There’s a predator lurking in your elevator. Her name is Cherie Berry, North Carolina’s labor commissioner.
Sure, she has a cheerful smile and makes vague promises of workplace safety every time you see her photo above the button panel, but in reality, she’s just waiting for her chance to screw workers out of money. She recently told the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation that she’d like to abolish minimum wage.
That’s right – the labor commissioner, whose job it is to enforce wage laws on behalf of workers, doesn’t even believe they should exist. Federal minimum wage was established in 1938 to stop the proliferation of abusive labor practices. Maybe she misses the good ole days of sweat shops.
How in the world was she elected? I can only assume it’s because people at the polls cast their vote for the candidate with the funniest name. Please don’t make the same mistake again if she decides to run for U.S. Senate. Reports indicate she’s considering a bid and if she wins, she could propose legislation to abolish the federal minimum wage.
It’s unlikely she’d be successful, since over 75 percent of all Americans not only support federal minimum wage, they’d like to see it increased. But that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t try – and that’s a problem for our state. She has even refused to take a stand on child farm labor, saying she would only agree to regulations if the regulated community imposed them on itself.
Memories of Jesse Helms are only just beginning to fade. North Carolina certainly doesn’t need the embarrassment of another senator expressing extreme, archaic views on the national scene.
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This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2013.
how do these people exist and have jobs with even a minute amount of power or authority? how are they not trapped in some sort of coal covered dickensian tale with the ghost of christmas past following them around? If she threatens to take away my second serving of gruel I’m going to lose my shit.
she wants us all in tattered gloves, begging for a sixpence
Heinous. And I shall post a note about her next to her name next time I board the elevator on campus.
Yet Bev Perdue raided our state’s law enforcement pension plan and not a word. Perhaps that and getting caught putting her sticky fingers in other pockets and having someone inside the Dept of Labor in DC feeding her the unemployment numbers before everyone else were the reasons she was forced to walk away or else….
You act like she is the only Republican who would like to eliminate the minimum wage law. Haven’t you been paying attention?
Umm, this isn’t exactly news. Berry’s stupid politics have been widely known for years. Did you just move to NC or something?
DLP – of course I’ve been paying attention. What makes these statements by Cherie Berry especially alarming is the fact she is Labor Commissioner who is “charged by statute with promoting the health, safety, and general well-being of more than 4 million workers across the state. The laws and programs it administers affect every worker—and virtually every person—in the state. ”
King Andy Taylor – her comments to the NC Free Enterprise Foundation were the first I heard of her publicly expressing a belief that completely conflicted with the duties of her office. And even if it wasn’t the first time, it was still worthy of reporting.
I see. So if we allow the “job creators” to pay $2 an hour we will have full employment, the job creators can increase their wealth and all will be well? I think you might be surprised how many adults with families work for minimum wage, and how many huge businesses hire only part time workers so that they don’t have to provide benefits.