Lost in the Ozone

A cautionary tale:

Scores of workers lined up after a meeting in a party room on the third floor of Resorts World Casino in Queens on Wednesday afternoon to turn in the uniforms they had worn in the casino’s buffet restaurant and pick up their final paychecks.

On Monday, about 175 employees of the buffet restaurant in the slot-machine and electronic gambling casino in Ozone Park learned that the restaurant had been closed and that their jobs no longer existed. The casino had received plaudits when, in late October, a labor arbitrator issued a ruling that doubled the average pay of workers.

Arbitrator gets arbitrary. Hilarity ensues, except it's not really funny.

Meanwhile, in St. Paul:

A push to raise wages for the lowest-paid workers is gaining momentum across the country, with more than a dozen states raising their minimums and President Obama calling for an increase in the federal minimum to $9 an hour.

But in Minnesota, where Democrats control every lever of state government, the push has become a struggle that may yet stall.

Minnesota has one of the lowest state minimum wages in the country. Most employers must pay the higher federal minimum of $7.25, but certain employers are able to take advantage of the state minimum, paying their workers as little as $6.15 an hour.

A move by some lawmakers in 2013 to increase the minimum fizzled at the last minute, despite support from DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. When legislators return to St. Paul next month for the 2014 legislative session, House DFLers will seek a minimum wage of $9.50 an hour. That would give Minnesota one of the highest minimums in the country.

Dayton calls the wage hike one of his top priorities for the year, and has said the state’s current minimum wage is “ridiculously low.”

Oddly, however, a voice of reason stands in their way. Odder still is the identity of said voice of reason:

“We could run a minimum wage bill out the first day and just slam it home. But it might create a disaster for the rest of the session,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook. Pass the bill the wrong way, he said, and businesses could suffer, youth unemployment could skyrocket and jobs could be at risk.

Yeah, I suppose that could happen. It's always easy to spend other people's money. Whether they'll allow you to do it forever isn't as certain, no matter how wise the DFL, or labor arbitrators, or other such like-minded individuals, imagine themselves to be.