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Los Angeles City Council gives a fresh nod to $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Reuters
By Phoenix Tso
The Los Angeles City Council gave a second nod of approval on Wednesday to a proposal to increase the minimum wage in the nation's second-largest city to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9, but the measure must still come back for another vote, officials said. -
Los Angeles moves closer to raising minimum wage to $15
Jun 4, 2015 | Sacramento Bee
By Christopher Weber
Officials voted to make Los Angeles the biggest city in the nation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but a second vote is required for final approval because the tally was not unanimous. -
Los Angeles City Council approves landmark minimum wage increase
Jun 3, 2015 | LA Times
By Emily Alpert & David Zahniser
A landmark ordinance boosting the minimum wage in Los Angeles won approval Wednesday from the City Council despite a variety of unresolved issues about how the law would work. -
Minimum Wage Ordinance Tentatively Approved By Los Angeles City Council
Jun 3, 2015 | NBC 4 Los Angeles
By Jonathan Lloyd
An ordinance that would boost Los Angeles' minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 was tentatively approved in a 13-1 vote Wednesday by the City Council. The Council gave its tentative support to the measure last month in a preliminary vote and reviewed the language of the law before Wednesday's vote. The ordinance will return for a final vote next Wednesday because the vote was not unanimous. -
Los Angeles City Council signs off on new $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Los Angeles Daily News
By Dakota Smith
Setting itself up as a model for the nation, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday signed off on a law to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in a bid to help the working poor. -
$13 an hour by 2017? California joins minimum wage battle with new bill
Jun 3, 2015 | Orange County Register
By Margot Roosevelt
A hefty hike in statewide minimum pay, passed by the California Senate this week, would give California the highest wage floor of any state, but its passage in the Assembly is far from certain.
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Los Angeles City Council gives a fresh nod to $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Reuters
By Phoenix Tso
The Los Angeles City Council gave a second nod of approval on Wednesday to a proposal to increase the minimum wage in the nation's second-largest city to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9, but the measure must still come back for another vote, officials said.
The council voted 13-1 to approve the measure, just over two weeks after a preliminary 14-1 vote in favor of the ordinance.
But because the latest vote was not unanimous, the matter must come back for a final vote next Wednesday that will take place without public debate, said Ian Thompson, a spokesman for City Councilman Paul Krekorian. No amendments were anticipated and the next vote will not need to be unanimous.
The measure would require businesses with more than 25 employees to gradually increase wages to meet a $15 hourly pay level by 2020, while smaller businesses would have an extra year to comply with each step in the wage escalation ladder, 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.
"Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the nation," City Councilman Curren Price said. "Wages for the lowest paid workers are stagnant."
California's minimum wage is currently $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.
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Los Angeles moves closer to raising minimum wage to $15
Jun 4, 2015 | Sacramento Bee
By Christopher Weber
Officials voted to make Los Angeles the biggest city in the nation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but a second vote is required for final approval because the tally was not unanimous.
Nonetheless, City Council President Herb Wesson stressed to the cheering crowd that the outcome was all but certain. He told his colleagues before the 13-1 vote Wednesday that it may be the most important one of their political careers.
"The winds in this country do blow from the west to the east, and cities throughout the United States will watch what we do, and they will do the same," he said. "So the action that we're taking today will affect millions."
Mayor Eric Garcetti endorses the ordinance, which faces a final vote set for June 10.
Before the vote, representatives of the business community warned of harmful effects from an increase, while workers urged its passage.
The increases would begin with a wage of $10.50 in July 2016, followed by annual increases to $12, $13.25, $14.25 and $15. Small businesses and nonprofits would be a year behind.
Calls for raising the minimum wage have grown as the nation struggles with fallout from the recession, worsening income inequality, persistent poverty and the challenges of immigration and the global economy.
Los Angeles would join Seattle and San Francisco as large cities with phased-in minimum wage laws that eventually require annual pay of about $31,200 for a full-time job.
Last year, Chicago passed a phased-in minimum wage increase to $13 an hour.
Earlier this week, the California Senate approved a plan to raise the statewide minimum wage again, lifting it to $13 an hour in 2017 and tying it to the rate of inflation after that.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he also wants to boost his city's lowest hourly pay to $15.
In Los Angeles, some business leaders had expressed concern about potential amendments to the wage increase proposal that have been suggested over the past several weeks. The changes include an exemption for companies with unionized workforces and a mandate that companies give workers as many as 12 paid days off a year.
The mayor has declined to say whether he supported either amendment.
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Los Angeles City Council approves landmark minimum wage increase
Jun 3, 2015 | LA Times
By Emily Alpert & David Zahniser
A landmark ordinance boosting the minimum wage in Los Angeles won approval Wednesday from the City Council despite a variety of unresolved issues about how the law would work.
The law, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, affects hundreds of thousands of workers and makes Los Angeles the largest city in the country to mandate higher pay for workers at the bottom of the income ladder. Backers predicted the action here could reverberate across the nation, ultimately aiding millions of Americans.
“The winds in this country do blow from the west to the east,” Council President Herb Wesson said. “And cities throughout the United States will watch what we do, and they will do the same.”
But council members opted to defer, at least temporarily, some of the most divisive issues surrounding the wage ordinance. Several amendments could be made before the law takes effect.
One lingering, highly contentious question is whether unionized companies should be allowed to negotiate for a sub-minimum wage with their employees. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor sought to add that provision to the ordinance in the final days of the debate, saying that it would help avert legal challenges and allow union workers to trade pay increases for other benefits as they saw fit.
Business groups angrily attacked it as a ploy to prod companies to unionize. Deluged with criticism, council members agreed to study the provision further.
Lawmakers say that they also will decide on a provision sought by organized labor that would increase the number of paid sick days over what the state has required.
Other sensitive, pending issues include whether to loosen the minimum wage requirement for programs that train the disadvantaged and disaffected for jobs. Another unresolved matter is whether to restrict restaurants' use of surcharges to offset added labor costs.
Lawmakers are also examining how the wage law would apply to out-of-town companies whose workers venture into Los Angeles. Several council members also asked for a report on whether to exempt small businesses — those with up to 50 workers — when the value of employee benefits meets or exceeds the wage requirements.
Asked why they approved the ordinance with so many issues in flux, council members said they wanted to give businesses and workers time to plan for the new wage mandates.
“There's a tremendous sense of urgency on this because people are living below the poverty line and they need to know what's going to be going on in their lives,” said Councilman Mike Bonin.
The vote puts the city at the forefront of a national campaign to lift workers out of poverty.
It represented a win for organized labor and for Mayor Eric Garcetti, who helped kickstart the City Hall debate nine months ago with his own plan to raise wages.
“This victory is a testament to the undeniable power of everyday people coming together in full force against income inequality,” said Bob Schoonover, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, one of the proponents of the wage increase.
But business leaders such as Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said elected officials are ignoring the more crucial need to attract companies to the city that will increase the number of high-paying jobs. Wednesday's decision is a sign, he argued, that city leaders have accepted the idea that the bulk of Los Angeles jobs going forward will pay minimum wage.
“They're doing nothing to bring in good paying jobs,” Waldman said. “The city needs better and deserves better than that.”
Uncertainty remains over how the wage boost will affect the Los Angeles economy. Three different studies, one sought by labor, one by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and one by the city, drew sharply different conclusions about its economic effects, ranging from the ominous to the optimistic.
Labor and community activists insist that the higher wages will stimulate the local economy. But leading business groups warn that the new law could end up hurting workers as employers cut jobs to survive.
“Today, you made the American dream for so many harder in Los Angeles,” Ruben Gonzalez of the Chamber of Commerce told lawmakers.
Even some scholars who said the wage plan would have a positive effect cautioned that their predictions hinge on economic factors that could change.
“The high density of low-wage jobs in Los Angeles means that the benefits of raising the minimum wage will be considerable,” a UC Berkeley research team stated. “It also means that the risks of unintended effects are greater, especially at higher wage levels” that take effect in later years.
Also unclear is how many cities in Los Angeles County will follow suit.
Officials in West Hollywood and Santa Monica say they plan to pursue their own minimum wage hikes. And the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is set to consider its own set of increases for unincorporated areas such as Altadena and East Los Angeles.
But in El Segundo, which borders Los Angeles, two council members have publicly dismissed the idea. In nearby Torrance, one official said there was no plan to follow Los Angeles' lead.
“While I respect what Mayor Garcetti has been able to accomplish, I really believe that minimum wage is an issue that is better addressed by the state,” said Mayor Pat Furey.
Sacramento lawmakers are weighing legislation that would increase pay statewide to $13 per hour by the middle of 2017, a year earlier than anticipated under the Los Angeles ordinance. And a healthcare workers union is leading a statewide ballot effort to raise California's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021.
Passage of the Los Angeles wage hike “absolutely helps” the chances of that proposed ballot measure, said Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West. “It demonstrates to people that this is an achievable goal.”
Either state measure could ease fears that Los Angeles will lose businesses to neighboring cities with lower labor costs. Councilman Gil Cedillo said his worries about potential job losses subsided as a state minimum wage increase gained momentum.
Because the wage ordinance did not pass unanimously — Councilman Mitch Englander opposed it — it requires a second, procedural vote next week before it can be sent to the mayor for his signature.
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Minimum Wage Ordinance Tentatively Approved By Los Angeles City Council
Jun 3, 2015 | NBC 4 Los Angeles
By Jonathan Lloyd
An ordinance that would boost Los Angeles' minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 was tentatively approved in a 13-1 vote Wednesday by the City Council.
The Council gave its tentative support to the measure last month in a preliminary vote and reviewed the language of the law before Wednesday's vote. The ordinance will return for a final vote next Wednesday because the vote was not unanimous.
Councilman Mitchell Englander cast the dissenting vote. Englander, also voted against the wage increase in last month's preliminary vote, did not speak during Wednesday's debate.
If given final approval and signed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, the city, with 3.8 million residents, would become the biggest in the country with a $15 minimum wage.
"Today is a historic day in the City of Los Angeles," Garcetti said in a statement Wednesday. "With this vote, the minimum wage will no longer be a poverty wage in Los Angeles. I want to thank the City Council for joining me in building a city that provides greater opportunity and possibility for all of our residents."
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.
Even if the ordinance is Wednesday, 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.
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.
Hundreds of supporters are expected to rally at City Hall ahead of Wednesday's vote.
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.
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Los Angeles City Council signs off on new $15 minimum wage
Jun 3, 2015 | Los Angeles Daily News
By Dakota Smith
Setting itself up as a model for the nation, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday signed off on a law to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in a bid to help the working poor.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch Englander, the council’s lone Republican, cast the sole vote against the measure. Councilman Bernard Parks was absent.
The vote comes two weeks after council members first backed the plan. Mayor Eric Garcetti is expected to sign the law as early as next week after a final technical vote by the council.
With Wednesday’s action, Los Angeles joins other cities in California that have raised their minimum wages, including San Francisco and Oakland. Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Seattle have also enacted similar pay hikes.
Los Angeles has never set its own minimum wage before, city officials said, and Wednesday’s vote prompted several City Council members to express hope that more cities — and the state of California — would also adopt higher wage laws to address economic inequality.
“Today is the day where Los Angeles said no to poverty,” City Councilman Mike Bonin said. “Today is the day where Los Angeles said, ‘We’re not going to tolerate someone working full time and living below the poverty line.’ ”
In passing the law, Los Angeles will no longer follow the state’s minimum wage of $9 an hour and instead benchmark wages to $10.50 by next summer and $15 by 2020. Wages will be indexed to inflation after 2020.
A state bill authored by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, to raise wages to $11 an hour in 2016 and $13 in 2017 cleared the Senate this week and now heads to the Assembly. A similar bill introduced last year by Leno failed to pass both houses.
On Wednesday, Councilman Paul Koretz said the passage of a new state minimum wage law would help “reduce the pressure” on the city, while Councilman Curren Price said he wants to ensure L.A.’s minimum wage law is the “model for the state and the nation.”
Several major business groups opposed the wage hike, saying it would lead to job losses and the relocation of stores and restaurants outside the city.
The Los Angeles Business Council, a coalition of businesses that backed an earlier proposal by Garcetti to raise wages to $13.25 by 2017, warned in an email to its members two weeks ago that the council’s wage plan “goes too far.” The coalition hasn’t taken a formal position yet on the new law, LABC President Mary Leslie said earlier this week.
Most in attendance at Wednesday’s vote, however, cheered passage of the new law. Addressing the City Council, labor leader Rusty Hicks said “people in this city have waited way too long for the raise,and the decision that you have before you.”
The final ordinance may change before July 1, 2016, the date it goes into effect. Several controversial provisions, including ones addressing union exemptions and service charges at restaurants, will be studied later this summer and possibly added.
Despite those outstanding questions, Bonin said the council decided to push ahead and approve the law to give businesses and employees time to prepare.
The city’s law was written by City Attorney Mike Feuer, whose office came under fire last year after emails showed his city attorneys had closely worked with labor advocates on a similar wage hike law for Los Angeles hotel workers.
A Feuer spokesman said in an email last week that the drafting of the ordinance was “the sole work of the City Attorney’s Office.”
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$13 an hour by 2017? California joins minimum wage battle with new bill
Jun 3, 2015 | Orange County Register
By Margot Roosevelt
A hefty hike in statewide minimum pay, passed by the California Senate this week, would give California the highest wage floor of any state, but its passage in the Assembly is far from certain.
The legislation would raise the state’s minimum wage from the current $9 an hour to $11 next year, rather than to $10, the amount fixed by current state law. The level would then jump to $13 in July 2017 and, starting in 2019, would automatically rise along with the inflation rate.
A similar bill failed in committee before reaching the Assembly floor last year. Since then, however, concern over economic inequality has surged across the nation, along with the push to raise wages for the working poor.
Several politically conservative states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, have passed ballot measures raising their minimums. Municipalities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are hiking their wage floors.
And many businesses, from Google to Wal-Mart, have announced across-the-board increases for entry-level employees.
Nonetheless, California business and labor representatives agreed that the Senate’s proposed new wage hike, which passed the Senate Monday on a party-line vote of 23 to 15, with Republicans opposed, is likely to face a tougher fight in the Assembly.
The Assembly has 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans. But that does not guarantee a party-line vote on the bill, which must pass through two Assembly committees before reaching the floor this summer.
“A moderate Democratic caucus has emerged in the Assembly because of California’s open primary system,” said Bryan Starr, senior vice president of government affairs for the Orange County Business Council. “They are defenders of small business.”
Among the leaders of the so-called “Mod-Dem” caucus is Anaheim’s Tom Daly, the only Democrat in Orange County’s delegation. Daly declined to comment.
Steve Smith, a spokesman for the California Labor Federation, said that given staunch Republican opposition to any minimum-wage hike, “It’s going to come down to the caucus of moderate Democrats. With the Chamber of Commerce labeling it a ‘job-killer,’ (the bill) is going to be challenging to pass.”
Proponents argue that raising the minimum wage will save taxpayers money, since workers earning low wages will be less reliant on publicly funded health care, food stamps and other welfare programs.
“It is time that we make it illegal to pay subpoverty wages in California,” Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, the bill’s author, said during Monday’s floor debate.
A study last month by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Kennedy Commission, an Irvine nonprofit, found that Orange County is among the nation’s 10 most expensive counties for renters, with a worker needing to earn $30.92 an hour to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment.
In California, 3.6 million workers earn less than $12 an hour, and 5.1 million make below $15 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A spokesman for the bureau said no county-level numbers are available for minimum-wage earners.
Boosting the minimum wage to $13 would save the state more than $2 billion between 2016 and 2018, according to a report by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. That’s because fewer workers would need state-paid health care but would pay more in income and sales taxes.
However, Starr said a minimum-wage hike would adversely affect the tourist industry – “a big deal in Orange County. It is misguided to think every (minimum-wage) worker will get an increase. A business which now has three employees may only be able to afford two.”
Several Orange County Assembly members echoed the sentiment.
“The bill is almost universally opposed by my constituents,” said Donald Wagner, R-Irvine, who plans to vote against it. “Now is not the time to make hiring someone more difficult.”
He expects the bill to pass, he said, but is hoping that Gov. Jerry Brown will not sign it.
“I’m hoping the governor will realize that we just had a minimum-wage increase and this might not be the time to hurt businesses and workers.”
Matthew Harper, R-Huntington Beach, another opponent, said, “A lot of my constituents are business owners. They are being forced to evaluate whether California is the best place for them to do business.”
William P. Brough, R-Dana Point, said he is leaning against the increase.
“My constituents that have contacted my office are against the bill and our chambers of commerce have communicated their opposition as well,” he said.
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