By Jeryl Bier
The Weekly Standard, Oct 21, 2014
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have made increasing the federal minimum wage one of their marquee issues during campaign appearances leading up to the 2014 elections. After pushing for an increase to $9.00/hour up through 2013, the president moved the bar up to $10.10/hour in his 2014 State of the Union Address. Now, on Monday, the White House enlisted Paul Saginaw, the co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the cause. According to Saginaw, "the right to conduct business is earned by being a good corporate citizen," ...
My partner, Ari Weinzweig, and I never subscribed to the conservative economic theory of Milton Friedman, that “the business of business is business.” To us, the right to conduct business is earned by being a good corporate citizen — by producing products and delivering services responsibly, hiring responsibly, generating profits responsibly, and finally, sharing profits with those who help produce them and with the wider community from which the revenues are drawn...
For more than three decades, our successful businesses have been profitable but never by underpaying our employees or withholding benefits. In fact, my 17 partners and I have always paid wages above the federal minimum and offered company-subsidized health care and paid time off. ...