WHEN UNIONS FIGHT FOR A HIGHER MINIMUM WAGE, THEN WANT EXEMPTIONS:

Los Angeles recently decided to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour across the board, including even tipped workers like waitstaff. A lot of businesses opposed the new rule on the grounds that it would make their operations unaffordable. Now a new group is joining them in saying the law’s not right for their operation: union leaders.

You read that right. Union leaders are saying that the $15 minimum wage is a bad idea. Not for everyone, of course; for most businesses and workers, they think it’s splendid. But for union operations, they need an exemption. Rusty Hicks, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said businesses that have collective bargaining agreements with employees should be able to negotiate a wage below the “minimum.”

This has been greeted with jeers from both left and right, though Matt Yglesias does mount a defense.

You can count on Matt for that sort of thing. But my take’s more like this one:

If workers have to have $15 an hour to live in LA, and that’s a level the economy can support with minimum job loss, then the $15-an-hour wage should apply to everyone. If in fact this wage level is too costly, then LA should lower it for everyone. Lowering it only for favored political groups is a terrible idea, and the unions have earned every bit of the catcalling they got for suggesting it.

Yep.