opting out, and last week a member of Iowa’s Board of Regents, objecting to increasing University of Iowa costs, said Johnson County is out-of-step with the rest of Iowa.
Tonight, the City Council in Tiffin takes up the issue.
Tiffin’s Council was considering keeping wages for workers under 18-years old at the state law amount, $7.25 an hour.
Discrimination cries scrapped that, and City Councilwoman Jo Kahler doesn’t like the new proposal.
“They’re proposing putting it at nine dollars an hour minimum wage. And my feeling, I don’t think the City Council has any business telling businesses, especially small businesses, what they have to pay in wages,” she says.
Kahler says that also applies to Johnson’s County’s Board of Supervisors who passed the ordinance.
“When you go to work. You show them you want to work, and do your job and show up,” she says.
Kahler expects she’ll be tonight’s only “no” vote on the measure to raise the minimum wage in the community to nine dollars an hour.