A Matter of Simple Fairness

Union activists join "living-wage" campaign to demand better pay for the working poor.

By Jimmie Turner

Over the decades, the labor movement singularly has pressed Congress to enact laws — regarding minimum wage and pensions, for example — that apply to all workers, not just union members. And AFSCME continues that noble legacy of seeking fairness and prosperity to narrow the still-growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

In fact, the International helped to pioneer what is now the nation's grassroots living-wage campaign. In 1996, AFSCME teamed up with advocates for working families in Baltimore to establish the nation's first-ever living-wage law.

Urban women and minorities languish disproportionately at the low end of the nation's wage scale. They constitute a large class of workers who haven't prospered from the economic boom of the 1990s, and nowadays they're struggling harder to make ends meet because the economy has been mired in a deep slump since 2000.

Union members are exempt from a majority of local ordinances because — compared to non-union workers — they already enjoy pre-mium wages and benefits. That's why AFSCME and numerous other advocates view their campaign as a moral obligation to raise the income standard for every worker in America. Their conviction: Taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used to subsidize poverty-level jobs.

In addition to laying down the challenge for broader acceptance of living wages in 1996, AFSCME was demanding a higher national minimum wage. That October, thanks in part to efforts by AFSCME and other unions, President Clinton (D) signed a bill that increased the wage from $4.25 an hour to the current rate of $5.15. Recently, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) — with support from AFSCME — introduced legislation in both houses of Congress to raise the minimum wage to $7 per hour.

POWER OF POLITICS. Ten years ago in Baltimore, custodial workers — many of them with families to support — were scraping by on $5.50 an hour. AFSCME joined the church based group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development to help pass a municipal ordinance that increased their wages to $6.10 in 1996, $7.70 in 1999 and $8.20 in 2000. The new living-wage law had forced private employers who receive contracts or tax benefits from the city to pay their workers more than the federally mandated minimum.

The Green Machine used its strong relationships with Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and city council Pres. Mary Pat Clarke to push the law through. With active support, the International had helped to propel what is now a nationwide living-wage campaign.

Baltimore's decree is the blueprint for dozens of American cities and counties (see table below). Some localities have expanded on it and the results have been startling. In 1997, Los Angeles lawmakers passed the first ordinance that includes health care costs; six years later in Santa Fe, N.M., officials approved an original measure that applies to the entire private sector — not just municipal contractors. San Francisco has followed suit.

In February 2003, the city council of Santa Fe overwhelmingly passed a landmark ordinance. It orders all private-sector employers with a minimum of 25 employees — which obviously includes stingy Wal-Mart — to pay them $8.50 an hour, with a jump to $9.50 in 2006 and $10.50 in 2008. After that, the wage may be adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.

All but seven states now have living wage ordinances or campaigns. With activity in so many states, employers will find it difficult to avoid the issue by relocating.

AFSCME activists' political clout is currently having an impact on other living-wage campaigns. In May, the San Diego city council's rules committee voted 3 to 1 to send the proposal to the full council, which is nearing a decision on an ordinance. Joan Raymond, president of San Diego Local 127 (Council 36), believes that moving the measure out of the conservative committee was the biggest hurdle: "Now, due to our efforts getting labor-friendly council members elected to the council, we think we have enough votes to pass the law."

In Santa Fe, where lawmakers voted 7 to 1 in favor of a living-wage ordinance, Carol Oppenheimer, co-chair of the city's Living Wage Network, notes that "We have a very liberal city council, partially because of the excellent work that AFSCME's done in terms of getting involved with the electoral process."

Opposition to the city's living wage has even cost a veteran state senator his seat: Democrat Roman Maes, who represents Santa Fe's District 25, was defeated in the party primary last June after 20 years of service.

POVERTY FIGHTERS. In both of those cities — where the cost of living and the gap between the wealthy and the poor are higher than the national averages — sympathetic AFSCME members have come off the sidelines to participate in efforts to lift the wage floor for all working families.

Declares San Diego's Raymond: "Every chance I get with the city council, I bring up the living wage and the contracting out that's going on. It's ludicrous: They are using taxpayer dollars to send jobs to companies that are exploiting workers by paying poverty-level wages — in a city where the median price of a home is $500,000."

Several of her union colleagues teamed up with the San Diego Living Wage Coalition — established by the Center for Policy Initiatives — to force lawmakers to enact an ordinance that would pay $9 an hour, rising to $10 after one year, to workers at private companies that provide city services.

Activists from AFSCME Local 127, churches, the business community, and colleges and universities have repeatedly demonstrated at the downtown Civic Center Plaza — where the city council convenes — to raise public awareness for a living wage. "There's certainly a moral price to pay when you're promoting the lowest wages for work that city employees should be doing in the first place," Raymond insists. "How can the city, in good conscience, promote jobs that are paying $7 an hour in one of the most expensive places to live in terms of housing and high gas prices?"

NOWHERE TO RUN. In Santa Fe, Robert Chavez can see that many low-wage residents have a dilemma: Because they can't afford to live in the city, they're forced to move as far as 50 miles away and commute to work. Add in the costs of fuel and wear and tear on their vehicles, and the situation becomes direr. Says Chavez, president of Local 3999 (Council 18), "It's like a Catch-22: You can't win for losing."

In 2001, the Santa Fe Living Wage Network was launched. It consists of supporters from labor, local churches and Somos Un Pueblo Unido (We Are A United People), which represents immigrant workers.

Recalls Carol Oppenheimer of the cry for fairness: "Economic factors were creating a larger divide between the very rich and the very poor in our community. There was a sense that if we had a decent standard of living for everybody, it was going to benefit all workers."

In addition to testifying before the city council, coalition partners sent out fliers, held rallies at city hall, sponsored parades from churches to the parks and downtown, and openly discussed the issue with anyone who would listen.

Faced with the 2003 ordinance, the local chamber of commerce and some business moguls filed a lawsuit opposing it, calling it unconstitutional. In June, a state district judge ruled against them, and the measure went into effect immediately. Says Chavez: "There are a lot of happy people."

NOT EXACTLY. Critics of the living-wage concept contend that increasing pay for this purpose would lead to inflation, increase unemployment and/or force employers to move their operations to other communities. Labor economists dispute those claims.

Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute compiled research that found no evidence of job loss, while citing statistics proving that cost hikes for cities adopting living-wage rules were less than the rate of inflation. "The ordinances also have the potential to counteract the destructive race to the bottom, as cities try to undercut each other," he explains.

Bernstein concludes overall that living wages are "exactly what the doctor ordered to counteract some of the negative economic trends affecting low-wage workers. They force some redistribution of economic resources to those whose boats haven't been lifted by the rising economic tide, and they do so without creating distortions in the local economy."

Yet Joan Raymond says much more work remains to be done if all workers are to share in the nation's prosperity: "There are a lot of people who do not even realize that this is happening to workers, and it's our job to educate them.

"That's what this living-wage campaign has been about: to bring people out of ignorance as to how the workforce is being exploited."

Raising the Wage Floor

The following is a sample of municipalities that have adopted living-wage ordinances: