
After conferring with the city’s business administrator, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mayor Chris Doherty announced on Wednesday, June 27, that all 398 city employees would be getting minimum wage, starting with their next paycheck. Doherty said the city doesn’t have the money to pay everyone their full salary:
I’m trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have. I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard…I just don’t have enough money, and I can’t print it in the basement.
Ryan McGowan, Scranton’s business administrator, confirmed the desperate condition of the city’s finances: “We can’t issue a check if the money’s not there, so at this point [we’ll] just be paying individuals [the] minimum wage…”
Doherty’s announcement gave the city’s employees just eight days’ warning. John Judge, the president of one of the three local unions being impacted by Doherty’s decision, said that he usually receives his salary check every two weeks in the amount, after withholding, of about $1,500. Last week’s check was just $600, before withholding. Said Judge:
My members are getting a check for $7.25 an hour. These are people [who] are the head of their households. They have mortgages. They have other living costs. They are now going to have to throw their bills in a hat and randomly pick what gets paid on time.
The three unions, representing the police, the firefighters, and the public workers, went to court and secured an injunction against Doherty for unilaterally violating the unions’ compensation agreements with the city. But the mayor claims
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