Governor Bans Minimum Wage Increases And Paid Sick Leave Laws | ThinkProgress

At a time when many states and cities are working passing minimum wage increases, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) has gone in the opposite direction and signed a law banning cities from passing higher wages. The bill also bans them from enacting paid sick days or vacation requirements.

The law will stymie the efforts of activists in Oklahoma City, where a labor federation has led the push on a petition to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. The state’s current minimum has been set at the federal level of $7.25. In 2012, 64,000 workers in the state earned $7.25 an hour or less, making up 7.2 percent of all hourly workers, a larger share than the 4.7 percent figure for the country as a whole.

Fallin said she signed the bill out of the worry that higher local minimum wages “would drive businesses to other communities and states, and would raise prices for consumers.” She also argued that “most minimum wage workers are young, single people working part-time or entry level jobs” and that “many are high school or college students living with their parents in middle-class families.” She warned that increasing the minimum wage “would require businesses to fire many of those part-time workers” and harm job creation.

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Governor Bans Minimum Wage Increases And Paid Sick Leave Laws | ThinkProgress

OKLAHOMA GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW AIMED AT SCIENTOLOGY DRUG REHAB « The Underground Bunker

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin today signed SB 295, turning “Stacy’s Bill” into “Stacy’s Law.”

On July 19, 2012, Stacy Dawn Murphy died of an overdose at Narconon Arrowhead, the Church of Scientology’s flagship drug rehab facility near Canadian, Oklahoma. Hers was the third patient death in only nine months, and it launched county and state investigations, multiple lawsuits, and now a new law that will give the state greater oversight of the facility.

Governor Fallin took less than a week to sign the bill after it was forwarded to her by the state legislature.

“I think she did it because it gives the state agencies more time to formulate the new rules. And it keeps Scientology from lobbying her not to sign it,” says Stacy’s father, Robert Murphy.

He tells us the law will actually take effect on November 1. And between now and then, he says he’s going to regroup and try to get more peace into his life after what has been a tumultuous ten months since the death of his daughter.



OKLAHOMA GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW AIMED AT SCIENTOLOGY DRUG REHAB « The Underground Bunker