AUGUSTA, Maine - The battle over raising Maine's minimum wage played out today at the State House in Augusta.
Supporters of a plan to raise the minimum wage to $9 per hour in 2017 and another $1 a year until it hits $12 per hour in 2020 have collected enough signatures to have the question placed on the November ballot. But a coalition of restaurant owners, innkeepers and others want legislators to adopt a competing ballot measure that would permit a smaller increase that does not include tipped workers.
At an Augusta press conference today, John Costin, owner of Veneer Services Unlimited, told supporters of the original initiative that the competing measure was actually an attempt to try to kill any minimum wage increase.
"Their proposal is not a plan to raise the minimum wage," Costin said. "If they actually wanted to raise the minimum wage, they could have supported it last year, when there were eight separate bills put forward to raise it."
Proponents of the competing measure say their plan offers an increase that employers can afford.