***** Call the Senate to Raise the Minimum Wage! ***** 1-800-459-1887 ***** (VOTING MONDAY) *****

Sapphire Blue

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Fri Jan-19-07 09:20 AM
Original message

From the Coalition on Human Needs (http://www.chn.org)...

Call the Senate to Raise the Minimum Wage!

A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

Call your Senators today - tell them to support raising the minimum wage!

Following a stunning victory in the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate is expected to take up a bill to increase the minimum wage as early as Monday, January 22. You can help win a long-overdue raise for millions of people.

Your call can make a difference! Call your senators toll-free at 1-800-459-1887 TODAY. Tell them to support S. 2, which will raise the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years.

Here's why you should call: Members of Congress have raised their own pay $31,000 over the past ten years, but have refused to raise the minimum wage by one dime. 37 million people live in poverty in our country, in part because the minimum wage is so low. At $5.15 an hour, a full-time minimum wage worker earns just $10,712 a year -- nearly $6,000 below the official poverty line for a family of three.

You can help. Call both your senators NOW:

Step 1: Call 1-800-459-1887, toll-free, to be connected to the U.S. Capitol Switchboard.
Step 2: Ask to be connected to the office of one of your senators. (To find out your senators' names, click here)
Step 3: Tell the person who answers the phone:

"Hi, my name is _______________ and I'm a constituent. Please tell Senator _______ to vote for S. 2, the bill to increase the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years. Please oppose ALL amendments, including still more tax breaks or other sweeteners for business or proposals to hurt worker rights. Will Senator ___ vote in favor of S. 2 and oppose further amendments to it?"
Step. 4: Repeat Steps 1, 2, and 3 for your second senator.

What's at stake: On January 10, the House voted 315 to 116 to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour by 2009. On Monday, Jan. 22, the Senate is expected to begin a debate over S. 2, which would also raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to 7.25 an hour by 2009. At least 60 votes are needed to overcome delaying tactics. In order to make sure they have the 60 votes, the Senate leadership is expected to include in S. 2 a package of tax breaks approved by the Senate Finance Committee, costing $8.3 billion over 5 years. (For details, see http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2007press/prb01182007leg.pdf). Although we much prefer the clean version passed in the House, we think Senators ought to vote for S. 2. But we understand many other amendments will be offered on the Senate floor, aimed at handing still more breaks to business and eroding workers' rights. Senators ought to reject all of these amendments. Enough is enough.

Help us generate thousands of calls in support of S. 2, with no amendments. The toll-free number will remain open until the Senate votes on S. 2.

The Coalition on Human Needs (www.chn.org), the American Friends Service Committee (www.afsc.org/economic-justice/), and the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign (www.letjusticeroll.org), urge all in their networks to call Congress and to forward this alert. The toll-free number is provided by AFSC, a Quaker organization which welcomes groups to use the number to support S. 2 and without linking it to language or websites supporting partisan purposes. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

THANKS!

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Thank you,
Sapphire Blue
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