With  a stroke of his pen Governor Chafee signed into law the 2015 budget, marking what House Speaker Nick Mattiello endlessly referred  to as a new era in regional “competitiveness” for Rhode Island. Simultaneously the Governor dashed the hopes of Providence hotel workers who were cavalierly targeted by a measure inserted into the bill that eliminated the ability of cities and towns in the state from deciding their own minimum wages.

While the governor, Senate President Paiva-Weed and the Speaker were inside the State House giving self-congratulatory speeches about the bold new budget and the bold new economic direction the state was taking, outside the State House Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado continued their hunger strike, hoping to convince the governor to veto.

Were the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers ultimately futile? I think not. Both houses of the General Assembly just passed a bill to raise the minimum wage to $9 in 2015. Given the priorities of the Mattiello House this year, in which lowering estate and corporate taxes was seen as more important than helping the economically vulnerable, and given the open hostility some legislators had evinced towards the idea of raising the minimum wage so soon after the last increase, the $9 minimum wage is an important victory.

It was only the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers that shamed members of the General Assembly into doing something akin to the right thing for minimum wage workers. In fact, I heard rumors yesterday that the only way the Senate would approve Mattiello’s corporate kiss-up budget was for the Speaker to see his way clear to a slight increase in the minimum wage, but of course the exact mechanisms by which the legislature conducts its business are always hidden from public view.

Even as the Mattiello budget was signed into law and the $9 minimum wage was passed in Rhode Island, the Massachusetts legislature, in a move lauded by President Obama, acted to raise its state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour. (Note to Rhode Islanders: This is how real Democrats behave.) For all of Speaker Mattiello’s talk of being regionally competitive, the failure to set our state’s minimum wage to a similar standard demonstrates a lack of economic understanding and leadership. Following the economic logic on evidence at the State House, one should now expect the best minimum wage workers in Pawtucket and East Providence to cross the border into Massachusetts for the $11 an hour fast food jobs, leaving the $9 jobs here in Rhode Island to the second tier workers. The extra $80 a week will be worth the extra five to ten minutes it will take to get to work in the morning for most workers.

The hotel workers here in Providence were fighting for $15. They fought and won here in the city, only to have the state come in and snatch victory from their grasp. At that point, the fight switched from a battle for fair wages to a battle for access to democracy. It was only the efforts of the hunger strikers and their supporters, calling attention to the miscarriage of justice and the abuse of legislative power, that shamed the General Assembly into doing anything to alleviate the suffering of the most economically vulnerable.

Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado are heroes of democracy, bravely showing the way forward in the fight for economic justice in Rhode Island. But more than that, they are just good, kindhearted people, putting the concerns of others ahead of their own. I am better for knowing them, and glad there are such people working to make the world a better place.

Their hunger strike is over, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next.

Dr. Nick Tsiongas was not in any way advising that these women go on a hunger strike, but given that they were committed to this course of action, did offer some advice on how to do so in the safest possible way.

Shortly after Dr. Tsiongas talked to the women and to me on camera, word came down from the State House facilities department that the tents being used by the women to keep themselves out of the hot sun had to come down. Unbrellas and folding chairs would be allowed, but the tents, it was said, might cause damage to the marble on the Smith Street side of the State House.

I spoke briefly to hunger striker Mirjaam Parada, the woman who came up with the idea of the hunger strike. She got the idea from history, and the efforts of people in El Salvador to call attention to the terrible conditions there as the Reagan Administration funded the right wing Contra death squads in the 1980s. A raise in the minimum wage will not benefit Parada directly, she already makes more than $15 an hour as a cook. She is involved because she is committed to the idea of democracy and to the rights of workers.

The same is true of the other two women who could begin the hunger strike today. Shelby Maldonado is a Central Falls City Councillor and union organizer. Santa Brito was employed at an area hotel, but was fired shortly after the birth of her son, possibly because of her outspoken labor organizing activities. Neither will directly benefit from a wage in the minimum wage. Instead, they are committed to the right of all workers to a living wage and to the principles of democracy.

Our state legislators could learn a lot from these brave women, if they would only stop and listen.

You can listen to Dr. Nick Tsiongas’ advice to the hunger strikers below.

Some argued that there shouldn’t be different wages for different jobs. But the budget contained no action to close the tipped wage loophole in Rhode Island. In the minds of those voting for the article, it’s wrong to raise wages for a select few above the state minimum wage, but it’s perfectly fine to pay people less than the state minimum wage.

More to the point, in their repeated invocations of “39 different…” the state’s representatives continually argued against the very existence of the cities and towns that they supposedly represent. Why have “39 different” permitting processes? Why have “39 different” different zoning systems and approval processes? Why have “39 different” school systems (yes, I know in reality there are less)? The possibility of confusing contradictions between jurisdictions never seemed to bother the House of Representatives at any point prior to this moment. As far as I know, not a single candidate ran against the complex maze of towns and cities we have.

Indeed, why even bother having the charade of “39 different” governments, considering how detrimental that could be to business? That’s quite a lot of officials to lobby and donate to. Rhode Island could be far more competitive if they only had to donate to the leadership of, say, 113 people divided into two chambers. Although it might cause damage to Rhode Island’s lobbyist businesses if there was a sudden reduction in the number of government officials to wine and dine.

Now, in practice, there are a number of economically fine counties about the size of Rhode Island in terms of geography and population that have dozens of governments more than Rhode Island. It ultimately goes to show that it’s not the amount of governments that matter, but rather the quality of them. And the quality of Rhode Island’s state government is so low that should anyone seriously suggest moving to a city-state style of government, with the General Assembly in charge of everything, there’d probably be a mass revolt.

That thought should’ve given pause to lawmakers on Thursday night, and a week before that when Rep. Raymond Gallison added the provision to the budget. While the Assembly cries constantly about not wanting to meddle in the affairs of business, meddling in the affairs of its people appears entirely acceptable.

The Rhode Island House, under the leadership of Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, moved to strip away the political power of Providence hotel workers by inserting a provision in the state budget that would prevent municipalities from setting their own minimum wage last Thursday night. This week, the Rhode Island Senate takes up discussion of the budget, and though Senate President M. Teresa Paiva-Weed might wish to continue to ignore the demands of underpaid and overworked hotel workers, it will be hard to do so as five women engage in a hunger strike at the State House in protest.

Starting Thursday, five women, including four hotel workers and Central Falls City Councillor Shelby Maldonado, will be camping out 24 hours a day at the State House, refusing any sustenance except water to call attention to the terrible way in which this year’s budget specifically targets low wage workers with the intent of politically silencing their voices. The plan is to strike until Governor Chafee makes his final decision on the budget, which will be a week from Thursday, if past experience is any indicator.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Unite Here!’s Jenna Karlin talked about how finding volunteers for the hunger strike was not a problem. The problem was settling on only five people to participate, there were so many eager to step up for the cause.

Mirjaam Parada is one of the hunger strikers. Parada works at the Omni Hotel and presently makes a comfortable wage in excess of $15, but she is participating in the strike out of solidarity with the workers at the Renaissance and the Hilton, who make far less than she does, and struggle every day to make ends meet.

Hotel worker Evan McLaughlin, who will not be participating in the hunger strike, wants everyone who walks into the State House over the next week to understand that the women not eating outside the the building are doing so because the General Assembly has decided that they do not have the right to petition their city government or fellow voters for fair wages under the new law.

This change in the law targets the Providence hotel workers, but the effect will be state wide. All 39 town and city councils in the state will lose the ability to determine a key aspect of their economy under the new budget. This is in some ways an end run around democracy itself: The Providence City Council put the measure to give hotel workers $15 an hour on November’s ballot for the voters of Providence to decide. The law championed by Mattiello’s House takes away the power of voters. It seems “big government” is only a problem when it affects a business trying to turn a profit and not when it affects a family trying to eat.

Central Falls Councillor (and union rep) Shelby Maldonado will also be participating in the hunger strike. Maldonado wants to best represent the people who elected her, and she feels she can best do this by championing the democratic process. The rights of the people to determine what is best for their communities is being usurped by a General Assembly that is beholden only to business interests at the expense of low wage workers, and this situation has to stop.

Earlier this year, Senate President M Teresa Paiva-Weed participated in a vigil in the main rotunda of the State House and spoke about this issue of poverty, and her responsibility as a legislator to address this problem.

“The Senate’s focus this session on the economy will be inextricably intertwined with the causes of poverty. We can’t move the economy forward without addressing the very issues that underline poverty.”

She said the vigil and a screening later in the day of [the movie] Inequality For All “will set a tone for the year and the message will be carried with us as we work to meet the significant challenges ahead.”

Even though it seems these words were forgotten by the Senate president moments after leaving her lips, one hopes that Paiva-Weed understands that how we treat our most vulnerable citizens best demonstrates our commitment to our moral responsibilities.

Ironically, just before the hotel workers took to the State House rotunda to talk about their planned hunger strike, there was an event in the Bell Room on the first floor of the State House to celebrate the release of a new cookbook, Extraordinary Recipes from Providence & Rhode Island Chef’s Table by Linda Beaulieu, complete with expertly prepared foods from some of the area’s best chefs. This juxtaposition of fancy food for the entitled political class and a hunger strike by poorly paid workers is a jarring reminder that things are not going right in Rhode Island.

Here’s the press conference video:

“Because of our uniqueness and size, sound economic policy for Rhode Island calls for a statewide minimum wage rather than a patchwork of wage thresholds,” said Faye Zuckerman, Governor Chafee’s communications director. “The Governor is cognizant of how different geographically we are from many other states such as Washington.”

Although the issue isn’t the same as in Seattle, which recently enacted a $15 city-wide minimum wage, the governor was responding to a municipal minimum wage issue. A group of hotel workers did an end-run around the traditional minimum wage debate by petitioning the Providence City Council to implement a $15 minimum wage for the hotel industry.

After considerable political jockeying, the City Council voted last night to put the issue on the November ballot. But that happened shortly after the state House of Representatives passed a budget item that prohibits cities and towns from setting a minimum wage higher than the state rate.

The state Senate is poised to act on the budget bill Monday. “I can say there is agreement on the budget,” said Senate spokesman Greg Pare.

Zuckerman offered no hints if the governor will sign the budget, saying he “is still reviewing and evaluating the budget. He will examine the budget as a whole and then make a decision.”

During his statements preceding the Providence City Council vote to put the measure granting $15 an hour to hotel workers on November’s ballot, Councillor John Igliozzi suggested an idea that should be given real consideration by all city and town councils in the state.

Igliozzi pointed out that if the Rhode Island General Assembly were to deny cities and towns in Rhode Island the right to set minimum wages within their municipalities, then property tax breaks, called “tax stabilization agreements” in Providence, should only be granted to those businesses that agree to pay their employees at least $15 an hour. Igliozzi pointed out that these agreements are contracts between city governments and the businesses, and that any legally enforceable clause can be included.

The General Assembly cannot interfere in such deals through their usual means of legislative end runs.

It’s a great idea and it should be implemented immediately. No further tax stabilization deals should even be considered in Providence without a legally binding guarantee of a $15 minimum wage for all workers, hired or contracted, at the business seeking the tax break. Further, companies with more than one business in Rhode Island, like The Procaccianti Group, which owns three hotels and pays its workers subpar wages, should be denied future tax breaks on future properties until all its businesses start paying a $15 wage.

Shortly after the Rhode Island House decided that working men and women should not have the right to petition their city government for fair wages and instead stripped all municipalities in the state of any power to do so, the Providence City Council in an unanimous decision, passed a measure to put the $15 minimum wage for hotel workers on the ballot for voters in the fall.

The efforts of the Providence City Council may be for naught. If the state Senate approves the budget as is, and if Governor Chafee signs the budget into law, then the citizens of Providence will not have the right to set minimum wages in their city, even if 100% of the city’s residents were to demand it.

This is called democracy, Mattiello style.

However, the measure is not dead yet, and some members of the Providence City Council seem intent on sending a signal to the General Assembly indicating that they are not going to sit back and have their ability to govern so cavalierly severed. Councillors Igliozzi and Aponte were especially vocal in pointing out that several businesses in Providence are requesting tax relief, and suggested that such relief should only be given if the businesses agree to pay their workers a living wage.

In an effort to combat that proposal, Rep. Maria Cimini, a Providence progressive, introduced an amendment that would allow voters in the city to set the minimum wage by ballot initiatives. But in a curious turn of events withdrew her measure after Rep. Michael Chippendale, a Foster Republican, asked if the language as written would allow cities and towns to lower the minimum wage to $2 an hour.

In response, Cimini asked that Gallison’s bill be taken out of the budget and voted on separately. More debate followed, but the conservative, pro-business members of the General Assembly passed Gallison’s measure 57 to 17. This with no real debate and no public comment. Democracy in action.

Along the way jokes were made, several reps pretended to understand economic policy and an exciting night of politics was had by all.

Somehow though, it was forgotten that the entire reason for Gallison’s bill, the entire reason this was being discussed in the General Assembly at all, was because a small group of hotel workers, men and women working long hours for little pay and less respect, dared to believe that their democratically-elected government might work for them, instead of for the powerful forces of money and business.

One can imagine the panic on the faces of the new leadership in the House as they realized that people were rising up and demanding economic policies and laws that benefited the many over the few and the have-nots over the haves. One can further imagine the smug look of satisfaction that passed over their faces as they crafted a plan to take away the tiny amount of political power these working mothers and fathers had access to.

After all, how dare someone who has never had the money to donate to a political campaign believe that the system will work for anyone except the rich, the entitled and the well-connected. With a laugh and a smile and barely concealed contempt for everything these working men and women have attempted, Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and the Rhode Island House of Representatives stomped on the rights and the dreams of good people suffering crippling poverty as if it were the most common and expected thing in the world.

Because, sadly, it is.