After
twenty-six years as a home health care aide and housecleaner, Bertie Caraway is
living paycheck to paycheck, earning $7.49 per hour in New York
City (Ciezadlo 2001). Across the
country, forty-six-year-old Emma Franklin has taken on a second job to make
ends meet. As a full-time worker at the Blue Diamond almond plant in Sacramento, California, Franklin earns
$11.16 per hour. But with the high cost of living in the state, Franklin also has
to work as a part-time retail clerk, for $6.25 per hour. Between the two jobs, Franklin makes
about $28,000 a year, which leaves her little for savings or extras, and very
little free time (Furillo 2001).
Caraway and
Franklin represent a growing part of the "new economy" workforce.
While the U.S. economy
enjoyed its long period of expansion in the 1990s, record profits rarely
resulted in wage increases, leaving millions of workers in poverty. In fact, by
the end of the decade, over one in four workers did not earn an hourly wage
high enough to bring themselves and their families up to the federal poverty
line.
Meanwhile, the "New
Voices" leadership of the AFL-CIO, elected in 1995, strategized
about how to organize some of these victims of the new economy. In 1997 the AFL-CIO Executive Council
embraced the growing living wage movement, calling on its affiliates and labor
councils to help pass local ordinances designed to raise the minimum wage for
selected workers. By that point, a number of locals had already been engaged in
campaigns in their cities, working with community organizations to build
support for the concept. The AFL-CIO saw
the potential of the movement to build contact with unorganized workers and to
raise wage standards for all.
Now, seven
years after the first living wage campaign was launched in Baltimore, and with
over seventy-five ordinances on the books, we can assess the relationship
between labor and the living wage movement.
Labor has been an active and increasingly important player in campaigns
around the country. In a few places, this has resulted in direct organizing
gains or wage increases for already unionized workers. But even where this
isn't the case, the labor movement has benefited greatly from the movement,
through the development of new community alliances and the creation of an
environment supportive of workers’ rights in general.
What is a Living Wage?
Although
the current living wage movement began in the early 1990s, the term living wage
has been used in this country for more than a century. In the early 1900s,
workers, clergy, and unionists fought to establish state and federal minimum
wage laws that would set wage standards at an amount that provided workers
enough income to live on. The federal minimum wage was established in 1938, but
it did not include automatic adjustment for inflation. As a result, it takes an
Act of Congress to raise the minimum wage.
In the
1980s, the minimum wage was only raised two times. By the early 1990s, the real
value of the minimum wage was far below the amount needed to raise a worker
with a family to the federal poverty line. Because there was so much resistance
to raising the national minimum wage, activists turned to the local level in an
effort to win higher wage standards for some workers. In most cases, local
living wage ordinances are passed by city councils; in a few cities, the
ordinances have been won through ballot initiatives.
There is no
consensus on the actual value of the living wage, but all advocates agree: it
should be much higher than the current minimum wage. In some cities, the living
wage has been set at the hourly amount needed to raise a worker with a family
of three or four to the poverty line. In others, activists have won wages up to
120 percent of the federal poverty line. By pegging the rate to the poverty
level, the amount is guaranteed to rise with inflation. Unfortunately, even
poverty level wages cannot be considered a living wage, as most experts agree
that the poverty measurement is an unrealistic measure of the cost of living.
To account for this, a number of ordinances include other benefits as a way to
raise the value. For example, covered employers in Burlington, Vermont, must pay
workers $9.90 an hour and provide health benefits, or pay $11.68 an hour if
health benefits are not provided. Cumberland
County, New Jersey, just
passed the first ordinance to also include a pension plan requirement.
Living wage
ordinances differ from the minimum wage not only in the wage level but the
coverage. The federal minimum wage applies to all employees of enterprises that
do at least $500,000 in business a year and to employees of smaller firms if
the employees are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods
for commerce, with a number of exemptions. Living wage ordinances, which differ
from city to city, cover only those categories of work specified in the
agreement. The most common form of living wage ordinance covers private sector
firms that hold service contracts with the city. Ordinances may also cover city, county,
university and school board employees, firms receiving economic development
subsidies from the city, firms operating concessions on city-owned land (such
as retail or food service in an airport), subcontractors of covered firms,
and/or firms leasing land from the city. In all these cases, the living wage
applies only to those workers directly working on the contract or subsidized
site.
In February
2002, 63 percent of New Orleans residents
voted to pass a referendum backed by ACORN establishing a citywide minimum wage
at one dollar above the federal wage.
Although the measure will be challenged in court, New
Orleans became the second city to have a
citywide minimum wage (Washington D.C. was the
first). In summer 2001, the city of Santa
Monica, California, became
the first to pass a living wage ordinance not tied to the reception of public
money. That city's law applies to all large employers (primarily hotel,
restaurant, and retail) in their downtown tourist zone. Whether other cities
will be able to pass this new form of geographic-based ordinance remains to be
seen, but Santa Monica's victory,
over well-funded and persistent opposition from the business community,
inspired many others to think about new kinds of living wage ordinances.
Unions Get on
Board
Since the
first campaign in Baltimore, unions
have played a significant role in the living wage movement. When members of the
organization Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) approached
the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
about working together, AFSCME quickly agreed, recognizing "a real
mutuality of interests," according to regional organizer Kim Keller
(Bureau of National Affairs 1995). The
living wage ordinance made sense because Baltimore, like other cities, had
"made a practice of awarding lucrative service contracts to private
contractors, turning a blind eye when the contractor paid poorly and trying to
cope when low-wage workers turned to food stamps, publicly financed health
care, and their costly assistance" (Bureau of National Affairs 1995). AFSCME saw that a living wage ordinance could
discourage the city from further privatization efforts. In addition, living
wage campaigns can build new alliances, support labor issues, provide raises
for already unionized workers, or support new organizing.
New Allies
Perhaps the
most important factor in pushing labor to get involved in living wage campaigns
has been the chance to build alliances with new groups. This has been
especially important for central labor councils who are trying to increase
their visibility in their communities. Southern
Arizona Central Labor Council President Ian Robertson
commented on his role in the Tucson campaign,
"I'm tired of being called a labor boss, and that we're only interested in
collecting dues. Here was an opportunity for labor to be a community
partner" (Luce 2001a). In the Tucson case, the
labor council served as a coanchor of the living wage
campaign, along with the Pima County Interfaith Council. As part of the effort,
labor council members paired up with congregation members to go door to door on
a Living Wage Walk in Tucson
neighborhoods.
Some
Internationals have also realized the value of the movement for building common
ground. In the summer of 2001, the Communications Workers of America's (CWA)
National Committee on Equity recommended that the CWA leadership and locals
promote living wage campaigns, in part to "build and sustain permanent and
powerful community, labor and religious coalitions" (CWA Civil Rights
Department 2001).
On the
local level, unions that haven't traditionally worked together are seeing the
value of living wage coalitions to advance a broad agenda, including labor
rights. In Sonoma County, California, a coalition has developed that includes
active participation from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Carpenters, as well
as the Greens and such groups as the Sonoma County Conservation Action, Sonoma
County Peace and Justice Center, Housing Advocacy Group and Mujeres
Unidas.
According to Marty Bennett, a lead organizer on the campaign, a recent
political failure for organized labor may have been the trigger for seeking
these new alliances: “A year ago we lost
on a four-three vote at the Santa Rosa City Council for a comprehensive project
labor agreement [guaranteeing that all construction would be done by union
labor] and card check neutrality on a new hotel and conference center
constructed with city redevelopment monies. Many in the building trades, I
think, see that the living wage coalition can become a vehicle to build support
in the community for "high road/social equity" local economic
development projects.”
John Walsh
of the Carpenters and Steve Benjamin of the electricians (IBEW) agree. Walsh and Benjamin both see the value in
building a broad coalition that "sets a tone of justice in the
workplace". Within the labor movement and particularly the building
trades, some cultural and ideological adjustments are required for working in
broad coalitions. Walsh admits that many in the building trades are more
conservative along some dimensions than some of their coalition partners, and
they have a different tradition of political participation. For example, many
unionists have relied on developing close relationships with elected officials
to get legislation passed, whereas other community groups resort to outside
pressure tactics. In a number of
campaigns tension occurred when unionists were trying to set up meetings with
council members to lobby for the living wage, while other members of the
coalition were "denouncing those Council members as capitalist pigs"
at public meetings. Despite the tensions, Benjamin comments, "Anytime you
can establish new relationships like this, it's a good thing."
Supporting
Labor Issues
In a number
of cities, living wage coalitions are active supporters of local labor
struggles. For example, the campaign to win living wage legislation in Pittsburgh took four
years. But the coalition used that time to educate and reach out, and to
connect living wage to numerous labor campaigns. The Western Pennsylvania
Living Wage Campaign joined the fight against a Nabisco plant closing in 1998
and helped find a new buyer, saving 350 union jobs. It helped pressure Marriott into a card
check/neutrality agreement for a new Pittsburgh hotel,
resulting in 150 new members for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
union (HERE). Similarly, the Syracuse Living Wage Coalition helped 950 workers
at Community General Hospital win card check with SEIU 1199 Upstate (Cassagne 2001).
In a few
areas, living wage activists have been involved in the movement against
corporate globalization, calling on world leaders to consider worker rights in
any trade agreement. Members of the Providence Living Wage campaign attended
the Free Trade Area of the Americas’ (FTAA)
protests in Quebec City in April
2001, while living wage activists in cities such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Knoxville, and Tucson held
support rallies on the same day.
Winning
Raises for Organized Workers
Beyond
showing up for picket lines, a number of living wage campaigns have furthered
the cause of organized workers in other concrete ways. When Alexandria, Virginia, passed
its living wage law, the ordinance resulted in raises for parking lot
attendants at city-owned lots, represented by HERE. The union had only been able to win wages of
about $7 per hour, which was higher than the wage paid to other parking lot
attendants in the area but still below a living wage. With the ordinance in
place, wages jumped to $10.21 an hour. Similarly, in Chicago, living
wage advocates made sure that city's ordinance covered home health care workers
represented by SEIU Local 880. The ordinance gave those workers raises from
$5.30 to $7.60 an hour. This may raise the question for some of the necessity
of unions. If the ordinance can win raises that unions couldn't, why should
workers bother with a union? This will be
discussed in more detail later on. For
the most part, however, workers do not have a hard time seeing that the
ordinance on its own is not sufficient. It takes a union to win health and
safety protections, pension plans, and grievance procedures; a union can also
help implement living wage ordinances.
The
statewide Livable Wage Campaign in Vermont has
provided support to employees in contract negotiations. School support staff
(including bus drivers, paraeducators, custodians,
and kitchen staff) represented by the National Education Association (NEA)
start as low as $6.17, and many need to take on a second or third job to
survive. They have built a contract
campaign around the demand for a livable wage ($9 or $10 per hour, plus health
benefits). According to NEA organizer Jason Winston, the campaigns have used
livable wage language "at the table, in petitions, going to the school
board, buttons in school, calls from parents to board members, and newspaper
ads." Gains for the already organized can be won on campus as well. In
fact, a sit-in by the Harvard University living
wage campaign in the spring of 2001 called for raises for some workers
currently represented by HERE and SEIU, as well as a call to bring
subcontracted service work back in-house and back into the union.
New
Organizing
This raises
the question of how to use the campaigns to support new organizing. Ideally,
living wage ordinances would also include card check/neutrality agreements for
all employers covered by the laws. But the National Labor Relations Act
prevents cities or states from requiring this outright. Instead, campaigns are
relying on a precedent that has allowed some cities to require card check or
neutrality on a contract or development project if it can be shown that without
such an agreement, strikes or labor disputes on that project would jeopardize
the city's investment. Using this logic,
a handful of cities have passed a weak form of neutrality clause in their
ordinances, known as a labor peace provision that allows cities to deny
contracts or subsidies to firms with poor labor relations history.
Other
ordinances give preference on handing out economic development monies to
businesses that "engage in responsible labor relations." In Minneapolis and St. Paul, responsible
is defined as "neutrality on union organizing, providing a complete and
accurate list of names and addresses of employees, reasonable access to
employees and facilities during nonworking periods, voluntary recognition based
on card-check demonstrating that a union represents a majority of employees in
a bargaining unit, and binding arbitration on the first contract." In Los
Angeles County and Omaha, Nebraska, labor was
able to win language that prohibits the use of county money for antiunion
activities.
Then there
is the union opt-out or collective bargaining supercession
clause. This allows wage and benefit levels set by collective bargaining
agreement to supercede the living wage ordinance if both the employer and union
agree. The provision is included to give unions some flexibility in
negotiations. Workers may be happy to take a lower wage in exchange for more
benefits and the job stability that come with a union contract. Others argue,
however, that when unions opt out of the living wage, it undermines the
movement's demand that this wage is necessary for survival. It does seem that the tactic can be easily
used against the movement.
A number of
ordinances also contain language that explicitly prohibits employers from
disciplining or firing workers who "exercise their rights" under the
living wage law. This can aid union organizing efforts, because workers who
speak out about their right to join a union will be protected from firing if
they are also speaking about their right to receive a living wage.
What does
the record show? To date, the efforts to
use ordinance language to assist directly new organizing has only resulted in
modest gains. For example, the neutrality clause in the Santa
Cruz ordinance led to a card check agreement with an
antiunion employer of paratransit workers (who provide transportation services
for persons with disabilities) .
Subsequently, the 150 workers won a contract with United Transportation
Union Local 23. In addition, the
campaign also won a card check agreement with the city to cover its 550
nonunion temporary workers, who are now represented by SEIU Local 415. When the campaign moved to the county level,
it quickly won a card check resolution to cover another 550 temporary workers
with the county. Most recently, the
campaign won an agreement from the county’s Board of Supervisors to set aside
$700,000 in their budget, for the purpose of granting wage increases to home
health care workers through collective bargaining. This adds leverage to the current SEIU campaign
to organize the home health care workers.
In Los
Angeles and Santa
Monica, SEIU and HERE have been able to use the opt-out
clause and the antiretaliation clause to assist
organizing drives, some of which have resulted in victory. For example, the campaign
won a long battle against antiunion Argenbright
Security last year. Argenbright had been refusing to
recognize SEIU as the bargaining representative of baggage screeners, and they
had fired a worker who asked about the living wage. The city council continually called on Argenbright to stop their antiunion activities and
eventually pressured the company via United Airlines. The council agreed to
renew United's lease with the airport only if it
would take responsibility for making sure its subcontractors stopped their
retaliation against living wage and union organizers and abided by the city's
living wage ordinance. Eventually, Argenbright agreed
to neutrality, and workers voted overwhelmingly to have SEIU Local 1877
represent them.
Greater
success has come in indirect organizing victories, where the campaign has in
some way spurred a new drive or assisted an existing one. For example, after
the city of Tucson passed a
living wage law, nonunion city workers began to demand that they too receive
higher wages. Eventually, 1,500 workers
won recognition by the CWA and a first contract with the city (Luce
2001b). Local organizer Rolando Figueroa
asserts that the CWA campaign might never have happened without the living wage
campaign, because the campaign and the victory gave workers confidence to take
on the challenge of a union drive.
Other
organizing drives related to living wage campaigns are also ongoing. The Sacramento campaign
has helped the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union launch a drive at a local recycling plant, where a city contractor is
paying some of its employees minimum wage. Similarly, in Alexandria, Virginia, the
coalition is assisting an effort by the Amalgamated Transit Union to organize
city bus drivers. The Vermont NEA has also incorporated living wage work into
new organizing. In a few cities,
momentum from the living wage campaign has led to success in winning card check
or neutrality agreements from employers or city agencies. For example, the San
Francisco coalition won card check
requirements for airport contractors from the Airport Commission. As a result,
more than 2,000 workers have organized in the last few years into SEIU,
Teamsters, Machinists, and United Food and Commercial Workers locals.
To date,
living wage campaigns have not turned out to be the most effective channel for
organizing large numbers of workers directly into unions. But Chris Owens,
director of Public Policy for the AFL-CIO, believes there is still an important
connection between the movement and the AFL-CIO's "right to organize"
campaign. "Working together in living wage campaigns helps create a
climate more supportive of workers' rights generally, and more conducive to
winning the even greater protections that unionization provides for workers,"
Owens states.
Challenges
These
inspiring examples are not meant to suggest that the relationship between labor
and the living wage movement is all positive. In fact, in some cases unions
have actively opposed living wage campaigns. Some organizers have noted that
the ordinances can be a disincentive to organize: why join a union if you get
wage increases through city laws? Others
have opposed efforts because they fear that the ordinances would result in higher
contract prices, requiring the city to pay more to contractors and have less
available to fund higher wages for workers under city union contract. The most
notorious example of this can be found in the current New York
City campaign, where AFSCME District Council 37 (DC 37)
has gone on record opposing the proposal. "We believe those costs should
be borne by the city contractors," states DC 37 spokesperson Chris Policano. "It shouldn't cost the city extra money to
do business with these organizations" (Greenhouse 2001).
Fortunately,
union opposition to the movement seems to be on the decline, as more in the
labor movement see the potential benefits of the campaigns. While a number of
examples show that living wage campaigns can result in successful union
organizing, there is no evidence that winning an ordinance has been a
disincentive for workers to join unions. And while the ideal solution is for
city contractors to bear the costs of paying a living wage, unions should not
be afraid to call on the city to pay higher costs for services in order to
ensure that all workers receive living wages.
Of course,
the more serious opposition to the movement comes from employers. Most visible
are the business-funded think tanks, the Employment Policies Institute and the
Employment Policy Foundation. In
addition, a host of employer associations, from chambers of commerce to the
National Licensed Beverage Association, are also working to oppose the laws.
Initially,
the employers’ main argument was that the initiatives would result in massive
job loss. When the evidence didn't bear out their claims, they tried to defeat
the movement by suggesting it was a union plot. For example, minimum wage and
living wage critic David Neumark claims that public
sector unions are the driving force of the movement, in an effort to save jobs
from privatization and protect themselves from low-wage workers (Neumark 2001). Think tanks and conservative pundits object
to "union self-interest" (Employment Policies Institute online) and
"union oversight of the movement" (Employment Policies Foundation).
So far,
however, these opponents have been unable, for the most part, to stop the
growing support for ordinances on the local level. As a result, they have taken
their fight to the state level, where business lobbyists often have more power
and money than community activists. These lobbyists are pressuring states to
pass laws that prohibit any local living wage ordinance. Utah passed
such a law last year, and Oregon, Missouri, Arizona, and South
Carolina have passed state laws prohibiting
municipalities from setting their own minimum wage.
Living Wages
in a Recession?
Living wage
activists have fought off many state laws that would prohibit living wage
ordinances and have defeated employer opposition enough to continue winning campaigns. But perhaps the greatest challenge for the
movement is the current recession, especially in a post-September 11th
world. Some of the workers covered by
living wage ordinances were among the first to be laid off, including hotel
workers in Santa Monica and
airport workers in San Francisco. The Omaha City Council repealed that city's
law in October, citing a budget shortfall.
But despite
the recession, the living wage movement has not yet showed signs of slowing
down. More ordinances were passed in
2001 than in any previous year. Eight ordinances were passed after September
11, and a number of campaigns were launched since the attacks. The city of Boston recently
raised its living wage amount, from $9.11 to $10.25, in order to have a wage
consistent with the level of the Cambridge ordinance
and the level demanded by the Harvard campaign. "In uncertain times we
should be stimulating the economy in the right way," Mayor Menino remarked. "That means investing in our
workers" (Boston Globe 2001).
Support
built in the living wage campaign has provided workers with some momentum to
pass measures to weather the recession. In Santa
Monica, hotel owners have been laying off large numbers of
hotel workers in the last few months. Concerned that living wage and union
supporters were being targeted for layoffs, the city council unanimously passed
a city ordinance requiring employers to show proper cause when firing any
worker who had advocated for a living wage in the previous sixty days. The
council is also pursuing legislation that would grant these workers, even the
nonunion ones, preference for recall when the economy improves. In Santa
Cruz, campaign coordinator Sandy Brown believes that the
living wage movement has given workers the strength to respond to any city
budget cuts that might happen. "We
can make sure cuts aren't made in a way that forces down the wages of low-wage
workers, or that cuts out workers at the low end."
Interestingly, the September 11th attacks on the World
Trade Center
brought the issue of contracting to public attention. In a November 2001 front
page New York Times story, David Firestone wrote about the implications
of privatization of airport workers over the past two decades: “ [A]s the
airlines sought to cut costs and award security contracts to the lowest bidder,
screening companies began what many in the industry call a race to the bottom,
hiring employees at the lowest possible wage and cutting corners to keep
checkpoints manned, with turnover approaching 400 percent a year in some
airports.”
Poor
working conditions are getting attention, and, suddenly, it is taken for
granted that paying low wages leads to a dissatisfied workforce. Labor should capitalize on the current mood. Right now there’s wide sympathy for the idea
that at least some public workers should be paid decent wages, and that
contracting trends need a second look. Furthermore, the time is ripe to push
forward the notion that living wage policies are exactly the kind of economic
stimulus that the country needs. The extent to which the labor movement can do
this remains to be seen, but perhaps labor's new allies from living wage
struggles can help lead the way.
Although
the recession will likely have some impact on the living wage movement, some of
the gains cannot be taken away—specifically, the new relationships built
through the campaigns. In city after
city, labor and community activists note that the living wage movement has
brought them together in new and sustainable ways. As Sandy Brown from the Santa Cruz campaign
says, "It's definitely a lasting alliance."
NOTES
Boston Globe. 2001.
"City Contract Workers in Line for Raise." October 31, p. B2.
Bureau of National Affairs. 1995.
"AFSCME, Church Group Sponsor Workers' Organization in Baltimore." BNA
Special Report, No. 1, Jan. 3: C1–C2.
Cassagne, Bryan. “Living Wage Ordinances = Union Organizing”
Updated August 22, 2001.
Greater New Orleans Labor Council web site, http://www.gnoaflcio.org/LivingWage_UnionOrganizing.html
Ciezadlo, Annia. 2001.
"The New Wage Movement." City Limits Magazine. March.
Communications Workers of America Civil Rights Department.
2001. "Report of the National Committee on Equity To the 63rd Annual
Convention." July 24.
Firestone, David. 2001. "Leader
in Security at Airports Has a Long History of Lapses." New York Times.
November 9. P. A1, B8.
Furillo, Andy.
2001. "'Living Wage' Stirs a Battle: Activists Seek $10 an Hour for Any
Work Subsidized by City of Sacramento."
Sacramento Bee. May 13.
Greenhouse, Steven. 2001.
"Union Feuds Are Hurting Chances of Law on Wages," New York Times.
June 2, p. B2.
Luce, Stephanie. 2001a.
"Building Political Power and Community Coalitions: The Role of Central
Labor Councils in the Living Wage Movement." In Central Labor Councils
and the Revival of American Unionism: Organizing for Justice in Our Communities,
Immanuel Ness and Stuart Eimer, eds. NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Luce, Stephanie. 2001b. "The
Fight for Living Wages," in From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community
Building in the Era of Globalization, Benjamin Shepard and Ronald Hayduk, eds. London: Verso.
Neumark, David.
2001. "Living Wages: Protection For or Protection From Low-Wage
Workers?" National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 8393.
Walsh, Jess. 2000. "Living
Wage Campaigns Storm the Ivory Tower: Low Wage Workers on Campus." New
Labor Forum. Spring/Summer. Pp. 80–89.
