PROPOSITION A CONCERNS OUTLINED

Bill Beydler cleared up a myth about Proposition A Thursday.

"This proposition will apply to every business," said Beydler, territory manager of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). "Not just those grossing $500,000 a year."

Proposition A is more popularly known as the Missouri Minimum Wage Bill, which would raise the state's minimum wage to $6.25 an hour Jan. 1., the highest minimum wage in the nation.

Under the proposal that appears on the Nov. 5 ballot, the minimum wage would go to $6.50 in 1998, $6.75 in 1991, and increase 15 cents an hour each year after that.

Proposition A includes two parts, said Beydler. The first part would raise the minimum wage, and the second part does away with the $500,000 minimum that is included in the federal minimum wage.

"If you employ one person, it applies," said Beydler during a meeting of small-business owners in Cape Girardeau Thursday.

Beydler and business people who were present in a meeting held at Horizon Screen Printing Thursday say the minimum wage proposal could be disastrous for small business.

"Some businesses near state lines have indicated they will cross the state line," said Beydler.

"If the measure passes, it'll put me under," said Shirley Max, owner of AA Security Agency, which employs seven people. "I've been in business 23 years, and I'll have to close my doors."

Glenn Reeves, of Horizon Screen Printing & Promotional Products, said he didn't know what would happen with his business.

"We can't cut staff," he said. "When it takes four people to run a machine, you can't cut two of them. And, we can't raise prices. We've already quoted rates on orders due in mid-1997."

"This proposal is critical," said Jerry D. Woolsey of Woolsey Investigative Service Inc. "It will tear down the state's economy."

Woolsey said he would have to downsize. "If this passes on Nov. 5, we'll cut people Nov. 6," he said. "In the long haul, the state will lose more than 250,000 jobs in 10 years."

Peter Myers, Meyers Land Management, Sikeston, said the wage increase would have a devastating effect on agriculture, and Bill Hagan, a restaurant owner in Chaffee said he would have three choices: reduce employees, increase prices or quit.

Meanwhile, advocates say a higher state minimum is needed to restore the buying power of the working poor, which they say dissipated when the minimum wage was stagnant for nine years in the 1980s.

A Reform Organization of Welfare official, Jeanette Mott Oxford, who was in Cape Girardeau recently, said the state's economy would benefit because low-paid workers would have more money to spend.