New England Cable News (NECN), June 11, 2013
(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) - After the company she was working for lost a special-needs driving contract with the MBTA, Patricia Federico of Weymouth, Mass., has been scraping by on a little more than $8 an hour working 21 hours a week at a cinema.
So her motivation for coming to the State House Tuesday to join hundreds lobbying for an increase in the state minimum wage was intensely personal.
"The immediate reason is, I desperately need the $11 an hour," Federico said in an interview outside the Gardner Auditorium hearing by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development.
"I don't have any assistance. I don't get fuel assistance. I don't get food assistance. I am working basically to put gas in my car to get to work to buy the food," Federico said. "They're talking about raising it to $11 in the next three years," Federico said. "I need that $11 – now." ...
Katherine Mainzer, co-founder and CEO of Bellaluna restaurant and Milky Way Lounge in Boston’s Jamaica Plain section, who pays her staff above minimum wage, is confident other business owners would find higher minimum wage would be little to no net hit on their bottom line.
"One way that it pays for itself, a higher wage, is in reduced turnover and in lower training costs," Mainzer said. "When we invest in our employees, they invest in our business." ...
Copyright 2013 New England Cable News