A prominent New York labor union launched an attack ad Thursday against state Sen. John DeFrancisco over his opposition to the $15 minimum wage.
SEIU Local 32BJ has been an adamant supporter of raising the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour. The union has praised Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state lawmakers for their work to get the policy passed into law. DeFrancisco, however, has earned union scorn for opposing the policy out of concern it could put undue financial stress on businesses.
“State senator DeFrancisco,” the ad declares, according to the Syracuse Media Group. “The $6 million man doesn’t want you to have a livable wage. Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr would help nearly 100,000 central New Yorkers.”
The union will run the ad in local media outlets and on social media. DeFrancisco has been one of the more vocal opponents to the $15 minimum wage, but he’s not the only one to oppose it. The policy has support among many state lawmakers, but it may have difficulty passing the Senate which has a Republican majority.
“They can say anything they want about me. I’ll deal with it. The fact of the matter is I’m going to continue to try to stop the $15 an hour minimum wage,” DeFrancisco told the Syracuse Media Group. “If they think making outrageous accusations and spurious comments about me, if they think that’s going to stop me, they’re absolutely wrong.”
Cuomo has made the $15 minimum wage a main focus on his agenda. He announced a proposal Sept. 10 designed to phase in the policy statewide. He has also given numerous speeches in support of the policy and has embarked on a campaign-style road trip to push it. The policy has passed locally but there is no statewide $15 minimum wage.
Those in support argue the policy could help address income inequality, but others warn it could backfire. Multiple factors make the the outcome of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour fairly unpredictable. It has the potential to actually hurt the poor by forcing businesses to cutback on their workforce to overcome the added cost of labor.
Cuomo has proposed and implemented a number of tax cuts to help relieve costs for small businesses in the state. He has also found ways to unilaterally and partially enact the policy by utilizing his executive authority. He has bypassed the state legislature to raise wages for fast-food workers, state university workers and state employees.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found both positive and negative results when it investigated minimum wage increases in the past. Research found any increase of the minimum wage will likely result in at least some job loss — the higher the increase, the more impact it will have on employment.
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