The Alabama House is debating on proposed legislation that would prevent cities from setting local minimum wages.
The Republican-backed bill is on the legislative fast track as the city of Birmingham seeks to expedite a minimum wage increase approved last year for all workers within the city limits.
Birmingham leaders sought to raise the city's hourly minimum wage to $10.10 by 2017 and planned to begin with an $8.25 minimum wage March 1.
Alabama has no state minimum wage and instead uses the federal minimum of $7.25. House Democrats have said the federal minimum keeps working families in poverty.
Fifty Republican House members are co-sponsoring the bill. The bill was filed by Republican Rep. David Faulkner of Mountain Brook.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is out with its legislative agenda for the current session. The organization is offering lawmakers some solutions to challenges facing Alabamians such as equal rights to religion.
Rhonda Brownstein* is the Legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. She says the state’s future lies in the form of funds that could be used to better educational opportunities, not the costs of mass incarceration.
“If the state legislature is not willing to make some bold changes to decrease the number of people in prison we’re not going to have enough money to provide adequate education to our children who will grow up unprepared to enter the workforce, and that affects our economy.”
The guide is available to the public online at the S-P-L-C’s website.
Any items left on Alabama beaches may be headed to the landfill by the morning.
The communities of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach have instituted a new policy called Leave Only Footprints. The goal is to help clean up the beaches of Alabama.
Grant Brown is the public information officer for the City of Gold Shores. He says the city is focused on trying to recycle as many items collected as possible.
“There’s a tremendous amount of effort being put into recycling all the items that come from the beaches. Eighty percent of the items that are put into our trash cans and are removed from the beach are recyclable goods. It’s a lot of beverage containers, plastic bottles, and tin cans and things like that that are able to be recycled. And so our plan as a city is to recycle as much of the items as we can properly.”
The Leave Only Footprints policy also includes Gulf State Park.