Like a bad cold, some issues you just can’t shake.
Take the latest resurrection of the “Living Wage,” for example. Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union organizer Vivian Rothstein is at it again. This time, Rothstein and her followers recently asked Santa Monica to adopt a minimum wage for city employees and contractors. Sound familiar?
Rothstein heads Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, an organization composed primarily of HERE union members and local pro-labor supporters. SMART recently requested that City Hall mandate a minimum hourly wage of $11.51, plus health benefits, for all city employees and require that all contractors and subcontractors with at least a $25,000 contract with the city also pay the same minimum wage. Non-profits doing business with the city would be exempt.
SMART has a long history of advocating living wage proposals in Santa Monica. They were behind the living wage ordinance enacted by the City Council in 2001 that would have dramatically increased minimum wage standards on large private businesses — primarily hotels and restaurants — that operate in the coastal area of the city and generate more than $5 million in revenue annually.
Business interests and others set out to derail SMART’s proposal. They promoted their own ballot initiative in the fall of 2000. “Measure KK” paralleled SMART’s proposal, but required that only the city and its contractors pay employees a “living” wage. It would also have prevented imposing any future living wage standards.
Rothstein and her many cronies branded “KK” as “ca-ca” — the false living wage, bogus living wage and phony living wage. A minimum wage impacting only city employees and its contractors was inconsequential, they said at the time. “KK” was defeated nearly 5 to 1 and cleared the way for passage of the more encompassing SMART-backed ordinance by the City Council nine months later.
That ordinance, known as chapter 4.65, was challenged by businesses and community leaders who qualified “Measure JJ” for the November 2003 ballot. If approved by voters, it would’ve repealed the City Council-approved “living wage” ordinance. The measure passed and Chapter 4.65 was history.
Fast forward. Four years later, SMART and their cronies are back for yet another round. And, it’s still a bad idea.
I don’t vote for politicians because of their altruism. I vote for politicians who have common sense, are good managers and make sure we get the biggest bang for our taxpayer bucks.
Telling contractors the city will pay more for goods and services than they need to is bad business and fiscally irresponsible. It’s like going into McDonalds and paying $5 for a Big Mac just so that the low wage, hamburger flipper in the galley can take home an extra $3.
I’m not that compassionate and I have a feeling that Rothstein isn’t either.
In May of 2001, city staff analyzed the cost to City Hall of a minimum wage ranging from $8 to $10.69 an hour, plus added health benefits of $1.50 to $2.50 per hour. The additional annual expense to Santa Monica would have been $450,000 in money paid out on city contracts. Another $1.5 million would have incurred in increased direct city employee costs. Additional minor expense including administrative and monitoring costs were extra.
The City Council asked its staff to review SMART’s latest proposal. But I’m willing to bet that staff will find out this — like previous living wage proposals — could cost us $2 million more each year, without any benefit to the city in quality of services provided.
Maybe Rothstein, HERE, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, as well as other “living wage” supporters and groups should voluntarily open up their wallets and make up the difference in the payrolls of the low-wage workers whose welfare they’re so concerned about.
The upping of minimum wages also puts those on fixed income such as Social Security recipients, seniors, the handicapped and other pensioners even further behind the financial eight-ball. However, having never seen Rothstein nor any other living wage advocates speak out for better benefits for people on fixed incomes, it’s probably not poverty that’s the issue, but power and influence.
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s an election year. You can bet that if it benefits big labor, their cronies and hand-picked candidates, the rest of us will pay for it and pay through the nose. (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 13, 2004. Read the original PDF.