Minimum wage group files for ballot 

Proponents of a proposed ballot initiative that would establish a minimum wage of $6.75 an hour filed over 200,000 signatures of registered voters with the Office of Secretary of State on June 26.
Officials of the Arizona Minimum Wage Coalition, flanked by union members and supporters from Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), officially filed the signatures after seven months of gathering efforts, said Rebekah Friend, the coalition’s chairwoman and current president of the AZ AFL-CIO.
“At a time when there is so much effort put into dividing Americans we have found across the board bipartisan support for increasing the minimum wage so that hardworking Arizonans will have a fighting chance to support their families,” she said, standing in front of dozens of stacked boxes of signatures.
Ms. Friend was also joined by Representative Steve Gallardo, D-13, who said Arizona voters will get the chance to establish a higher minimum wage after years of appeals to do so in the Legislature have “fallen on deaf ears.”
“The people of Arizona are telling everybody here at the Legislature and throughout the state that we do want to increase the minimum wage in the state of Arizona and that we do value their hard work and we do want to see this on the ballot,” he said.
“We’re going to let the voters of Arizona decide how to move Arizona forward and that would be to increase the minimum wage.”
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Arizona is one of six states without a minimum wage. Under that circumstance, the federal minimum standard of $5.15 per hour is applicable. The other states are South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Under the proposed initiative the established minimum wage would also be adjusted each year to accommodate cost of living and inflation increases.