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Prevailing plumber wage too high

Last week, the Department of Labor & Industries issued an “emergency” wage increase for plumbers in Central Washington. This increase took their wage from $56 an hour to $69 per hour. Any school, county building, nonprofit that’s supported by the state, city golf course, etc., that hires a plumber to come fix a leaky faucet has to ensure their subcontractor pays this rate.

No wonder our state is going bankrupt! We can’t afford to give our teachers raises, we can’t afford to put enough police officers on the street, we can’t buy new textbooks for our kids, but we can give plumbers a $13-an-hour raise?

Many people these days would be thrilled to have a $13-an-hour job. How on Earth can L. Ann Selover (state statistician at L&I) sleep at night? The voters in this state need to wake up and realize that L&I is letting special interest groups rip off the taxpayers. I love plumbers, they deserve to be paid well, but $143,000 a year? Is that what we want to be paying a 9 percent sales tax for?

Rob Guild

Spokane



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