1581-1582 Nyland Federal Assembly

[Ayzek]

PCP
FR - 36
AG - 11
AB - 4

[Hadash]

New Centrist League

For - 22
Against - 41
Abstain - 33

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Green Party

For - 2
Against - 45
Abstain - 18

[Nentsia]

NPA:

For: 0
Against: 84
Abstain: 0

[Blacaria]

176 FOR
261 AGAINST
98 ABSTAIN


With 268 votes needed for a majority, the Tax Reform Act of 1581 has been rejected by the Assembly

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Nichlas Hougaard
Speaker of the Assembly

With deliberation and voting for the Tax Reform Act of 1581 over, I now open deliberation on the Federal Minimum Wage Act of 1581

Federal Minimum Wage Act of 1581
Assembly Bill 1581.102
Drafted by: Harry Skoglund (NL) & Peter Blomqvist (NL) Submitted by: Broderick Baird (NL) Submit Date: 1 Nueva, 1581 Hearing Date: Revision Date: Summary: The Federal Minimum Wage Act of 1581 seeks to increase the Federally-enforced minimum wage to $10.50 an hour, automatically adjusted yearly and indexed to inflation. Section 1: Federal Minimum Wage 1. The federal minimum wage shall be increased to $10.50 per hour, replacing the previous federal minimum wage. 2. The federal minimum wage shall apply to all working persons with a legal right to work in Nyland, or persons receiving legal compensation for work within Nyland, its states and territories, and its other sovereign soils. 3. The federal minimum wage shall be annually adjusted by the Department of Labor per Section 2 of this act. 4. The federal minimum wage shall take precedence and be enforceable over any state minimum wages lower than the established federal minimum wage. 5. There shall be no exception to the federal minimum wage anywhere except where outlined in Section 3 of this act. Section 2: Annual Wage Adjustment & Index 1. The Department of Labor shall be charged with administering, enforcing and adjusting the federal minimum wage by and for the provisions of this act. 2. The Department of Labor shall adjust the minimum wage annually, automatically, specifically and proportionally indexed to match inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). 3. CPI inflation calculations shall not include entertainment, medical insurance and healthcare costs. Section 3: Exceptions 1. Where a state's minimum wage is in excess of the federal minimum wage as outlined in this act, the state's minimum wage shall be enforced over the federal minimum wage. 2. For jobs and industries where the practice of "tipping" is common, the federal minimum wage shall be $3.60 an hour for only those jobs and positions that both receive and keep all tipping proceeds given to them; all other provisions of this act shall apply. 3. For jobs and industries where the practice of "tipping" is common, the federal minimum wage shall be $8.00 an hour; all other provisions of this act shall apply. 4. The employment by any person, company or other agency of a person with no legal right to work in Nyland et al shall not give that person/company/agency etc legal exception to act under the provisions of this law. 5. For work and industries where the practice of "tipping" is common, where accumulated wages and tips for any employees do not meet or exceed the federal minimum wage (or state minimum wage, whichever is higher) for any pay period, then the employer shall increase wages for that pay period to compensate, in an amount where the employee's new accumulated wages and tips meet or exceed the minimum wage. Amendment - Harry Skoglund - NL Amendment - Malin Ehrenstrahl - NCL Amendment - Milan Vuletaski - NL

[Nentsia]

NPA deputy Marissa Toivonen:

Although the ambition to increase the federal minimum wage is applauded by the NPA, and a measure that is long overdue and should have been done many years ago, the NPA is worried about the 3rd section of the bill.

This section basically excludes industries ''where tipping is common''. But it is precisely in such industries, the service and tourist industry, where a federal minimum wage is most needed. It is precisely in those industries where Nylanders suffer from exploitation, and people with lower education are forced to compete against eachother for tough jobs, with long working hours, and little rewards.

Tipping is not appropriete salary, and can certainly not replace it. A minimum wage of $3.60 an hour is, in the view of the NPA, the legalization of slavery. The NPA therefore requests these exceptions to be removed from the bill before it could even consider to support it. This concerns the removal of points 2 and 3 in the 3rd section. If these remain part of the bill, the NPA can only conclude that this piece of legislation is mostly symbolic and will serve to reinforce the exploitation of people in Nyland.

[Seperallis]

Harry Skoglund - NL

I'm very familiar with these arguments against a separate minimum wage for tipping industries, yet they continually ignore the fact that these are industries that operate very close to the margins, and are highly sensitive to changes in wage laws. As a matter of fact, any 10% increase in a mandated minimum wage has been shown to have a 5% reduction in worked hours for those employees. Forcing increases has already been shown to directly increase consumer prices, and reduce available jobs in these industries as employers, already hard-pressed to stay in the black, are squeezed even harder and forced to cut positions. We're already looking at a 40% increase in the mandatory wage for all tipped workers; surely anyone here can understand the kind of impact that increase is already going to have upon such jobs.

Furthermore, I'm not surprised that I still have to continually hear about the lie of the "enslaved" or "exploited" service worker. Oh trust me, I already know that they work long hours to less pay than their underappreciated work deserves, but to equate tipping to slavery is disingenuous at best:

Tipped employees in East Alden, which has the lowest average state-wide wage for tipped workers and currently sits at the current mandatory minimum wage for tipped employees, take home an average wage of $12.88 state-wide; meanwhile, Nyflåland has the highest mandatory minimum wage in the country at $9.47, and yet the average take-home wage state-wide is $13.25 an hour...in either case, that's more than 50% above the current minimum wage, with real tipped wages across the entire country comfortably above the new proposed minimum.

Where, then, is this fabled "slavery?" There are of course crooked employers, but like all crooks, their actions are just as illegal under the new law as they are already under the old, and if you really want to help workers being taken advantage of, then I recommend looking at how to better enforce the labor laws we have, as that is really where our failings lie.

However, one important point was brought up: tipping income is highly volatile, relying upon factors that are often well beyond the employee or employer's control, and thus such employees should be protected against certain trends that could seriously hurt their livelihoods. I thus want to propose a compromise, in the form of the following amendment and addition:

Section 3: Exceptions
5. For work and industries where the practice of "tipping" is common, where accumulated wages and tips for any employees do not meet or exceed the federal minimum wage (or state minimum wage, whichever is higher) for any pay period, then the employer shall increase wages for that pay period to compensate, in an amount where the employee's new accumulated wages and tips meet or exceed the minimum wage.

[Seperallis]

Infrastructure Modernization Act of 1582
Assembly Bill 1582.658
Drafted by: Department of Commerce, Federal Budget Office, Army Corps of Engineers, Anders Kohout, and others. Submitted by: Milan Vuletaski Submit Date: 28 Dein, 1582 Hearing Date: Revision Date: Summary: Nyland's infrastructure system is an aging, crumbling behemoth in serious need of updating, both in real work to be done and in the processes that govern how work is awarded and managed. Hundreds of billions of daler in direct costs to taxpayers are lost each year due to infrastructure failings, as well as trillions of daler in indirect losses due to lost economic growth and increased household and business costs, due to failing and inadequate physical structures as well as antiquated governmental administrative and political structures controlling infrastructure projects. This plan thus: 1) Expands the federal government's role in educating the public on infrastructure financing and delivery. 2) Empowers public agencies to use options to work with private sector in development and consultation, & expands the federal agencies to do so. 3) Provides for standard method to inventory public infrastructure assets, and makes the inventory publicly accessible data. 4) Gives executive power and freedom to formalize standards and best practices for project permitting, standardize documentation, and create project priority framework. 5) Gives federal agencies power to generate private sources of funding for infrastructure projects. 6) Changes all federal public infrastructure funding accounts from discretionary accounts to permanent non-discretionary accounts, ensuring stable, long-term funding options for national infrastructure. 7) Authorizes the plans and funding for shovel-ready modernization work, and guarantees funding for inventory, planning, and construction of infrastructure modernization work, beyond regular maintenance for a period of not less than 10 years. Adoption of this plan will generate an increase in GDP of 19% over current growth patterns, save Nylanders $200 billion in real savings annually, and generate an additional 3.5 million permanent jobs for the country over the timeframe of the plan. Section 1: Office of Federal Procurement 1. Creates the "Office of Federal Infrastructure Procurement" (hereby "OFIP") under the Department of Commerce. 2. OFIP shall coordinate all federal planning and procurement et al for public and public-private infrastructure works across all federal agencies letting or otherwise in charge of infrastructure works projects, and have authority to issue decisions in the coordination and cooperation of works projects between agencies. 3. OFIP shall create, administer, publicise and oversee the implementation of public education programs regarding the nature of infrastructure financing and bid delivery methods. 4. OFIP shall create, administer, publicise and oversee a federal infrastructure inventory program of all federal infrastructure projects and assets, as well as create standards and methods for efficient coordination between state, federal, and private agencies. 5. OFIP shall create, administer, publicise, oversee and enforce standardized infrastructure project documentation and guidelines for project priority frameworks. 6. OFIP shall have the authority to set rules and regulations regarding the use and acceptance of public bidding processes, as well as regulations concerning public project financing and public-private project financing/investment, and have the means to enforce its rules and decisions. 7. OFIP shall issue guidance and recommendations pertaining to rules set forth in Section 1.4 above to any and all other federal, state, local, municipal et al agencies seeking to perform infrastructure works under federal provisions. Section 2: Federal Non-Discretionary Infrastructure Fund 1. All non-defense federal infrastructure discretionary spending accounts (such as the Federal Highway Fund, the National Ports and Waterways Fund, the Federal Power and Energy Fund, and others) shall, be made permanent and non-discretionary beginning from the point of this act being signed into law. 2. All such previously discretionary budget accounts shall, by 1586, be merged with, subsumed by and subordinate accounts within a new Federal Non-Discretionary Infrastructure Fund hereby created and administered by the OFIP 3. The Federal Non-Discretionary Infrastructure Fund shall remain financially solvent, and with a permanent budget of not less than 0.625% of GDP (nominal). 4. The Federal Non-Discretionary Infrastructure Fund shall encompass all federally funded and necessary construction, maintenance, emergency repairs, and contingencies across all federal agencies performing such work. Section 3: Federal Emergency Modernization and Building Fund 1. This act authorizes the appropriation of $3 Trillion over the next ten years, starting in 1583, for the temporary, discretionary, "Federal Emergency Modernization and Building Fund" (hereafter refered to as "the fund") which shall be overseen and administered by OFIP. 2. At the end of the ten (10) year period ending in 1593, the fund shall be closed and any remaining funds liquidated to the Department of the Treasury, unless funded and operated on a discretionary basis by statute of the Federal Assembly. 3. The fund shall be used solely for the complete modernization of all Economic and Social Infrastructure, as defined below, by and with the Corps of Engineers and any federal, state, local, and private infrastructure-maintaining agencies, to be planned and let between the years of 1583 and 1593 (or until the fund's discretionary operation ends, whichever is later). 4. The fund shall be used on a federal investment-matching basis determined by the OFIP with all public and private investing agents seeking to pursue infrastructure modernizations under this statute. 5. The OFIP shall review, approve, and coordinate projects financed in whole or in part by the fund. Section 4: Definitions 1. Economic Infrastructure shall be all infrastructure in Nyland that fall into the categories listed below in this section: 1.1 Drinking water systems 1.2 Waste water systems 1.3 Roads 1.4 Bridges 1.5 Rail 1.6 Ports 1.7 Waterways 1.8 Airports 1.9 Telecommunications 1.10 Power & electricity systems 1.11 Pipelines 2. Social Infrastructure shall be all infrastructure in Nyland that fall into the categories listed below in this section: 1.1 Schools 1.2 Libraries 1.3 Hospitals 1.4 Housing 1.5 Courthouses 1.6 Prisons 1.7 Civic buildings

[Hadash]

Malin Ehrenstrahl, New Centrist List

Although I don't believe that such expressions "legalization of slavery" are fortunate, I have to agree with Mrs. Toivonen that the Third Section of the bill violates the same purpose of a federal minimum wage, distorting it and creating arbitrary and unfair exceptions. Not to mention that it may reinforce irregularities, rather than the contrary, in the tax revenue.

Mr. Skoglu's proposal sounds to me relatively reasonable, and I don't think anyone would have issues about supporting that amendment to the bill. However, Third Section Article 2 remains too arbitrary and unpractical to my understanding. Therefore, I propose that bill is amended and such article removed from the final draft. That is my condition to support the bill, and I believe many colleages and members of the Assembly would agree with me. If that article remains, I am afraid I can not support this, probably well-intented, reform of the federal minimum wage.

[Seperallis]

Milan Vuletaski - NL

Thank you madame Ehrenstrahl. I wouldn't say these figures are arbitrary, the come from research and dialogue with the related industries. I'm sure we could argue all year about what we believe and not budge an inch, but that wouldn't do justice to the people we represent. While your compromise sounds good, to remove part 2 of section 3, we will also need to change part 3.. If you can agree to that, then I think we have a workable deal.

3. For jobs and industries where the practice of "tipping" is common, the federal minimum wage shall be $8.00 an hour; all other provisions of this act shall apply.

[Jamzor the Jaxxor]

Jurg Sheffing, NMP

I would like to pose a simple question. Has anyone here considered the impact that raising the federal minimum wage would have on prices and employment opportunity?

Firstly, businesses will not be the ones bearing the burden of the cost increase of a higher minimum wage; consumers will. Businesses will, no doubt, pass the additional cost down to their customers by increasing their prices.

Secondly, the vast majority of those in poverty are unemployed, and the majority of the remainder are underemployed. Only 9% of poor have full-time, year-round work. Increasing the minimum wage will make it more difficult for these people to find work in order to raise themselves out of poverty because you have significantly increased the cost to businesses for hiring unskilled workers. So in addition to being less able to find work, prices will also be raised, thus further hurting the poor, whom I assume this bill is supposed to help.

Considering these points, how is this supposed to help the poor when you make it more difficult for them to find full-time work and prices are increased?