Coalition Urges $5.01 Minimum Wage : Religious, Labor, Welfare Groups Seek ‘Justice’ for Workers

A coalition of Orange County groups Monday endorsed an increase in the minimum wage in California from $3.35 an hour to $5.01, saying it would reduce the welfare rolls and increase the dignity of workers.

The five-member Industrial Welfare Commission, the state group that sets the minimum wage, is scheduled to meet Friday in San Francisco to consider an increase.

“Families can make more on welfare than (by receiving) the minimum wage,” said Dora Rodriguez, a member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, which endorsed the $5.01 figure last week.

Jean Forbath of Share Our Selves, the Costa Mesa-based group that helps people in financial difficulty, said: “I spend most of my life doing charity. Today I can speak about justice.”

Forbath said that having a person work full time and make just the minimum wage--or forcing that person to come to Forbath’s group and stand in line to ask for money to help pay the rent--can wound self-esteem and “is something that we should not accept as just.”

“I would certainly like to see those lines at SOS get shorter,” she said.

Others speaking in favor of an increase to $5.01 an hour were Louis Negrete of the United Neighborhoods Organization, Amin David of Los Amigos of Orange County, Steve Byers of the Orange County Central Labor Council, Jonathan Parfrey of the Orange County Catholic Worker, Tony Reid of the Business Development Center of Southern California and Rene Lopez of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Orange County.

Negrete said the state Industrial Welfare Commission has proposed increasing the minimum wage to $4 an hour, a figure he said had support from such groups as the state Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers and Merchants Assn. and the California Restaurant Assn.

Negrete said two major supermarket chains, Boys and Ralphs, supported a “substantial” increase in the minimum but had not endorsed specific figures.

Proponents of the $5.01 figure include the Mexican-American Grocers Assn., the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, major religious organizations and labor groups, he said, as well as Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and state Sens. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) and Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles).

Nearly 1,000 supporters of a $5.01 minimum turned out Oct. 31 for a commission hearing on the increase at City Hall in Los Angeles.

Negrete said the minimum wage had not increased in California since 1981. Since then, the state Consumer Price Index has risen by 33%, he and other increase backers said.

The state Senate Office of Research reported in August that about 322,000 Californians, 2.6% of the work force, earn the minimum wage, giving them $134 for a 40-hour week. Another 1.48 million, 11.9% of the work force, earn from $3.35 to $5 an hour, or $134 to $200 per week, the office said.

Several speakers at Monday’s press conference at the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana criticized the commission’s proposal to allow full-time students 21 and younger to be paid 85% of the minimum wage, a figure that now works out to $2.85 per hour. Only full-time students 18 and younger can now be paid at that rate.

Lopez of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce called the proposal to raise the age to 21 “ludicrous and incoherent.” He said it would “encourage our poverty-stricken students to abandon their education plans and drop out to avoid a cut in pay and get the adult minimum wage as a full-time worker.”