County OKs ‘Living Wage’ Plan

The complexities of the nationwide movement to require what backers consider a living wage were on full display at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, as the region’s largest employer wrestled with the question of equity for its thousands of low-wage workers.

The board asked its staff to draft a law requiring such a wage to be voted on next month, but only after a conservative supervisor nearly splintered the liberal majority by forcing it to reject proposals to raise wages paid by companies that contract with the county to more than $12 per hour, 50% higher than the current plan.

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke’s had proposed directing county attorneys to draft a wage law requiring pay of $8.32 an hour with health insurance or $9.46 without.

Then workers employed by the county told of laboring for years in obscure jobs with meager pay. Such jobs would not be improved under the current proposal.

And civilian employees at the county’s jails pleaded, apparently in vain, for help before they are replaced today by inmate workers after asking for a raise from $6.09 an hour.

Workers who do laundry and prepare food at the county’s jails told of how they had sought a pay increase only to have the Sheriff’s Department decide to replace them--on the eve of their voting on unionization--with inmate workers.

“They treat us worse than prisoners. At least they have medical insurance,” said Marina Torres, a mother of two. “I became a citizen so I could vote. I voted for [Supervisor] Gloria Molina and [Sheriff] Lee Baca, Latinos, who I thought would understand my situation as a single mother. . . . [Now] they’re firing us because we were the first to ask for justice.”

Molina asked for a report next week from the Sheriff’s Department, which said Monday that it discontinued the contract because Torres’ employer was asking for, among other things, pay raises.

Torres said that by the time the supervisors get their report, she will be back on welfare.

Union leaders say that they have scheduled a protest at the Twin Towers jail Thursday, where 90 other workers are being replaced with inmates.

Testimony on Hardships

Many part-time workers also testified about their poor pay and benefits as union leaders urged the board to include the county’s own employees in its plans.

“All of you need to realize that there are real people out there who are supporting a family and need the money,” said a sobbing Linda Frias, who has worked for $7.50 an hour for four years in county libraries, supporting five children while suffering from cancer.

Frias, 42, said she lost her home last year and said her weight has fallen by 30 pounds as she has worked in the library system, shelving books in a part-time job for which the county does not have to pay her benefits.

She said she has survived three bouts of cervical cancer but has not been had medical attention for years. “I cannot afford to go to the doctor,” she said, in tears. “If I die, I die.”

For years, supervisors have wrestled with how to implement an adequate wage law in the vast county bureaucracy, which is not only the region’s largest employer, with 80,000 workers, but also contracts with 200 companies for a wide range of services from janitorial to computer work.

On Tuesday Union leaders held a rally outside the board chambers, with about 75 people waving placards and chanting into microphones as television cameras rolled.

Then top labor leaders took time out of their election day precinct-walking to speak in favor of a law mandating higher wages.

“It is time to put an end to poverty contracting in Los Angeles,” said Miguel Contreras, president of the County Federation of Labor.

Tempers Flare at Meeting

But after an hour of testimony, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a longtime critic of the wage proposal, offered a slew of amendments to slow down the drive toward the law.

“You really want to increase salaries?” Antonovich asked, offering his proposal to amend Burke’s motion by raising the wage level to $12.63 per hour with health insurance and $14.19 without. “Increase salaries!”

“Will you vote for that?” Burke shot back. “I’ll vote for it if you make the motion right now.”

Antonovich proposed the increase, and although Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky complained that it was “making a mockery” of the living wage law, the other two liberal supervisors, Burke and Molina, approved it.

“If Mr. Antonovich wants to up the ante playing games then we will support him,” Molina said, reasoning that the supervisors could select a lower amount when they vote on the drafted law next month. “I know what he’s doing, you know what he’s doing, let’s get on with it.”

But Antonovich continued to slow down the process by adding requirements that the law include exemptions for small business and for instances in which requiring higher pay would increase the county’s costs.

When Antonovich would not even support the ultimate proposal after it had been amended to his liking, Burke and Molina rescinded their votes and passed the original wage plan.