Living Wage Win In SF Revives Debate
Election Stirs Up Local Controversy Over Wages for Workers
Santa Monica Daily Press - November 6, 2003
By John Wood

With voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passing an aggressive minimum wage ordinance in San Francisco, local officials on both sides of the debate over what’s billed as a living wage in Santa Monica are preparing to butt heads once again.

Supporters said the election demonstrates the national campaign for a living wage is moving forward. Opponents reiterated their commitment to fighting any new ordinance and said San Francisco’s law is different because it’s aimed at all businesses.

A measure defeated in Santa Monica last fall targeted large beachfront businesses.

Under the new San Francisco ordinance, virtually all businesses will be required to pay workers at least $8.50 an hour. The law, which makes the city the third in the country to establish its own base wage, passed with 60 percent of the vote.

Vivian Rothstein of Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, a local organization promoting the living wage, applauded the vote and said her group is currently researching a new ordinance to bring to the City Council in January.

“We’re very heartened by the San Francisco experience,” Rothstein said. “We’d heard about that campaign and we knew there was quite a bit of opposition to it from the business community so we’re very excited that it prevailed. I think that as the economy has weakened more people have felt economically vulnerable and so they have more identification with the need for this living wage concept.”

Rothstein said the exact form of the new living wage proposal is still being decided. A group of 15 organization members is studying why the previous ordinance failed and what tactics defeated it.

“We’re right in the midst of that discussion,” she said. “I don’t think there’s going to be a huge change but we are discussing every aspect of the ordinance and going over it.”

The Santa Monica measure, called JJ on the November 2002 ballot, was narrowly defeated. It would have required businesses along the beach grossing over $5 million each year to pay workers between $10.50 and $12.25 an hour depending on their level of benefits.

The San Francisco law sets a lower requirement. But it doesn’t exempt small businesses and isn’t targeted at a certain geographical area of the city. Opponents cite these distinctions in contending the time hasn’t come to raise the issue again in Santa Monica.

“This is not San Francisco,” said Seth Jacobsen, a spokesman for the “No on JJ” campaign. “San Francisco is a much different situation. They had a far greater base of businesses ... It was a fairer distribution. Santa Monica’s living wage ordinance was really a punitive slap at hotels, primarily, and the restaurant owners.

“The voters spoke. They weren’t in favor if it,” he added. “The city is facing a huge deficit. Now is not a time to be working on a living wage. Now is a time to work together, cooperatively, to resolve the issues related to wages.”

Jacobsen said the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce has been reaching out to local merchants and educating its members about activity in support of the living wage. Since the living wage was defeated last fall, some businesses have voluntarily raised wages and others have agreed to let their workers organize, which would make them exempt under the failed ordinance and presumably also under the new one, Jacobsen said.

On the flip side, other businesses are laying off employees, and all are struggling with a funky economy. Some are having to consider limiting their hours of operation to stay under the $5 million threshold under which the living wage would kick in, Jacobsen added.

“There’s all kind of defections going on in the business community and to throw this into the mix I think is a real mistake,” he said.

California’s hourly minimum wage is $6.75. The federal requirement is $5.15, an amount which was apparently intended for single workers. It is far below the federal poverty level for a full-time minimum wage earner with a family.

The Tuesday vote makes San Francisco the third city in the nation to set its own wage threshold. Supporters now hope to build momentum for similar measures in other cities. One such effort, in Madison, Wisc., may appear on a ballot in March.

In Washington, DC, workers are already guaranteed $1 more than the federal minimum, which Congress last raised in 1997. Earlier this year in New Mexico, the Santa Fe City Council set a local minimum wage of $8.50 for all businesses with at least 25 employees.

San Francisco’s measure is more ambitious because it doesn’t exempt small businesses from the mandate. The new wage takes effect in 90 days for large for-profit businesses, and will be phased in over two years for nonprofit organizations and firms with fewer than 10 employees.

Supporters estimated that 27,000 San Francisco workers who currently earn below $8.50-an-hour would directly benefit. The measure was opposed by the restaurant industry, which said it amounts to a job-killing raise for waiters who already earn tips.

City contractors are already required to pay their employees an hourly “living wage” of $9 for nonprofits and $10.25 for for-profit companies.

Some local officials said the difference between the San Francisco and Santa Monica measures is substantial.

“That’s what they’re passing as a living wage? It’s a big difference,” said City Councilman Herb Katz, who bucked the majority on City Council by not supporting Measure JJ. The City Council originally passed the law but later put it before voters, who rejected it.

Katz said he wants workers to earn a decent wage but said it would take a lot for him to switch his position.

“Here we go again,” Katz said. “Unless they revise the thing entirely and make it reasonable and make it citywide. And even then I’m going to wonder, ‘Are we competing with other cities and being fair to businesses?’”

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)