Tom Ramsey - Harris County Pct. 3 Commissioner Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, minimum wage was never intended to get anybody rich,
that's for sure, But Harris County's trying to trying to
get your richer anyway by raising the minimum wage from
fifteen dollars to twenty one dollars. I think it's twenty
one eighty three or something like that for our twenty
one to sixty five. It's a nice round figure, right,
Joining us to talk about Harris County Precinct three Commissioner

(00:23):
Tom Ramsey, do we have any idea, Commissioner, how many
Harris County jobs are currently at fifteen dollars an hour
minimum wage? How many people with this impact?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh, Jimmy, we we did. Thank you for being for
putting this on. We know that this is going to
result in roughly five million dollars worth of increases, so
it does affect a number of folks. But remember we've
already given twenty two million dollars worth of increases already

(00:55):
this year. And my point to court yesterday was we
need tolow this thing down. There was not one public
meeting on this topic. I wasn't even breathed prior to
so it was thrown on the agenda apparently, MIT which
I'm sure you know where that's going from. Has done
a study that says that we must establish these minimum wages.

(01:19):
They even say how much, and we just, like blind sheep,
go and do exactly what some liberal leaning group in
the northeast directs. Well, I just think it's wrong. This is,
by the way, being pushed strongly by labor unions.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
So they bowed the knee to the labor unions. They
passed this without any public discussion, and this is going
to be result in significant burden on us in terms
of a budget.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Sure, yeah, I mean it's not like, well, maybe Rodney
Ellis has five million dollars in a safe in his office.
I mean, we shouldn't discount that that's a possibility. Maybe
maybe the bunny's just laying around somewhere that we just
don't know about.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Sir, Well, it's chaos reigning. And the sad thing, Jimmy,
is this, uh, this this, this, This doesn't just affect employees.
This is every contractor that works with the county. So
just imagine, if you will, a construction company now they
have to give significant increases to a lot of their workers,

(02:28):
and on one hand, you say that's fine, but having
run a small business, I can tell you people will
lose their jobs. They will not be able to afford uh,
these significant increases, undiscussed, no no warning, no input from industry.
So I've had a lot of construction people, a lot

(02:49):
of a lot of people in the industry reach out
to me and say, what are y'all doing? We already
have a federal mandated minimum wage. Now we have a
local mandated minimum ways. I don't even think it's legal.
I don't think the state has given us this right.
And we'll be pursuing that conversation shortly.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, I took a look too, sir. There's like two
hundred and sixty two open jobs in Harris County right now.
Here's one, for example, mosquito surveillance technician. I'm guessing you
probably do more than just look at mosquitos. You probably
treat for mosquitoes. But that's probably a job that used
to be fifteen dollars an hour. That's going to be
like the better part of twenty two dollars an hour now.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Right right, I mean, I have seventy one parks. We
have people get up every morning at six they go
mow the parks. They do a great job, and right now,
most of our park folks they make roughly eighteen dollars
an hour, so it's not like they're out there changing
the world or solving a problem. They really have created

(03:52):
a budget problem for the county. They've created an incredible
problem for purchasing in all those small bits this is
out there that are trying to do work with a county.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Well, keep finding the good fight, sir, I know that
when you get right down to it, at the end
of the day, this is not something that Harris County
can afford without raising our taxes yet again, and I'm
sure they may very well be trying to figure out
how to do that. But thanks as always for your time,
Commissioner Ramsey. That is Harris County Precinct three Commissioner Tom Ramsey,
always fighting the good fight and unfortunately the only one
who is