Mass. Retailers Need to Stop Their Attack on Teen Wages

Teenagers don't need good paying jobs. That's the word from the Retailers Association of Massachusetts this week. And they're looking for state legislators to pass a law like one in Illinois that mandates a sub-minimum wage for young workers.

Their arguments are what one generally hears from many business owners as regards wages in the Commonwealth. They say that the state minimum wage law - which currently guarantees workers a whopping $8/hour as a wage floor - discourages them from hiring teenagers. They also say that Massachusetts is one of only two states that still forces employers to pay time-and-a-half on Sundays - which means that they have to pay teenagers the lordly wage of $12/hour on Sunday. [For those keeping score, that's only a few bucks an hour less than what a living wage would pay Bay State residents if business interests would stop block its institution. More on that in a bit.]

Finally they say, in a recent Boston Globe op-ed, "The unfortunate fact is that whether it be college students, new immigrants, moonlighters, or retirees, many of the jobs that teens relied upon are going elsewhere. It's economics. In today's highly competitive environment, a business can't afford to take a chance on a kid who is new to the working world when a more reliable and proven candidate is available at the same price."

They then call upon the Legislature and Gov. Patrick to lower the minimum wage for teens rather than "expand government programs" to "improve the job prospects for teens this summer."

Recently, this publication called for a significant expansion of city, state and federal jobs programs for teens. We stand by that call. But with a new twist.

Since the Retailers Association of Massachusetts is so concerned about providing summer jobs for teens, we call upon them to act upon their concern by paying a living wage to teenagers - as they should do for all their workers.

Despite claims to the contrary, area retailers are not hiring teens out of the goodness of their hearts - in the summer or during every other season. They're doing so for the same reason they always have. Because teens are an easily exploitable and large pool of cheap workers. And in the retail business, more than any other, it's all about the bottom line. Buy cheap and sell dear, right?

A quick look at current board members of the RAM tells the tale: Wal-Mart, Target, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, TJX, B.J.'s, Wendy, Sears, and a few smaller local firms. All these major retailers have built their fortunes on the back of teenage labor, and in down economic times they have the pick of the litter as far as who to exploit - now that there are so many of the aforementioned new immigrants and retirees to use and abuse. And let's not forget all the downwardly mobile working and middle-class folks that are in the process of losing their homes and taking any job for any wage to try to survive the ongoing recession.

So, far from concern about teenagers being able to get summer jobs, what's actually at stake is that retailers see an opportunity to knock universality out of the state minimum wage law. Once they get that, they can go for the whole banana - the destruction of state wage protections, and its replacement with a dog-eat-dog market-based wage system (also known as the federal minimum wage - currently a mere $5.85/hour, and slated to go up to $6.55/hour this summer, and $7.25/hour next summer).

Retailers don't have much legislative support for their campaign, and we encourage Open Media Boston viewers to make sure it stays that way. Drop your state legislator a line today and tell them to refuse to support any attempt to cut the minimum wage for any constituency - especially teenagers, most of whom are not old enough to vote yet, making them nearly as vulnerable as immigrants in the political and economic arenas. And while you're at it, you might bug them about mandating a Massachusetts living wage indexed to the local cost of living and annually adjusted for inflation. We think getting 16 or 17 bucks an hour would help working families out quite a bit in these tough times. Quite a bit indeed.

To find your state legislator, check out this sitehttp://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php.

For more information on why we need a living wage, check out http://www.letjusticeroll.org.

To give the Retailers Association of Massachusetts a piece of your mind, check out their websitehttp://www.retailersma.org.