title:  Alabama Republicans Just Proved They Hate Local Democracy And The Working Class (VIDEO)
text: Republicans in Alabama just proved how scared they are of working class people organizing and demanding fair wages. The working class has been emboldened by the success of the Fight for $15 movement. They have successfully raised the minimum wage in cities and states all across the United States.The city of Birmingham raised their local minimum wage to $10.10 per hour last August. The wage increase was supposed to take place in July. That wage increase, however, will not be happening. That s because last Thursday, Alabama s Republican-controlled state government passed a bill to take away the city s power to raise their own minimum wage. The governor believes the minimum wage should be uniform across every area in Alabama,  spokeswoman Jennifer Ardis told the Associated Press.According to CBS News, Alabama s Senate passed the measure and the governor, Robert Bentley, signed the legislation an hour later. That means that workers in Alabama will still receive the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Alabama is one of only five states that does not have a minimum wage set higher than the federal minimum wage that employers can pay their workers.Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin said: Governor Bentley and the Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature dealt a severe blow to the working-class citizens of this state and in particular, the working poor in the City of Birmingham. Once again the GOP has stood with large corporations and the wealthy while telling the average working Alabamian that they re not important. This is a tactic that Republicans have been using to try and halt the progression of the new worker s rights movement that has risen up to demand fair wages. Alabama now joins sixteen other states who have passed laws that prevent cities from raising their minimum wage.It isn t surprising that Republicans are using this tactic. Initiatives to raise the minimum wage have been extremely effective at the local level of government. Huge cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have successfully passed laws that raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.You can watch a report on the story, below. Featured image from Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons