Monday,
March 23, 2015
By: Jack Encarnacao
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said raising the wages of union laborers who work on public projects should be part of the national dialogue on income inequality during a panel discussion with the mayors of New York, Baltimore and Seattle.
Walsh praised the Legislature for boosting the state minimum wage to $11 by 2017 before mentioning the “prevailing wage law,” which pays Boston tradesman in the range of $30 to $50 an hour to work on public projects.
“I think we have to look at the prevailing wage law as well to make sure that we give people the opportunity to … have a living wage,” Walsh said during the “Municipal Strategies for Financial Empowerment” public forum at the University of Massachusetts Boston.