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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2002)
10 act it! P ICKING UP your 2002 Aggieland is easy. If you ordered a book, look for the distribution table today in front of the Reed McDonald Building. (Go to the Reed McDonald basement in case of inclement weather.) Please bring your Student ID. If you did not order last year's Texas A&M yearbook (the 2001-2002 school year), you may pur chase one for $40 plus tax in 015 Reed McDonald. Hours: 9 a.m. — 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. Cash, checks, Aggie Bucks, VISA, MasterCard, Discover and American Express accepted. Wednesday, October 23, 2002 NAT10\ TH E BATTalS Congress fails to act on minimum wage increase WASHINGTON (AP) Diane Cunningham, a home health care worker in Chicago, is thankful she didn't have to rely on Congress to raise the minimum wage, or even to con sider the idea. She'd still be waiting. “They don’t want to do what they need to (do) to help poor people,” said Cunningham, 41, who got a raise after a living wage ordinance passed in Chicago. “They think more about rich people. It’s not fair to people that’s working.” The last federal minimum wage increase was in 1997, when it jumped 40 cents to $5.15 an hour from $4.75. Democrats had hoped to wrangle passage of a minimum wage increase this year by pair ing it with tax cuts to win Republican support. But even that incentive hasn’t broken through the Senate’s political bottleneck, and state and local governments are increasingly trying to take up the slack. The Democratic measure, introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would have raised the wage to $5.75 an hour this year, $6.25 next year and $6.65 in 2004. President Bush had signaled that he might accept a small increase, but only if states were allowed to opt out. Opposition from some powerful business lobbies, including the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Restaurant Association, have dimmed prospects for a wage increase anytime soon. Congress’ inaction has fueled a groundswell of action at the state and local level. Ten states and the District of Columbia have raised their min imum wages higher than the federal government's. A nation wide movement has resulted in more than 90 “living-wage” ordinances, and more than 70 other campaigns are under way. Living wage ordinances vary, but generally they set an Wage wars Recent efforts to increase the federal! minimum wage have not made much ] progress in Congress. The last increase was in 1997, though 10 states and the District of Columbia have raised their minimum wage's above the federal government's. 1 -0, Volume l| By .iiimiimllHIIIllllllll An off- eld at the I Club in Ma free and op [officials sai David 2 olf club a 1980. said t [Muster even) [the world ea < I 38 40 •50 BO 70 m\ Federal minimum wage In 2002 dollars 1 Sp SOURCE: Department of Labor apI hourly rate of pay that would contends that a majority of mu™ Hi enable a local wage-earner to i mum-wage earners alj k’y v* support a family of four above the federal poverty level. teenagers or young adultswiM] out families to support. | Usually, ordinances apply to companies that do business with a city or county govern ment or receive local govern ment subsidies. Some workers now are paid as much as $12 an hour if they work for a company with a city or county contract. Of the 72.5 million U.S. workers paid by the hour. 2.2 million — about 3 percent — are paid at or below the minimum wage, according to 2001 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Supporters of an increase argue that the minimum wage is worth much less today than it was decades ago. For instance, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the minimum wage was worth more than $5.50 an hour in today’s dollars, based on inflation. Opponents say businesses would have to cut jobs and ben efits to pay for the raise. The Employment Policies Institute, a business-supported think tank. Institute, a labor-supponi think tank that supports increase, claims that 60 perca of the workers who would bes fit from an increase are won* 68 percent are adults, ISperct are black and 14 percent i Hispanic. Bill Samuel, legislate director for the AFL-C10, labor federation ot 65 uniu said he remains hopefclftj Congress will take up am mum-wage increase after j midterm election recess, history of it is, it's hardtof^j on its own, and that’s jusu fact,” Samuel said. “Butwe’l not giving up.’’ “It’s a political issue,’c| tends Pat Cleary, vice presifc for human resources polio the National Association | Manufacturers. “We ah fight it in an election ysj There's almost no correlal between the minimum wage.| poverty.” 11 Church excommunicate woman ordained as pries First-yt spider CLEVELAND (AP) — A former Ohio first lady revealed Tuesday that she was secretly ordained as a Roman Catholic priest earlier this year and then excommunicated by the church. Dagmar Braun Celeste, ex- wife of former Gov. Richard Celeste, said she was the only American among seven women who were ordained as priests by Bishops Romolo Braschi of Argentina and Rafael Regelsberger of Austria on June 29 in a ceremony on a boat on the Danube River between Germany and Austria. The church excommunicat ed the women July 22. Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone of the Vatican said the ordination attacked “the funda mental structure of the Church as it was wanted by its founder.” Church teaching holds that because Jesus chose men to be his apostles, only males can serve in the priest hood. The women have appealed their excommunication. Celeste, 60, said she was ordained under the pseudonym Angela White because she did not want to divert attention from her daughter’s wedding. However, she added, “It was always agreed that I was not going to be an anonymous priest.” Celeste said she has not cel ebrated Mass or performed other priestly duties such as confession or consecration of the Eucharist, but would do j if asked. “Women, just like deserve to follow their u I science and calling, CeN‘| said. She said she did not ' sider the possibility ofbecoj ing a priest until after her divorce from her husbando years, who was Ohio s go'M nor from 1983 to 1991. Po By TH Women, just Be men, deserve to follow their conscience and calling. a, sai locations Republican | w the depa Creel I students tc | dioose not Dagmar Braun Celeste former Ohio first lady Celeste runs Tyrian, Cleveland nonprofit min group. She was born m | Austria, a small city o I Danube, and holds dual c z ship in the United States" Austria. nrdinatiol The Women s Ordinal Conference, of which Ce I a former board mem e > | ports the ordinations, sp woman Erin Hanley sai • -1 ,hink it’s another step the process of wo ™ en itinj ,fo( tired of sitting and w || aS from a system that" i e 39 hatch, from anfs body; becomes adult fly Syr
