Photo/Dennis Myers
In 2006, Nevada voters approved a higher minimum wage. Now the state is being accused of not enforcing it.
Schmidt happens Nevada Senate candidate Gary Schmidt has a new preoccupation—doing something about campaign signs that are posted on public property. In researching the law, Schmidt learned that when signs on public property are taken down and confiscated, a report must be filed with the county commission. Nevada Revised Statute 405.090 reads, “All patrol officers and maintenance and construction employees of the [state] Department of Transportation shall report any violation … to the board of county commissioners wherein any violation may occur.” Figuring that those reports would help him learn how extensive the problem CONFISCATED SIGNS is, Schmidt filed public records requests seeking copies of the reports. After some additional back-and-forth, Schmidt sent out a message that included reporters on the mailing list. It read in part, “I have been denied any documentation or written notice in regards to any notice of violations or citations issued for the removal and/or identification of the signs, the disposition of the signs, or any other form of documented proof or memorialization of the fact that I filled a complaint and that it was acted upon. In my verbal complaint, I did request that at a minimum a notice of violation be filed/created.” That prompted deputy district attorney Gregory Salter, one of the recipients of some of Schmidt’s contacts, to bite back: “Sixty three minutes after you left me a voicemail, you went to the press. I didn’t even have a chance to look into it and get back to you. How fair is that?” A response to Schmidt from the Nevada Department of Transportation read, “NDOT does not have any responsive records.” Schmidt, who is a former member of the Washoe Board of Equalization, found NDOT has a batch of campaign signs removed from city property at its industrial yard behind DMV. They are held there until candidates reclaim them. Schmidt said he was not permitted to inspect or photograph them.
Judge for yourself Since the publication by the New York Times of Cliven Bundy’s comments about “Negroes,” numerous right wing websites have alleged that Bundy’s comments were taken “out of context.” In the portion of the Times story dealing with Bundy’s race views, reporter Adam Nagourny used 146 words from the rancher, a relatively long quote in today’s journalism, and considerably more than most reporters had used from Bundy during the standoff. Many articles used surprisingly few quotes, if any, from Bundy, considering that he was the focus of the dispute. Nagourney told the RN&R, “I have not heard from him [Bundy] or anyone in his camp disputing the story. I assume if they had a problem, I would have heard about it. I was very careful to use a long quote to make sure there was no question about context.” The liberal Media Matters for America got ahold of a tape of the full interview and turned it over to Talking Points Memo. Readers can view it here: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/media-matterscliven-bundy-video
—Dennis Myers
8 | RN&R |
MAY 29, 2014
Minimum enforcement Workers accuse state of ignoring state wage law A lawsuit has been filed accusing the Sandoval administration of failing to enforce the voter-approved state minimum by wage. Dennis Myers At issue is Ballot Question 6 in the 2006 general election, which set the Nevada minimum wage a dollar higher than the national minimum. The measure, which was placed on the ballot by initiative petition, was approved by Nevadans in a landslide vote—of the 660,742 votes cast, the question was approved 68.71 to 31.29 percent. In Washoe County, the margin was less, but still required no recount: 66.21 to 33.78 percent.
“It’s yet another example of how workers in Nevada are getting hosed.” Bob Fulkerson Progressive Leadership Alliance of nevada
the PLAn petition is posted at http://tinyurl. com/myyby5p the language about the state minimum wage in the nevada Constitution is posted on our newsview blog.
The new law—an amendment to the Nevada Constitution—also said employers could pay at the lower federal minimum wage level “if the employer provides health benefits as described herein.” The lawsuit was filed on April 30 by attorneys Don Springmeyer and Bradley Schrager on behalf of
workers Cody Hancock and Kowk Yen Moy. It has been followed by two more suits. One, filed on May 19 by Las Vegas resident Erin Hanks, accuses Briad Restaurant Group LLC, which operates Nevada TGI Fridays, of improperly claiming the reduced minimum wage rate without providing the required type of health insurance coverage. (The Reno TGI Fridays shut down on Feb. 9, 2009.) The other was filed on May 20 by nine workers against an Ohio corporation, Cedar Enterprises, which operates Wendy’s Restaurants in Las Vegas. Washoe County businesses could be next. Springmeyer said he is looking to deal with this problem wherever it exists, including Washoe County. “Everywhere,” he said. “Anywhere somebody’s getting paid less than $8.25 an hour, I think they’re getting screwed. … We’ll go to Ely or Elko or Reno, anywhere that someone’s getting screwed on this.” The first lawsuit, alleging failure to enforce the law, makes several charges. Some of them date back to the Gibbons administration, when Gov. Jim Gibbons’ labor commissioner—Michael Tanchek—drafted the regulations covering the new minimum wage law, which are needed to implement the law. Those
regulations took effect in October that year. They have not been altered under Gov. Brian Sandoval. Current labor commissioner Thoran Towler, appointed by Gov. Sandoval, did not return a call seeking comment. The lawsuit alleges that the regulations created these problems: • The regulations provide that if a worker declines health coverage, the employer can pay a lower minimum wage. The plaintiff argue that this permits employers to arrange to offer health insurance that involves a very high worker premium, thus qualifying the employer for the lower minimum wage when the worker cannot afford the premium and declines coverage. • Under the regulations, tipped workers can be paid a dollar less per hour if health insurance premiums amount to 10 percent of the gross taxable income of the worker attributable to the employer under IRS code, even though the tip portion of the worker’s income does not come from the employer. The effect is to increase what a minimum wage worker could be made to pay for health insurance coverage. Nevada has a long standing statute that reads, “It is unlawful for any person to ... apply as a credit toward the payment of the statutory minimum hourly wage established by any law of this State any tips or gratuities bestowed upon the employees of that person.” In addition, the minimum wage portion of the Nevada Constitution itself reads in part, “Tips or gratuities received by employees shall not be credited as being any part of or offset against the wage rates required by this section.” • The regulations also allows employers six months after the worker starts work before the state minimum wage must be paid. There is no provision in the law for such a grace period. It does allow some leeway for summer workers and trainees, but the plaintiff lawyers argue the labor commissioner went beyond what the law allows. • Finally, the suit argues that the labor commissioner has never set up a system for enforcing the law. It charges: “The Nevada labor commissioner maintains no database or list of employers who claim eligibility to pay employees at the reduced minimum ... maintains no database and collects no data on health insurance plans or benefit contracts ... maintains no database or list of employees who have been or are currently paid at the reduced minimum wage. “The Nevada labor commissioner, over the more than seven years the constitutional amendment has been
