Op-Ed By Fran Quigley
Indianapolis Star, April 15, 2014
... The McDonald’s and Walmart business model may be built on exorbitant CEO salaries and referring their front-line employees to the welfare office, food pantries and plasma banks. But that is not the way mom and pop stores want to operate, in part because low-paid workers have such limited purchasing power. “The biggest problem for Main Street businesses is lack of customer demand,” Business for a Fair Minimum Wage director Holly Sklar says. “Corporate profits are at their highest since 1950, as a percentage of national income, while the share going to employees is near its low point. We can’t build a strong economy on a falling wage floor.”
Many Indianapolis business owners feel the same way. Recycle Force, a not-for-profit enterprise that employs formerly incarcerated men and women to recycle electronic waste, announced in February that it would raise its own minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. ... Pizza King Indianapolis franchise owner Aaron Schaler has joined the cause, pledging to pay all of his workers more than $10 per hour. Schaler announced the plan on the company’s Facebook page, saying “Not only do people deserve to make a living wage, but happy employees are productive employees.” Customers responded, saying the policy made them more likely to order their pizza from a company that treats its workers well.
Gregg Keesling, the president of Recycle Force, also has received positive feedback for his wage hike decision. Small businesses benefit when their employees can sustain themselves on their take-home pay, Keesling says. “Nonprofit and social enterprise business leaders should be at the forefront of this (minimum wage increase) movement. Raising our wages is smart for families, smart for crime prevention, and smart for business and growing our economy." ...
Quigley is a clinical professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.