PORTLAND, Maine — On Monday, attorneys for two Portland Whole Foods workers filed an opposition to a motion by the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce to permanently invalidate the emergency hazard pay provision approved by Portland voters in November 2020.
Attorneys Shelby Leighton, Valerie Wicks, and David Webbert of the law firm Johnson, Webbert & Garvan, LLP are representing the workers.
“The Chamber’s position is shockingly anti-democratic,” Leighton said. “They are asking the court to rule that voters can’t have a say on important issues like the local minimum wage, even though the law guarantees voters that right. The Chamber is afraid of the voters of Portland: they lost at the ballot box, and they are now trying to undo the will of the voters in the courts.”
According to the referendum passed in November, workers were to receive a minimum wage increase of time and a half during an emergency like the pandemic. The city's current minimum wage is $12 an hour, which would mean an increase would be $18 an hour.
The workers' attorneys say the Chamber’s motion not only seeks to throw out the hazard pay provision, but also challenges the validity of the citizen initiative process by asking the Court to rule that voters can only pass initiatives on a small list of subjects.
Read the full News Center Maine article here.