As the owner of a pizza restaurant, State Senator Lou Raptakis (D-Dist. 33, Coventry, East Greenwich, Warwick, West Warwick) has brought a small business perspective to the State House, working on a range of issues designed to make sure state government is playing an effective role in promoting business growth.

In keeping with those efforts, Senator Raptakis is introducing a series of bills this session designed to protect small businesses from costly junk faxes, put an end to schemes designed to intimidate them into buying labor posters that are actually available free-of-charge from the state, and bring a degree of predictability to the minimum wage process. While Senator Raptakis has introduced legislation to tie minimum wage increases to increases in the Consumer Price Index in past sessions, the other two measures will be introduced for the first time.

“Businesses across the state are getting thousands of unwanted junk faxes on a weekly basis and every month, many small businesses are duped into paying for OSHA posters and other federal and state notices which are available for free from the government,” said Senator Raptakis. “We need to take action to eliminate junk faxes and phony poster selling schemes which are costing small businesses money.”

Senator Raptakis added, “The minimum wage bill will once again give Rhode Island a chance to take politics out of the minimum wage and bring some stability to the process—stability for workers and for the businesses which need to plan for labor costs.”

Senator Raptakis will introduce legislation modeled on a new Indiana law which establishes stiff penalties for unwanted junk faxes, including civil fines of up to $1,500. The current Rhode Island Law governing unsolicited advertising by fax (6-47-1), makes it illegal to send unsolicited faxes unless the notice contains a toll-free number that can stop future faxes. However, there are no financial penalties for violations of the law, which Senator Raptakis said makes the Rhode Island statute toothless.

The Coventry Senator is also taking aim at another form of unsolicited contacts, efforts by so called “labor poster services” to send notices to businesses telling them that they must pay to get copies of state and federal notices which must be posted at every work place. The mailings, which Senator Raptakis has received from an organization calling itself “The Rhode Island Labor Law Poster Service,” come in official-looking envelopes marked “Urgent,” “Important Information Enclosed” and “Final Notice!”, with a message that businesses failing to put up the OSHA posters and other labor notices “may be subject to criminal penalties as well as civil liability actions.” What the documents fail to mention is that all of the posters are available from different federal and state agencies free-of-charge. Senator Raptakis said RILLPS charges $59.50 for a full set of state and federal posters and $24.50 for each federal poster.

Senator Ratpakis’ minimum wage bill would tie annual increases in the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, something that is done in five other states. He said the bill would allow for the kind of steady increases in the minimum wage which will not leave small businesses scrambling to cover unanticipated expenses and which will not leave Rhode Island workers at the mercy of State House power struggles.

For more information, contact:

Randall T. Szyba, Publicist
State House Room 20
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 222-2457