I’m glad Gov. Chris Sununu adopted Sen. Dan Feltes’s idea to support frontline workers with additional pay, but Gov. Sununu only supported some of the health care workers.
Sen. Feltes’s frontline worker fund would support all frontline health care workers, firefighters and first responders, public employees on the front lines and grocery store workers. The people on the front lines and our great state workers deserve our thanks and praise. They also deserve our strong support for fair wages and humane benefits.
And when Gov. Sununu vetoed the minimum wage bill and the family leave insurance act last year, he showed no respect for these workers – many of them working at minimum wage with no access to paid sick leave. The New Hampshire minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and $3.27 for tipped restaurant and service workers, is disgraceful. It is not enough to support a family, to pay for child care, to pay for medical visits, or even take enough time off to have a family life.
When the governor vetoed the minimum wage increase, he said that he could not agree to a base pay rate of $12 an hour because most minimum wage workers “cannot create enough value to warrant the higher mandated wage.”
Gov. Sununu, will you say again to the faces of the people who are stocking your grocery shelves, providing home care for our elders, or cleaning our public places that they “cannot create enough value” to earn a higher wage? Will you tell them that they do not need a plan that will allow them to stay home from work when they or a family member are sick?
This pandemic has shown us all, including the governor, what is important and how we are dependent on each other to overcome adversity.
Gov. Sununu, you have a chance to get this right. Sign a new family medical leave bill, and the new minimum wage bill, when they get to your desk. Show that your support for the heroes who will lead us out of this terrible time is more than just words.
(State Rep. Safiya Wazir lives in Concord.)