3-7-14 minimum wage-government workers

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Senate's majority leader says a bill that would end minimum wage mandates for some local government workers and contractors is all but dead.  Madison, Dane County, Milwaukee and Milwaukee County require workers and contractors get a minimum wage. The Republican bill would invalidate such requirements as applied to workers paid with money that passes through the state.  The state Assembly passed the bill last month. The Senate's labor committee approved it Thursday, prompting a group of protesters to start chanting outside the hearing, calling the bill an attack on local control and their livelihoods.  Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said after the committee vote that a number of senators in his caucus have problems with the bill. He says the measure probably won't go any further.