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AH&LA Media Monitoring - 6/3 Report
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Los Angeles City Council to vote on $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Reuters
By Alex Dobuzinskis
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday will vote on a proposal to increase the minimum wage in the nation's second-largest city by 2020 to $15 an hour from the current $9, officials said. -
LA labor unions bite the hands filling their pockets
Jun 2, 2015 | The Washington Times
By Nick Novak
“Without a doubt, it was a very big victory,” Maria Elena Durazo, a vice president at the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here, said last week of the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. -
$15 minimum wage for 2020 could be approved today in Los Angeles
Jun 3, 2015 | Los Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote today on an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage in Los Angeles to $15 per hour by 2020. -
L.A., a minimum wage island
Jun 3, 2015 | LA Times
The City Council is on the verge of finalizing Los Angeles' plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020, but another last-minute wrinkle demonstrates the difficulty of setting minimum wages city by city. The sooner the rest of Los Angeles County adopts a regionwide wage, the better it will be for workers, businesses and regulators. -
Los Angeles County home health workers seek $15-per-hour ‘living wage’
Jun 3, 2015 | San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Elizabeth Marcellino
As home health-care workers continued to push Tuesday for a wage hike from $9.65 to $15 an hour, Los Angeles County’s interim CEO laid out some of the other claims on county coffers, including $27 billion in unfunded retiree benefits.
Public Hearing / Minimum Wage Coverage
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Los Angeles City Council to vote on $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Reuters
By Alex Dobuzinskis
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday will vote on a proposal to increase the minimum wage in the nation's second-largest city by 2020 to $15 an hour from the current $9, officials said.
This comes just over two weeks after the council voted 14-1 to give preliminary approval to the measure.
It would require businesses with more than 25 employees to gradually increase wages year-over-year to meet the $15 pay level by 2020, while smaller businesses would have an extra year to comply with each step in the wage escalation ladder and would get to $15 in 2021, according to a text of the proposed ordinance.
The Los Angeles City Council's support of the measure is seen as a victory for labor and community groups that have successfully pushed for similar pay hikes in other major U.S. cities, including Seattle and San Francisco.
California's minimum wage is $9 an hour.
With the federal minimum wage stagnant at $7.25 an hour since 2009, supporters of raising pay for the lowest paid workers have expressed little hope for an increase from the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.
Opponents of minimum wage hikes say they place an undue burden on businesses and would force employers to lay off workers or move.
Los Angeles City Council members Curren Price and Paul Krekorian have pushed to have the measure approved. Krekorian's office in an email said the final vote would occur on Wednesday.
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LA labor unions bite the hands filling their pockets
Jun 2, 2015 | The Washington Times
By Nick Novak
“Without a doubt, it was a very big victory,” Maria Elena Durazo, a vice president at the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here, said last week of the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020.
Was it a victory for the workers of Los Angeles, or was it a victory for the labor unions?
Shortly after the city council agreed to draft an ordinance raising the city’s minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour over the next five years, the unions started lobbying for an amendment to exempt companies that employ unionized workers.
So just days after the proposal they fought so hard for passed its initial hurdle, the unions wanted to make sure they could get a few more dollars in their pockets. Workers who thought the unions had their back must have been shocked because if the unions got their way, the biggest losers would be the workers.
Businesses could continue to pay wages similar to what they do now – meaning very little impact on their bottom line (just the additional hassle of dealing with the union). Unions would suddenly get an influx of new members – each of them paying required monthly dues. And the workers would likely get the same wage they make now but would have to fork over a chunk of each paycheck to the union.
I honestly don’t know how the union bosses explained that one to the workers with a straight face. Come to think of it, I doubt they actually explained any of it to the workers. They just reached into the workers’ wallets and said, “Trust us.”
If the workers of Los Angeles were given all the facts, they would know that either way this is a sour deal.
A 66 percent increase in the minimum wage would have detrimental impacts on the economy, especially the individuals who earn wages below $15. In Los Angeles and across the country, the food service industry would be one of the hardest hit.
According to James Sherk, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, prices would spike and many workers would be out of a job under a $15 minimum wage.
“The higher labor costs would initially force fast-food restaurants to raise their prices by 15 percent, which would drive down sales by 14 percent,” Mr. Sherk detailed in a report on the issue. “This would force restaurants to raise prices again, pushing sales down further. In equilibrium the average fast-food restaurant would have to raise prices 38 percent. Prices would rise roughly twice as much as the initial increase in labor costs. Total sales and hours worked would both fall by 36 percent.”
He continues to tell readers that such a high artificial minimum wage would hurt the exact people labor unions claim it is aimed at helping.
“These changes would hurt consumers,” Mr. Sherk wrote. “Americans would face higher fast-food prices, putting a dent into the budgets of everyone who frequently eats fast food — primarily moderate-income consumers, not the wealthy, who do not regularly eat fast food.”
The final vote on the Los Angeles ordinance is expected Wednesday, but who knows what special favors will be added to the final plan. At this point, the controversial idea to exempt union shops is off the table, but that does not mean it won’t be added back in.
Any special favors like that do not belong in the proposal. It would simply add another loophole allowing Big Labor to force businesses into hiring union workers – only padding the union bosses’ pockets with those sweet monthly dues.
If the Los Angeles City Council were truly concerned with growing the local economy and creating more opportunity for all residents, lawmakers would scrap the $15 proposal all together. In the end, a higher minimum wage may be nice for the few who would get it, but all the workers out of a job and the consumers paying more for a hamburger would likely beg to differ.
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$15 minimum wage for 2020 could be approved today in Los Angeles
Jun 3, 2015 | Los Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote today on an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage in Los Angeles to $15 per hour by 2020.
The City Council gave its tentative support to the measure last month, and the panel is now voting on the language of the law.
Under the proposed ordinance, the city minimum wage would increase to $10.50 per hour in July 2016 for businesses with 26 or more employees, with a one-year delay for smaller businesses. By 2016, the state minimum wage will have risen to $10 per hour.
The wage would then go up to $12 an hour by July 2017, $13.25 per hour by July 2018, $14.25 per hour by July 2019 and ultimately to $15 by July 2020.
Businesses with 25 or fewer employees would start raising their wages one year later and have until 2021 to reach the $15-an-hour mark.
Once the wage reaches $15 per hour for both small and large employers, the ordinance calls for the minimum wage in 2022 to continue increasing based on the cost of living.
The ordinance would need the vote of at least 12 members of the City Council to be adopted immediately. Otherwise, it would need to return for a second reading.
Councilman Mitchell Englander voted against the wage increase in last month’s preliminary vote.
Even if the ordinance is adopted today, city leaders are expected to continue debating potential tweaks to the law, such as a proposed exemption from the $15 minimum wage for workers covered under collective bargaining agreements.
Labor leaders who led the campaign to raise the minimum wage are pushing for inclusion of this exemption from the wage for their own union members.
Labor officials say this provision is a “standard” part of wage laws in many other cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and San Diego, and contend the provision is aimed at respecting the existing collective bargaining agreements, as well as give employers and workers wiggle room to reach the best labor agreement for both sides.
However, business leaders who had opposed the wage increase, have lashed back at the labor groups, saying the same people who had wanted the minimum wage hike in Los Angeles now want to exclude their own union members from the proposed law. They pointed to Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law, which does not have an exemption for unionized workers.
The City Council is also expected to consider including a requirement for employers to provide paid leave to workers, and a provision that would require that employers pass service charges onto the employee who perform the task.
Homeboy Industries, a group that runs transitional employment programs, is also urging the City Council to give it a reprieve from the city wage over the 18-month duration of their program.
Members of the City Council are also looking for more clarity on what constitutes an employee in Los Angeles. The current ordinance defines an employee as someone who works at least two hours within Los Angeles city limits, which means businesses outside of city could potentially be paying the higher wages for hours their employees work within Los Angeles.
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Jun 3, 2015 | LA Times
The City Council is on the verge of finalizing Los Angeles' plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020, but another last-minute wrinkle demonstrates the difficulty of setting minimum wages city by city. The sooner the rest of Los Angeles County adopts a regionwide wage, the better it will be for workers, businesses and regulators.
Under the draft ordinance released last week, an employee who performs two or more hours of work a week in the city would be entitled to the new minimum wage for those hours — even if his or her employer is located outside the city. This is the way San Francisco, Oakland and all other California cities with minimum wages operate as well. But business groups have warned that such a rule will be confusing, will involve a lot of paperwork and will be difficult to enforce, especially for workers — such as those who make deliveries — whose jobs require them to travel throughout the region.
That's true. It will be complicated. But the city has a responsibility to make sure the wage mandate is applied fairly so that people working in Los Angeles get the increase as intended. Is two hours a week the appropriate threshold to qualify? Is there a better way to determine who gets the city wage? The ordinance should be carefully drafted so that it meets the objectives of the City Council, is fair to business, and is as clear and easy to enforce as possible.
No matter how the issues are resolved, the result will no doubt be messy as long as L.A. is a high-minimum-wage island, which is why the city cannot go it alone. Some 30 cities and swaths of unincorporated county area touch the borders of Los Angeles, and commerce and workers cross jurisdictional boundaries every day. Mayor Eric Garcetti, his council colleagues and advocates for the working poor have to use whatever political and moral leverage they have to encourage surrounding cities to raise their minimum wage too. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering raising the minimum wage in unincorporated areas, as are the cities of West Hollywood and Santa Monica. That's a good start, but there is a lot more work to do to help ensure that the region develops a coherent wage policy.
Los Angeles' minimum wage isn't the end of the fight to help the working poor make ends meet in one of the nation's most expensive regions. It should be just the beginning.
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Los Angeles County home health workers seek $15-per-hour ‘living wage’
Jun 3, 2015 | San Gabriel Valley Tribune
By Elizabeth Marcellino
As home health-care workers continued to push Tuesday for a wage hike from $9.65 to $15 an hour, Los Angeles County’s interim CEO laid out some of the other claims on county coffers, including $27 billion in unfunded retiree benefits.
Sachi Hamai said the county could ultimately risk a downgrade in its debt rating if it failed to fund that long-term liability, which is based on the cost of providing benefits to past, present and future employees.
Other big ticket items that need attention include a jails plan that could cost $1.8 to $2 billion, replacing outdated technology and meeting minimum and “living wage” demands of county employees.
On top of that, the county has $640 million in deferred maintenance projects.
“The inventory is large and old,” Hamai told the board, with more than half of county properties built more than 50 years ago.
Only about one-quarter of the 2015-16 proposed budget of $26.9 billion is spent at the county’s discretion, Hamai said. About $9.5 billion is federal and state funding for designated programs, while roughly $10 billion is tied to specific uses.
The county uses some of that discretionary revenue -- generated primarily through property taxes -- to meet required matches for federal and state funding. That leaves roughly $3.9 billion for the board to allocate, Hamai said.
Paying in-home supportive services workers -- who care for those who otherwise would likely be sent to a nursing home -- $11.18 an hour would cost $43.1 million this year. To phase in increases to $13.25 and then $15.25 over the next two years would cost $211 million and $374 million in 2016-17 and 2017- 18, respectively, according to Hamai.
Home health-care workers, represented by the Service Employees International Union-United Long-Term Care Workers, have been negotiating a raise for months and dozens assembled again Tuesday outside the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.
Workers told the board about the work they do caring for the elderly and disabled, some of whom are members of their own families, and how hard it is to make ends meet on $9.65 an hour.
“Nursing shoes cost two days pay,” said one woman who told the board she works 60 hours a week but still can’t afford new shoes or an eye exam.
Paid through a state program, the home care workers would not benefit from an increase in the city or county’s minimum wage.
Others warned that not raising wages would end up costing the county more in the long run.
“Would you rather for us to be out on the street and homeless?” asked Sharie Washington.
Union research shows that 81 percent of the in-home care providers live in poverty, 33 percent rely on public assistance and 18 percent depend on food stamps to feed their families.
A study released by union leaders today concluded that a raise hike to $15 would generate $768 million in local economic activity and support the creation of 6,000 new full-time jobs.
“Because a large portion of these salaries are supported by the federal and state government, putting L.A. County’s home care workers on a path to $15 an hour is a win-win for all local parties -- the county, caregivers and the local community and economy,” said Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics, which conducted the analysis.
No action was taken on the proposed IHSS raise, but Hamai said other programs would have to be cut in order to pay home care workers more.
Projections by the CEO’s office showed county revenues roughly keeping pace with cost increases for existing county services over the next five years. However, funding retiree benefits, dealing with deferred maintenance, financing a new jail treatment facility and paying for all the other future needs would result in a deficit of more than half a billion dollars by 2019-20, according to the estimates.
“Future budget demands now under consideration will require difficult decisions on existing priorities and services,” Hamai told the board.
Public Hearing / Minimum Wage Coverage
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