When the bigwigs at Northern Stage say the law doesn’t apply to their professional theater company in downtown White River Junction, it’s not just an act.
Shortly before Christmas, Northern Stage informed five female employees at its state-of-the-art $9 million theater that even though Vermont’s hourly minimum wage was about to increase to $12.55, they wouldn’t benefit from the law change, which went into effect Jan. 1.
As a nonprofit, Northern Stage was only “legally obligated” to pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Managing Director Irene Green wrote in a December email to the five employees who work behind the scenes as production apprentices.
In her best Marie Antoinette “let them eat cake” performance, Green reminded the women that their apprentice contracts called for them to make $12 an hour.
Not a penny more.
Under Vermont labor laws, a “publicly supported nonprofit organization” can avoid paying the state minimum wage to hourly workers.
Since Northern Stage relies heavily on donations, I suppose it could be on firm legal ground.
But morally is it OK to use an exemption in state wage law to shortchange workers at the low end of the pay scale?
That’s a question Northern Stage’s deep-pocketed donors might want to ask.
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