[PEN-L:9019] Re: LA Living Wage Passes!

[Robert Pollin <pollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here are the basics on the LA Living Wage ordinance.

        It sets a minimum wage of $7.25 for employees of three types:

        1.  Those working on city contracts.  Only the workers on the
contract itself are affected.  The initial provision--and the one we
estimated--included all workers at firms with city contracts.  Obviously,
this was a big concession to scale back coverage that way.  It also makes it
much more difficult and expensive to monitor the provision.

        2.  Workers at firms receiving city subsidies of over $100,000 per
year or over $1 million total.

        3.  Workers at firms having city concessions, like at the airport,
or harbour.

        In addition, if any workers below $8.50 an hour do not have health
coverage, the companies will have to either get them coverage or pay them a
wage of $8.50.

        Finally, there are a significant number of vacation/sick days
included, I think something like 11 in the final version.

        As I mentioned, the direct impact is small, i.e. about 5,000
workers.  But it should also push wage norms up, as we stated openly in our
study.  Certainly within the affected firms, you will now have some workers
getting $7.25 for doing the same work as someone getting $5.75.  The $5.75
workers will have a good case for a raise.  So, in fact, will the current
$7.25 workers and up.  We estimated "wage contour" effects for workers up to
$11.50.  In this case, the indirect breadth of coverage will be much wider.
We'll see.

        Several people have asked me for copies of our study.  I appreciate
the interest.  But it is about 150 pages long.  The LA Living Wage coalition
has been sending them out, but they might be reluctant to keep doing so
after the fact.  You can reach them at <tidcla@xxxxxxxx>  I am also going to
follow up on Anders' suggestion and look into putting it on the web, or
accept his invitation to do so.

        Anyway, it is a tremendous victory, especially given the virulent
opposition of business and the mayor.

-- Bob Pollin

        At 01:34 PM 3/19/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Bob,
>
>Can you give us more information about this.  What does the ordinance do?
>What is in the report you refer to?
>
>Thanks.
>
>>Posted on 18 Mar 1997 at 20:15:49 by TELEC List Distributor (011802)
>>
>>[PEN-L:9004] LA Living Wage Passes!
>>
>>Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 17:14:23 -0800 (PST)
>>Reply-To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>From: Robert Pollin <pollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>To: Multiple recipients of list <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>>        Finally, some very good news for the left and labor movement.  After
>>a long, bitter struggle, the LA Living Wage ordinance passed 12 - 0, with
>>three abstensions.  Mayor Richard Riordan had promised to veto the
>>ordinance, but with a 12-vote majority, the ordinance is now veto proof!
>>
>>        Though the coverage is still very small--directly probably about
>>5,000 workers--it should help unions to fight for new wage norms throughout
>>the city.
>>
>>        This victory was the result of an extremely well organized and
>>effective labor/progressive coalition.  Several people at UC-Riverside,
>>including me, worked with the coalition in producing research, including a
>>full scale study, "The Economics of the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance."
>>
>>        There are great lessons here about what it takes to win something
>>worthwhile.  One thing is that well-supported appeals to social justice
>>really can be effective at the local level, where the dominance of big money
>>corporate politics is far less pervasive--even in a big city like LA.
>>
>>-- Bob Pollin
>>
>>********************************************
>>
>>Robert Pollin
>>Department of Economics
>>Univesity of California-Riverside
>>Riverside, CA 92521-0427
>>(909) 787-5037, ext 1579 (office); (909) 788-8106 (home)
>>(909) 787-5685 (fax); Pollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx (e-mail)
>
>Marsh Feldman                               Phone: 401/874-5953
>Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall           FAX: 401/874-5511
>The University of Rhode Island           Internet: marsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Kingston, RI 02881-0815
>
>

********************************************

Robert Pollin
Department of Economics
Univesity of California-Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
(909) 787-5037, ext 1579 (office); (909) 788-8106 (home)
(909) 787-5685 (fax); Pollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx (e-mail)