Newest councilman pledges support for higher wages
CITY HALL — Elected officials here re-ignited the contentious tug-of-war over a so-called living wage in Santa Monica after agreeing late Tuesday to increase by more than 50 percent what the city’s contractors must pay their lowest-paid workers.
Maintenance workers, gardeners, parking attendants and other relatively unskilled laborers will benefit from the new law, which requires city contractors with projects more than $50,000 to pay workers at least $11.50 an hour. Employees at Santa Monica City Hall have been entitled to the higher wage since Jan. 1.
Several other California cities have required contractors with government bids to pay more than the state minimum wage of $7.50 an hour. Pasadena enforces a minimum wage of $10.28 an hour. Los Angeles and West Hollywood require wages of at least $10.03 an hour, according to city documents.
Those amounts include the cost of health benefits. Santa Monica’s $11.50 hourly wage does not.
However, the cost of health care to a full-time worker is about $1.25 an hour, meaning the three cities’ minimum wages are comparable, according to City Manager Susan McCarthy.
The Santa Monica City Council voted 5-2 in favor of the higher wage, expressing clear differences on the ongoing issue of a living wage throughout Santa Monica, which has divided business interests and community activists for several years.
Participating in the debate for the first time was the newest councilman, Bobby Shriver, who said he supported higher wages for poor people, but wanted to know exactly how much it would cost taxpayers.
Raising the minimum wage for employees at City Hall will cost about $350,000 a year. How much it will cost to raise the wage for employees of city contractors, however, is less clear. McCarthy pegged the figure at between $500,000 and several million dollars. It’s unknown what portion of the increased wages will be absorbed by the contractors in order to remain competitive, McCarthy added.
Shriver said how much it actually costs could determine the fate of the wage increase. He asked that a study be conducted after one year to gauge the cost of the higher wage to City Hall.
“It’s not that complex, I think, an exercise and therefore I do think that the data could be said to be, if I could say such a terrible thing, somewhat factual,” a sarcastic Shriver said during the Tuesday council meeting. “I think that there could be a decent study that would give people... a sense of exactly what this actually did cost.”
Both proponents and opponents of a broader, city-wide living wage debate are hoping Shriver will be on their side when a proposal comes forward, as is expected in the near future. Business interests that have fought the living wage for years said Shriver would bring fiscal accountability to the council. Advocates for the living wage cited Shriver’s family credentials, and his ongoing commitment to helping poor people and others in need.
“He’s a Kennedy. He’s for the interests of poor people,” said Abby Arnold, a former council candidate and active member of the nonprofit group, Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, which has advocated on behalf of unionized workers in local hotels and grocery stores.
“This is a person that cares about whether or not poor people can live in our community,” she added.
Seth Jacobsen, a political consultant hired by deep-pocketed Santa Monica business interests, countered that Shriver’s addition to the council will bring some balance to the debate.
“I think he is a moderator for us on the council,” Jacobsen said Wednesday. “If there is a debate on this issue, it will be a formidable one, but a balanced one.”
Shriver said Wednesday he would continue to support higher wages for the poor, adding accountability would be key.
“Every dollar that you spend on one thing is a dollar you don’t spend on something else,” said Shriver, adding advocates of a living wage need to be hard-nosed and make the financial implications of their proposals transparent. “That’s the thing progressive people need to really focus on and let people understand.”
“Every dollar that you spend on one thing is a dollar you don’t spend on something else... That’s the thing progressive people need to really focus on and let people understand.” — BOBBY SHRIVER City Councilman
The concept of a living wage in Santa Monica has been debated for years. Jacobsen was a vocal opponent of a living wage proposal known as Proposition JJ, which was narrowly defeated at the polls in November of 2002. That proposal, which was first approved by the council and later forced to the vote, would have required coastal businesses grossing more than $5 million a year to pay their workers $12.25 an hour, or $10.50 an hour with health benefits.
Proponents of the living wage argued big businesses were treating workers unfairly. Opponents said the new wage would depress the economy and stifle entrepreneurs.
Echoes of that divide still could be heard at the Tuesday council meeting. City Councilmen Bob Holbrook and Herb Katz voted against the $11.50 proposal, saying it unfairly squandered Santa Monica’s taxpayer dollars. They suggested the minimum wage for contractors be modeled after the lower wages in Pasa-dena or Los Angeles.
“My motive is pretty straight forward,” City Councilman Bob Holbrook told his colleagues. “I just don’t understand why our taxpayers would want us to spend 15 percent — potentially 15 percent — more to get the same work done. It just doesn’t seem fair to the Santa Monica taxpayers, that’s all.”
City Councilmen Richard Bloom, Ken Genser and Kevin McKeown held ground on the other side of the issue, saying the higher wage for City Hall’s contractors was long overdue.
“The idea here is that either taxpayers pay or taxpayers subsidize,” McKeown said Tuesday. “This level of $11.50 was chosen to be that neutral point at which all we’re really doing is eliminating the hidden taxpayer subsidy and giving people the dignity of directly paying the wages for the work they do.”
“The idea here is that either taxpayers pay or taxpayers subsidize.” — KEVIN MCKEOWN City Councilman
Mayor Pam O’Connor, who has supported the living wage in the past but has not been an outspoken advocate in favor of it, apparently agreed.
“To rent an apartment now in Santa Monica — to rent — you have to have an income of about $50,000 a year,” O’Connor said. “So this is about paying someone something closer to a living wage, whereby they might have some shot at not having to work two jobs.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2005. Read the original PDF.