NEW YORK CITY — Speaker Christine Quinn and other members of the city council hailed a federal court decision Tuesday that shot down Mayor Bloomberg's challenge to the council's 2012 living wage bill.
The mayor's office had challenged the legality of the council's bill, which would raise the minimum wage for employees who work in select industries that receive subsidies from the city or lease space to the city to $10 an hour.
In the decision, Judge Richard Sullivan refuted the mayor's claim that federal minimum wage law preempted the local wage rate, saying, "the Court dismisses the sole federal claim in this action due to the Mayor's lack of standing and declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining claims."
In a statement, Quinn praised the judge's ruling, calling it “a real victory for every New Yorker who is struggling to make it into the middle class." Quinn went on to say she hoped the decision would keep the mayor from "trying to use the legal system as a means of blocking the creation of decent paying jobs" created by the living wage law."
A statement from the city's law department spokesperson Kate Ahlers said the city welcomed the decision, as it would allow the case to move from the federal to the state courts, where it was originally filed.
"We look forward to having this case heard on the merits after nearly a year of delaying tactics," Ashlers said in the emailed statement.
