Responding to the restaurant-tainted poll: the truth about the minimum wage
When you ask a fake question, you get a fake answer -- even in a statewide poll about the minimum wage, a matter of great urgency for 600,000 low-wage workers in Maryland. Bad polling poisoned by paid questions distorts the public view and is warping the work of the General Assembly on this important bill, as PM director Larry Stafford Jr. outlines here.
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As Senate committee votes on $15 wage, activists demand improvements
Activists are telling Senate committee members -- today voting on the $15 minimum wage bill -- to do better than the House and in fact to clean up the mess House members made of the badly needed measure that would give some support to 600,000 low-paid Maryland workers.
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Critical Bills Make Halting Progress Toward Passage As Crossover Day Nears
A flurry of hearings in the Assembly this week tries to beat a deadline for bills to cross from one chamber to another in order to pass. Several factors, including Del. Lisanti's vow to remain in the House despite her censure for using a racial slur among colleagues, could slow those bills down.
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FF$15 coalition urges improved minimum wage bill at news conference
At a news conference Monday evening the coalition urging a "clean $15" minimum wage bill -- one that does not exclude tipped workers and other marginalized groups -- made their case forcefully and with testimony from affected workers. The Senate, they said, should repair the damage done by the House.
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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, March 4, 2019
A top issue for Progressive Maryland, the Fight for $15 as a minimum wage statewide, has been passed by the House but with Economic Matters Committee amendments that make it narrower and less helpful to working people than the original bill. Progressives will fight to keep the Senate version “clean” and persuade House members that they should accept the better bill when it comes time to reconcile their version with the Senate bill. Tonight, Monday, Mar. 4, we’ll be visiting the offices of House members with that message. after the news conference (see below).
Read moreLisanti must resign, and we need a "Clean $15" for all
Progressive Maryland members who have been mobilizing for a Lobby Night March 4 will shift our focus to a news conference that evening at 6 PM in the House Office Building (Room 142) to urge Del. Mary Anne Lisanti’s resignation and follow it with a mass distribution of information for House members as the Fight for $15 moves to the full Assembly.
CITIZEN LOBBYING MAKES A DIFFERENCE AND IS FULFILLING. TRY IT MARCH 4.
Progressive Maryland activists and allies are going to lobby their legislators in Annapolis the
evening of Monday, March 4, and you should be among them.
Why does citizen lobbying matter? "...companies, trade groups and organizations spent $44 million on 153 lobbyists" and it takes numbers to fight cash. See more, read on, and sign up.
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It’s time to create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board
Prescription drugs cost too much. Everybody who needs medication for a chronic or recurring condition knows what a burden the increasing costs of prescription drugs are for them and those like them. And all prescription drug buyers -- that's all of us, sooner or later -- get sticker shock while Big Pharma keeps raising prices. Two Maryland legislators are proposing a new law that would bring these costs into line with what people can afford. Here, in a guest column for Maryland Reporter, they outline the bill’s purpose and effects.
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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, February 25, 2019
The Maryland General Assembly has just hit the halfway point on the way to the April 8 sine die and Progressive Maryland, in harness with many progressive allies, is working to advance a progressive agenda during the session as well as in all of 2019.
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A $15 minimum wage should be REALLY statewide – everybody in, nobody out
Members of the powerful House Economic Matters Committee are scheduled to vote on their House version of the $15 minimum wage bill – statewide, no exclusions for tipped workers – on Monday (Feb. 25). The National Employment Law Project explains why it should stay that way, with no exclusions or "carve-outs."
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