Washington Business Winter-Spring 2014 | Page 27

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.