Minimum wage Proposition 206 on Tucson ballot

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TUCSON, Arizona (KOLD News 13) – Javier Flores is a 38-year-old husband and father who works for a small print shop called Gloo Factory in South Tucson.

It’s not his only job.

“I’m a screen printer Monday through Friday and a cook in a buffet restaurant on Saturdays and Sundays,” he said. “I love my jobs.”

Flores is like thousands of other low-wage Tucson workers who have to have two jobs to pay the bills, and yet it’s a struggle.

“It’s always a fight,” he said.

Flores is the target of Proposition 206, the $ 15 minimum wage initiative that will raise the minimum wage above the state’s $ 12.15 an hour.

Proposal 206 will appear on Tucson’s 2021 city ballot, which has already been delivered to thousands of households.

Although there are three city council races, Prop 206 draws the most attention.

Opponents believe the timing of the initiative is not right as the country tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

“We already have a government minimum wage,” said Carlo Ruiz, owner of HT Metals in Tucson. “So Tucson doesn’t have to stand out from the rest of Arizona.”

He also believes the country already has a labor shortage that will only make it worse.

We have “small businesses, big businesses that are competing for people right now,” he said. “I don’t think it’s even necessary.”

But the drafters of the proposal disagree and believe that the higher minimum wage will make workers more dignified and more influential in the workplace.

“When people are earning a living wage, that’s one less thing to negotiate. You now have the opportunity to negotiate things other than wages, ”said Clinton Boyd, the proposal’s campaign manager. “You can talk about health care, you can talk about other benefits.”

Lawyer Billy Peard is one of the authors of the proposal, which is modeled to some extent on the 50 or so other communities that have already passed a minimum wage rate, but added a few other things that make it stand out.

It is the first in the country to offer specific worker protection.

“It is a provision for larger employers to require them to post schedules well in advance of an employee who

Showing up on a scheduled work shift and canceling it at the last minute would be compensated for the time they spent coming to work, ”Peard said.

There are other safeguards in place to discourage employers from cutting working hours or forcing workers to force those left behind to fill the gap.

Tucson is battling for $ 15 and says it has more than 100 small businesses backing 206.

Copyright 2021 KOLD News 13. All rights reserved.

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