The City Council in Los Angeles has passed a five year plan to raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 by 2020. The New York Times reports this is part of a wave across the country where cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, and Oakland have raised their minimum wage and even Red States like Alaska and South Dakota passed wage increases via ballot measures.
In Irvine, American’s safest, greenest and a “best-managed” city, the conservative Republican council majority is poised to move backwards and not forwards on the basis on wage inequity. The Council majority will vote next week on repealing the city’s “Living wage” ordinance, passed in 2007 by a progressive council majority, that ensured that workers of companies hired by the city to perform work for the city were paid at least $10 an hour if they received benefits or slightly more than $13 an hour if they did not.
The entire repeal initiative stems from a custodial contract in which the lowest bidder withdrew their winning bid, even after being told of Irvine’s requirement in pre-bid meetings, but the Conservative majority jumped on the fact they might have to go with the next lowest bidder as an avenue to do away with the city’s 8 year old Living Wage Ordinance that only effects about 15 contacts of $100,000 or more.
From the Register’s story: Priority Building Services bid the lowest of three firms for a janitorial contract, proposing about $1.1 million for the one-year agreement. But then, a Priority Building lawyer accused Irvine of misleading the company as to its living wage ordinance.
The ordinance requires firms with contracts of $100,000 or more in a 12-month period (or aggregate contracts that hit that threshold) to pay employees $10.82 hourly, if they get health benefits, and $13.34 per hour if not.
General counsel Eric Luedtke said since the firm had “relied upon false information,” it wanted to withdraw its bid – and get its $100,000 bid-bond back. The firm’s bid would have been “more than six figures higher” had it understood the policy, he said.
City staffers said Priority should have known. The policy was laid out in the bid documents and discussed during the mandatory pre-bid conference.
Leudtke said if the city refused to return the money, the firm would honor its contract – but take the city to court in an effort to find the ordinance a “violation of public policy and unenforceable” outside Irvine.
Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway told the Voice of OC that the city’s living wage ordinance is falsely labeled because the minimum wages aren’t enough for a family to live comfortably in the city. And on this case, Lalloway is right because, as the Register reports, it takes a minimum wage worker 137 hours to afford an apartment in OC; likely much more in Irvine which is pricey for renters. The Register says it takes an hourly wage of $32 to be able to afford an apartment in OC if you’re only spending 30% of your income on housing. County on rents increasing about a $100 a month. Lalloway believes government shouldn’t be interfering with “a transaction between consenting individuals” and Lalloway brought out the old canard that “the city’s voters spoke when they elected a conservative majority.” “Landslide Lalloway retained his seat by less than 200 votes.
And when I say Lalloway is right, don’t get the wrong idea. The city’s living wage should be closer to $20 an hour.
From the VOC story: “The living wage is not a living wage at all. It’s called a feel good wage,” Lalloway said. “We’re unnaturally inflating the amount we’re paying for services in the city. I don’t know how that’s consistent with our fiduciary responsibility.”
Christina Shea told the Voice of OC that she considered the Living wage ordinance “stealing from taxpayers.” She was quoted in the Register saying: “It extends the ordinance’s requirement beyond our municipal borders,” Councilwoman Christina Shea said at the council meeting last week. It also created an “unfair economic burden on the taxpayer.”
But that fiduciary responsibility is out the window when it comes to paying Aleshire & Wyndeer what’s believed to be $350 an hour…a little less than a custodian makes working a 40 hour week. There are less expensive lawyers that can be hired, but lets screw over janitors — many of whom are minorities — by saying “if we could pay you less, we would.”
In one respect, Lalloway is right; $10 an hour isn’t enough to pay someone to live in OC (it was never intended to be a rule to have workers live in Irvine). There are significant examples that paying employees higher wages results in better quality work and greater loyalty from employees — look at In-N-Out Burger and Costco for examples; think you get the same quality work from McDonalds or Walmart? You get what you pay for and in the case of the custodial company, voting to repeal this ordinance amounts to economic racism. Lynn Schott can explain her vote to those Latino voters in CD-46 if she really wants a shot at Congress.
Those crazy Libertarians at the Register’s opinion desk are cheering the Irvine Republicans on. From their column: “The council voted 3-1 to consider repealing the ordinance at the May 26 meeting, and would be wise to do so. Government shouldn’t be making decisions that should be made in the private marketplace. The employee-employer relationship functions best when it is a voluntary association where wages are set by demand and would-be employees’ willingness to work.”
And the Register is an exceptional case study in why paying workers less results in a less than stellar product. The Register has jettisoned lots of experienced talent possessing vast institutional talent for a crop of kids out of school who make next to nothing. Sure, there’s a few great experienced journos left, but the paper today is a shell of what it used to be. You get what you pay for.
For Irvine’s Republican majority, bring your brooms and mops to clean up chambers after meetings and don’t forget to provide TP for your staff during office hours because clearly the city is too cheap to pay a janitor and extra $73 to $172 a week. But its further evidence our council majority knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Shame on them.
Where are Gustavo and GSR on this? Professional Mexicans. No vested interest
Liberal sophistry, pretending to be concerned for the “poor.” How did I manage to survive on minimum wages, in high school? Or my daughters, in high school?
Why not boost the minimum wage to $25 an hour. That should work.
If liberals would tip restaurant workers as generously themselves as they demand handing out everybody else’s money, the problem would go away overnight. But liberals are the least generous group in America, except with other people’s money. That liberals give away freely.
You survive on minimum wage in high school because your parents paid rent/mortgage, food, energy and transportation/insurance. You pay those bills for your daughters. I tip 20%, more if the service is great. Are you one of those douchebags that thinks minimum wage should be dealt away with entirely? Or one of those people who whine about “illegals” except when they cut your grass?