labor lawAdivision of labor law center

As of today, January 1, 2009, the minimum wage in Arizona became $7.25 an hour, when it increased from $6.90, a hike of 35 cents per hour.

The Arizona minimum wage applies to permanent, full-time employees, and temporary or part-time workers as well. Arizona has a new minimum wage law, and this marks the first yearly increase due to cost of living under this new law.

The new increase is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the annual inflation rate. Arizona voters supported Proposition 202 on November 7 of 2005. The proposition was called the “Raise the Arizona Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans Act.” This law, A.R.S. 23-364(A) became effective on January 1 of the following year. Authority was given to the Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) to enforce the new Act.

The Arizona minimum wage became $6.90 per hour on January 1, 2008. The new law also protects (more…)

The Arizona minimum wage will increase by 35 cents, from $6.90 to $7.25 per hour on January 1, 2009. This is the first annual cost-of-living increase under the new Arizona minimum wage law. The increase is based on the annual inflation rate as reported by the CPI, the Consumer Price Index.  

On November 7, 2006, the Arizona voters approved Proposition 202, also known as the “Raise the Arizona Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans Act.” Under A.R.S. 23-364(A), which became effective January 1, 2007, the Industrial Commission of Arizona was given the authority to enforce and implement the Act.  Effective January 1, 2008, Arizona’s minimum wage increased to $6.90 per hour.  

Every employer covered under the Act is required to pay each employee wages not less than this amount, according to the Industrial Commission of Arizona.Effective January 12, 2008, final Administrative Rules under Title 20, Chapter 5, Article 12 were approved and are currently in effect.  

The Arizona minimum wage applies to part-time and temporary workers, as well as full-time permanent workers.  

Arizona permits employers to take up to (more…)

Arizona employers need to be aware of important changes in the state minimum wage law.

The federal minimum wage is $5.85 per hour, and many states simply adopt the federal minimum wage. Other states establish their own minimum wage laws.

Arizona is one of those states, and as of January 1, 2008, Arizona instituted an annual cost-of-living raise. Minimum wage in Arizona is now $6.90, a 15 cent bump from $6.75.

The Industrial Commission of Arizona, as mandated by Arizona’s new Minimum Wage Initiative, is charged with annually adjusting the state’s minimum wage. The Initiative states “The minimum wage shall be increased on January 1, 2008 and on January 1 of successive years by the increase in the cost of living.”

The CPI (Consumer Price Index of All Urban Consumers) for the previous 12 months ending in August provides the basis for the increase. The CPI was 2% for on August 2007, which calculates as a 13.5 cent increase for Arizona’s minimum wage. State law, however, requires any increase to be adjusted to the nearest 5 cents, so instead of a minimum wage of $6.885, the new rate adjusted up to $6.90.

In addition to the Minimum Wage Initiative, Arizona also issued a recent Policy Statement about “hours worked”. According to the Arizona Minimum Wage Act, an employee who works fewer than 24 hours, even if allowed to sleep or do other activities when not busy, is “working” the whole time.

For example, an employer allows a switchboard operator to sleep when not answering calls, and provides facilities for that purpose. The operator is considered to be “working” for state minimum wages while asleep, and the employer is obligated to pay that operator at least that rate.

For firefighters and other employees who work more than 24 hours per shift, the employee and employer collaborate on specific meal and sleep periods. These periods can not add up to over 8 hours per 24 hour period, and the sleep period for the employee must be undisturbed.

Arizona is one of several states that increased the minimum wage in 2008.

The year 2008 has already experienced several changes in state minimum wage laws, and is slated to see several more.

On New Years Day, 2008, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, fourteen states in all, enacted raises in their state minimum wage rate.

On July 1, 2008, five more states will follow suit. Michigan and Illinois will each raise its state minimum wage by twenty-five cents. Michigan’s will go from $7.15 to $7.40 per hour. Illinois’s will rise from $7.50to $7.75.

Kentucky and West Virginia, will add seventy cents to their minimum wage rates, resulting in new rates of $6.55 per hour and $7.25 per hour, respectively. Pennsylvania workers will enjoy a 90 cent per hour raise to their minimum wage rate, giving them a new minimum of $7.15 per hour.

Later in July, Utah, Oklahoma and a number of other states will establish higher minimum wage rates, too. These states have enacted laws which tie their minimum wage raises to the federal minimum wage. In addition to a number of states that increase the minimum wage, the District of Columbia will, as well. By local law, the D.C. minimum wage must be at least $1.00 more than the federal rate, so it will go to $7.55 on July 24.

Whenever a change occurs in any labor law, employers must update their labor law posters or face the possibility of a fine. Companies are required to display these posters in prominent spots in the employee work area, and to update for both state and federal law changes. Businesses seeking up to date information can visit www.laborlawcenter.com.

Here is another minimum wage issue that will not go away (even though, to be honest, I did think this one had been settled up until today when I came across one of my sources rehashing the old story in a recent context). What the heck am I talking about? Well, the state of Arizona had just recently passed a new state minimum wage this past year, which like many of the new minimum wage laws out there, went into effect this past January 1.

But like a few of the state minimum wage laws out there—again, look at Missouri—the Arizona minimum wage change turned out to have a bug or two in it. The big one in Arizona was a special provision that had been in the old Arizona minimum wage—but not in the new Arizona minimum wage—that affected how employers could pay disabled workers. Under the old law, if the employee was disabled and work was more about their therapy or treatment than it was about the employee being productive as a worker, then the employer could pay that disabled worker less than the Arizona minimum wage. This really worked for homes and rehab centers who used work therapy to help their disabled patients try to recover as much of a regular life as possible.

But under the new Arizona minimum wage law, there is no such provision. So technically, employers of these disabled workers have to pay them the full Arizona minimum wage. That has led many of these therapy centers to wonder if they can continue to use work therapy, and in fact according to my source, some of these centers have had to already stop using this therapy and actually lay off disabled workers.

The legislature in the state was talking about fixing the law, and they had a work study group come up with a pronouncement saying how the problem could be fixed. Their fix was to come up with a way to give disabled workers a time limit to prove that they could become productive employees to an employer. Then they could earn the full minimum wage. But if they were working more for their own therapy, then they did not have to get paid the full Arizona minimum wage.

And I thought it would be fixed. But it turns out—with just a couple weeks left in the legislative session in Arizona—now fix was put in. And the state attorney general has come out and said that giving these work homes immunity from lawsuits from disabled workers would be unconstitutional.

These lawsuits would result obviously, from when a disabled worker or their family sues to get paid the full Arizona minimum wage, as is now what they are due under the new Arizona minimum wage law. But these employers probably could not withstand these lawsuits, as they are not able to really pay the full Arizona minimum wage to these disabled employees who are working now more for their own therapy than anything.

Previously, I had reported, by the way, that some disabled lobbying groups were in favor of bringing back the old minimum wage law for disabled people in the state. But now according to my most recent source, there are also a good number of people who advocate the rights of disabled people who do not want to see the old system brought back, assuming they would consider it discrimination that disabled people can earn less than the full Arizona minimum wage. Stay tuned on this one, because if it settles it will be in the next couple of weeks.

The Arizona Industrial Commission charged with coming up with a solution did just that and got a vote on it by the last day in this past March. Without one no vote, the Industrial Commission agreed to change the new Arizona minimum wage law so that disabled people and their employers could be exempt from it, in a way similar to the way they used to be.

The new law could not be amended. Instead, the Industrial Commission came up with a so called substantive policy statement. What this statement does is change the definition of the word “employee” in Arizona law. So in a way, the new system is a better, more refined way of dealing with the disabled employee question than the old system, according to my sources.

The new policy statement created another group of workers, who were technically working but are not defined as “employees.” This group includes disabled people working at those vocational training programs and centers, where work is more therapeutic than anything. These centers can be for people who are temporarily unable to work or temporary unable to perform.

These training programs can last for 2520 hours—or about a little more than 15 months in totals. And these workers can train at these programs three times in a row, taking you up to nearly four years of this. At any time during this process, these trainees—or disabled employees—can prove themselves worthy of regular productive work, and then become defined as employees—requiring them to be paid the full Arizona minimum wage.

If after all this training, though, the disabled person is deemed never able to become an employee, then they get defined as a service recipient, meaning they can perform in these training programs and receive below minimum wage, for their own therapeutic good. If the plan works well, it could eventually become a set law in the state down the road.