OpinionCommentary MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2016
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Sorting out ‘confusing’ minimum wage messages
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Many Santa Monicans have recently received mailers from a new group called the One Fair Wage Coalition, claiming to support a minimum-wage law in concept, but implying Santa Monica's would be unfair to workers. Upon what basis? - the law's union supersession clause, something already part of Santa Monica's 2005 Living Wage ordinance for City Contractors (https://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Dep artments/Finance/Ordinance.pdf) and several City development agreements. Union supersession clauses are common in many city and county living wage ordinances around the country (https://ilsr.org/rule/living-wage/2092-2/). They provide that some or all of the conditions of a minimum or living-wage ordinance may be “superseded” by a collective bargaining agreement. Such supersession clauses could allow unions to negotiate a more dynamic package of wages and benefits that better fit a particular industry or workplace, where total compensation and the quality of working conditions negotiated might be higher than the minimum wage. But the main reason for
them is to insulate wage increases from legal challenge - local collective bargaining agreements formed while new wage floors were in place would be protected (http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18083/labor_uni on_exemption_minimum_wage_la ). If there is a referendum campaign against Santa Monica's minimum wage law by this new group - which has not revealed its members nor its funding, but is represented by an opponent of Los Angeles' minimumwage law - expect this to be the element they seek to misrepresent, rather than taking on the minimum-wage increase itself.
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Many people have been curious about the barrage of confusing messages about our minimum wage law. Thanks for asking. You're right to be puzzled by what's really going on here. The LA Times ad and the multiple mailers are being paid for with national anti-union money. The local “leader” of their movement is a political operative who's been active in fighting the City of LA's minimum wage law, and that's what he's really doing here. Your City Council, along with our staff, community members, and local businesses, have been working for over a year on the most progressive minimum wage ordinance in the country. Early on, we committed to the same regional $15 wage as LA City and County. That wage level is not in question. Further, we are guaranteeing workers sick days, and making sure that service workers don't have their tips skimmed by employers or eliminated by mysterious “service charges” controlled by the employer. We have written a law that is fair and enforceable. So why are anti-union dollars being lavishly spent to make it look as if the Council isn't going to support workers? We are adamant that workers should fully retain the right to organize in the workplace, form bargaining units, and negotiate their own contracts with employers. Because wages are a key issue in such negotiations, we feel the workers must have the choice whether a certain dollar figure is more important to them and their families than unionnegotiated benefits like health care, predictable work schedules so they can be home with their children, etc. Therefore our Santa Monica minimum wage law will allow willingly negotiated union contracts, in which the workers participate and decide their own terms. Corporate employers don't want this. They realize that the $15 dollar wage is fair and broadly supported in the community, and are trying to pervert that support into an attack on unions. They know that our law will pass. They're not trying to get Councilmembers to vote for it. They're trying to get us to gut it by removing the workers' right to organize. We're not going to do the bidding of corporate interests, of course, and can only hope that when community members hear the real story Tuesday night many of the 6,000 who were misled into sending supportive postcards for the anti-union “petition” will openly rescind their support and come down on the side of the workers, where we all should be united. Corporations don't need another tool to fight unions.
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As a city with far higher than average local living costs, Santa Monica's minimumwage increase is overdue. It will increase the chance that those who work here can live here, helping to address congestion and pollution from long commutes, and promoting a more inclusive and diverse community. By putting more disposable income in the hands of low wage workers, it will stimulate our local economy, as some of those funds are spent locally. And by promoting more fairness for workers, it will reorient our local economy around a new floor of justice. MICHAEL FEINSTEIN is a former Santa Monica Mayor and City Councilmember and voted for the city's first Living Wage ordinance in 2001
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