Livable Wages: A Payoff for Everybody Including Business

JUST SAYIN’-While the national unemployment rate is down and the stock market is up, not everybody is experiencing the life-style changes and ameliorations that should come from those financial realities.  Most workers are still fighting for living wages that can provide them a pathway to be a genuine part of the American Dream.  

The ask is three-fold:  

The demand is for a livable wage of $15.25 an hour now.  The proposal before LA’s City Council, however, is to phase this wage increase in by 2019 (and indexed thereafter), taking into account cost-of-living variations.  The problem is that by 2019, $15.25 will no longer deliver a living wage.  Just as the hotel workers are being paid $15 an hour now (for hotels with 150 rooms or more—this itself was a compromise because the original request was for 100 rooms), so must every worker in Los Angeles (let alone elsewhere) earn that level of pay. 

Longshoremen and Port Drivers are presently making similar demands.  Under much pressure, some companies have agreed to allowing unionization of their workers and paying them a wage commensurate with today’s cost of living.  In addition, the injustice behind misclassifying drivers as independent instead of actual employees has largely been dealt with but the struggle goes on until every port worker and driver receives the wages he or she deserves. 

There is controversy over possible exemptions to the current, unamended proposal before City Council:  tip staff (restaurants, hotels, etc.), youthful workers (at first-food restaurants, for instance—although many such workers are depending solely on those wages to take care of themselves and their families), and in-home caretakers.  These are significant issues that must also be resolved. 

Last Sunday commemorated the 22^nd Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice.  Its theme?  To end Poverty Now—A Living Wage for All Workers.The 2-mile march concluded with a rally which included guest speakers, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Maria Elena Durazo (current Vice President of Unite Hereand long-time Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor).  They spoke resoundingly about their support for increasing minimum salaries.  

And there have been a number of other well-attended rallies (at City Hall and elsewhere throughout the Los Angeles community) asserting reasonable resolution to these same demands. 

The second leg of the stool is to provide earned paid sick leave of 5 days per year: 

Which workers can do their best when they are ill or worry over a sick child they cannot tend to?  And why?  because they are not permitted to take off the time necessary to care for a family member or themselves (upon pain of having hours cut from pay or even being fired as punishment for daring to do their moral and ethical duty by their family).  It should be clear that, as part of the motion, employee retaliation must be forbidden.  

The State has passed a bill to mandate three earned sick days a year but there are exemptions.  We, in Los Angeles, want to do one better:  five days a year!  As consumers, do we want to shop at markets, in particular, where your food is being handled by ailing workers who can easily transmit whatever illness they have?  Do we want to interact with anyone who should be home taking care of themselves but is instead trying to plug away at finishing their work in the office or the factory—though probably ineffectually?  Can you imagine being given the wrong dose of medicine or purchasing an item which was designed or manufactured in a way that could produce dire consequences? 

The third leg is to allow people to grieve work-related issues: 

Workers who have put in their time, worked diligently, efficiently, dependably, and effectively deserve to be paid for their efforts—an honest day’s work deserves an honest paycheck.   Yet, without exaggeration, people have reported how they have worked a 40-hour week only to get paid for 32 hours and when they grieved, were either demoted or shown the door! 

The ask here is to allow a worker to grieve a work matter without fear of reprisals!  Furthermore, where possible, employers should try to work around employees’ personal schedules so that they can go to school to earn a GED or a college degree or keep a medical appointment or even attend a child’s graduation.  I have witnessed too many times when parents have not been able to come to a child’s performance at school or an Open House to meet the teachers and discuss their child’s progress or even miss their child’s graduation because of a genuine fear of being fired.  

None of this is the kind of America in which we want to live!  

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Many of us have been part of delegations to our City Councilmembers to bring attention to these concerns and to urge support for our demands.  In truth, we have made headway with some, but the “usual suspects” have continued to play close to the vest as to which way they will vote on the proposal.  The latter often give the appearance of being more concerned for their “corporate constituents” than for the rest of us.  It is our job, then,  to convince them otherwise. 

To the contrary, it has been proven in many municipalities across the country, where such minimum-wage laws have been instituted, that businesses have thrived, prospered, and even expanded.  Many companies, on their own, have decided that their employees deserve the kind of salary that is a reasonable wage and one that can help them realize a comfortable lifestyle.  

Some restaurants, in fact, are already charging customers slightly more for their meals (but not allowing tips to “ease” the pain) so that restaurant operators can pay $15 an hour now.  Even Walmart has given in a little bit by offering around $9 an hour for a third of its employees this year and about $10 an hour in 2016—far from what we are asking but certainly an important step forward and an indirect acceptance of the fact that its employees are not getting paid enough (to stay off government supplemental support). 

When all is said and done, it is essential that we support the Raise the Wage Campaign--if not for the workers alone, then for the moral health of our community. 

Just sayin’.

 

(Rosemary Jenkins is a Democratic activist and chair of the Northeast Valley Green Alliance. Jenkins has written A Quick-and-Easy Reference to Correct Grammar and Composition, Leticia in Her Wedding Dress and Other Poems, and Vignettes for Understanding Literary and Related Concepts.  She also writes for CityWatch. Views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of CityWatch.)  

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 27

Pub: Mar 31, 2015