Waging War Over Wages
By Samson Wong

TICK, TOCK FOR TOM: The living wage issue will have now gone on for 18 months since the Board of Supervisors established a task force to examine it.

The ordinance, which is estimated to cost $254 million, would require city contractors such as non-profit businesses which lease city property to pay a “living wage” of $11 per hour plus benefits. It would affect over 42,000 low-wage workers, one-third of whom are API.

Since May 1999, board president and living wage author Tom Ammiano’s legislation has been nested in his Finance Committee with his allies, Chairman Leland Yee and Sue Bierman. Beyond the committee, though, Ammiano doesn’t have board support and is, therefore, contemplating putting it on the November ballot.

Before that, he will have to ask for a board vote—and it will probably lose. That vote, however, would get the supervisors on-record, which may be used against them by their challengers in November’s district elections. The board vote would allow Ammiano, Bierman and two other supervisors to place the measure on the November ballot by August 9. Failing that, Ammiano would need 9,800 voter signatures to qualify a measure for the November ballot by July 10.

TIMING A WAGE VOTE: The political and economic clocks are ticking for Ammiano and his proposed living wage.

For one, his presidency may be coming to an end along with his ability to set the board’s agenda. Assuming Mayor Willie Brown’s board majority holds after the November district elections, the next board president will be elected by the board, not by the highest citywide popular vote that made him president back in November 1998. A pro-Brown Board of Supervisors will likely continue the mayor’s budget policy of a gradual, affordable phase-in of a less costly living wage to avoid bankrupting the city.

Second, without the soapbox of his board presidency to advance the living wage next year, the initiative would also have difficulty passing in a low voter-turnout year. Instead, the living wage ballot measure’s best chance of success is during this presidential election year.

Generally, this presidential election will produce a higher and more liberal voter turnout like the 62 percent turnout of November 1996’s re-election of President Clinton. The more liberal the turnout is, the greater the chances of passing a living wage ordinance. Living wage would join a number of issues in Ammiano’s progressive agenda: public financing of campaigns, limits on passing capitol improvement to tenants, limits on evictions because of tenancy-in-common conversions.

If it doesn’t pass this November, the chances of it ever passing are unlikely. Next year will be a municipal election that likely will attract a conservative electorate unfriendly to the living wage. An off year election like the December 1999 mayoral runoff helped Brown with a conservative and moderate base, which trounced the liberal Ammiano.

THE COST OF WAITING: The Mayor has been gradually phasing in increased wages since last year and is proposing another pay hike this year for the city’s 16,030 home-health and child-care workers and airport security guards. While the proposed raise is not at Ammiano’s $11 per hour, Brown has nearly doubled some employees’ pay from a minimum wage of $5.75 to $9.00 in the past year. Simultaneously, he’s accelerated the task force recommendation of $7.50 per hour living wage with subsequent increases of $8.25 in the second year to $9.00 in the third year.

While Brown has phased in an increased wage, Ammiano’s failure to implement his own $11 per hour proposal is gradually being eroded by inflation. Continued waiting until a ballot issue passes will further reduce the buying power of that $11 per hour.

According to California Department of Finance statistics, San Francisco’s inflation rate for the 12 months prior to April 2000 was almost 4 percent, making San Francisco a costly place to live, work and play. To compare, the national rate was 3 percent, while the statewide rate was under 3 percent. With Ammiano’s proposal stalled, today’s $11.00 per hour proposal is not worth the same $11.00 he proposed in May 1999. Rather, inflation has eroded it to $10.58 per hour in 1999 dollars.

THE DECEPTION OF $14.50: For 18 months, living wage proponents have contended that a worker needs $14.50 per hour “living wage” to live in San Francisco as Ammiano did in an April 25 story of the San Francisco Independent.

The wage figure comes from an Association of Bay Area Government reference to a 1996 Self-Sufficiency Standard for California study of what it takes to live in San Francisco. Ammiano and allies generally have not said that it’s a wage needed by a household of a working adult and one preschool-age child. Rarely do the advocates cite the lower ABAG wage that two working adults, one child family would require a minimum $8.20 per hour to live in San Francisco (about $9.50 in today’s dollars).

Furthermore, a city sponsored study found that not all low wage households are made up of a single adult and one child. A S.F. Urban Institute living wage study of October 1999, projected 91 percent of the 42,000 low-wage workers lived in households of two or more adults. Only 9 percent were single adults.

STICKER SHOCK: E-mail your comments to potsticker@prodigy.net or samson@sfindependent.com. Calls welcome at 415-826-1100, ext. 23.