As frustration grows over the slow pace of
economic recovery, proposals emerge to raise the
minimum wage by a huge amount, and require
businesses to provide paid sick leave and vacation
leave to everyone. And they’re not going away.
JoReen Brinkman couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Brinkman, co-owner of four Subway sandwich shops in Whitman
County, traveled to Olympia in February to attend AWB’s annual
Legislative Summit. The two-day meeting gave her a chance to
network with other business owners and to hear from lawmakers
about the issues confronting them in the 2014 legislative session.
It also gave her a chance to engage in a brief — and nerve-wracking
— dialogue with Gov. Jay Inslee on the subject of the minimum wage.
Inslee brought it up during his keynote luncheon address on the
second day of the summit. He told a roomful of business people that
the economy was suffering from a “consumer crisis” and that raising
the minimum wage would help fix it.
“We’re just not producing enough consumers to grow the economy,”
he said.
Brinkman, who made the 327-mile drive from Pullman specifically
because of the minimum wage issue, couldn’t keep quiet. During a Q&A
session following Inslee’s speech, she stood and addressed the governor.
“My customers, they’re going to go 15 minutes away across the
border to a state that has a minimum wage that is significantly lower,”
she said.