The state of Ohio will be putting forth a new petition which, if accepted, would require employers to pay a minimum wage of $10.50 per hour, effective January 1st, 2025. After 2025, the minimum wage will be set to increase in equal increments to reach $15 per hour on January 1st, 2028 after which the minimum wage would be adjusted annually for inflation. The amendment would also require that employers pay tipped hourly employees the minimum wage by January 1st, 2029, phasing out the ability of the capitalists to pay tipped workers less than the minimum wage over time.
The amendments have received criticisms from the business interest groups such as The Buckeye Institute who have made comments on the perceived negative implications of implementing this petition.
“While businesses in large metropolitan areas are already offering starting salaries at or above $15, more rural parts of the state would be harmed by the increase…The business model of hospitality would be severely impacted as the referendum would eliminate the exception for tipped workers. There are better ways to help Ohio workers than a statewide mandate that would encourage businesses to hire fewer workers”, the group said in a statement.
While the minimum wage ensures that workers get paid at least a certain wage rate, the capitalists will fight tooth and nail to protect their collective class interests which means opposing increases in the minimum wage and the concept altogether. Increases in the wages paid to the workers will threaten the profit margins of the capitalists who employ minimum wage labor and will be opposed on these grounds. It is not sufficient nor effective for the workers simply to work within the bourgeois political apparatus in order to improve their standard of living. There is no reconciliation between the antagonistic class interests of the workers in the capitalists, as the latter profit off the labor of the former.