Let Justice Roll

The New Business Wage Boosters
By Shawn Zeller
Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 11/17/06

Is the business community -- so long aligned with the Republicans -- already warming to the new Democratic majority's agenda?

At least one liberal advocacy group, Let Justice Roll, thinks so. The group is a coalition of social service, religious and left-leaning advocacy groups that has been lobbying for increases in state and federal minimum wages. Just before the midterm election, its leaders announced their recruitment of a number of business advocates -- a key reason, they contend, why voters on Nov. 7 approved all six state ballot initiatives to raise the wage above the federal floor, in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio.

In each state, "We had local business leaders saying that they didn't want to be used as poster children" for opposition to raising the wage, says group spokeswoman Betsy Leondar-Wright.

Among the business leaders speaking out, she says, were Eileen Fisher, chief creative officer of the eponymous high-end women's fashion house; Arnold Hiatt, the former CEO of shoe seller Stride Rite; and Adnan Durrani, a Cincinnati venture capitalist.

Hiatt says the wage boost will create "a stable workforce and strong economy." Durrani says it will increase "productivity, job satisfaction and especially brand loyalty."

Leondar-Wright says the group plans to mobilize the business arm of its coalition anew when Congress returns under its new leadership and begins work on the federal minimum wage boost the Democrats have promised.

At that point, though, they'll face concerted opposition from some of Washington's most powerful business groups, including the National Restaurant Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But Leondar-Wright contends there's a growing rift on the issue: Smaller and privately owned businesses are parting company with Washington trade-group leaders and major public corporations. In fact, she says, the wage-boosting smaller companies "are outraged at being used as spokespeople for the other side."

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