‘Living Wage’ Law Gets Board Support

Ventura County supervisors on Tuesday decided to draft a law that would force companies conducting business with the county to pay their employees wages above the federal poverty level.

The vote was 4 to 1, with Supervisor Judy Mikels dissenting, mainly because she feared such a law might harm private businesses and prompt all county employees to demand raises.

“Businesses do have a responsibility, but I don’t see businesses making impossibly large profits on the backs of workers,” said Mikels, who as a supervisor earns $77,428 a year. “I’d like to be emotional, but right now I can’t.”

Waving placards that said, “Working Families Deserve a Living Wage,” nearly 60 people attended the meeting, urging supervisors to join 36 cities and counties nationwide in adopting similar so-called living wage ordinances.

The cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena, West Hollywood, Baltimore, San Jose, Oakland, New York and the county of Los Angeles are among the governments that have adopted similar laws.

“At a time when so many Americans are becoming rich, can they deny a life-sustaining wage to the folks who clean their dishes, mow their lawns, watch their children and pick their crops?” asked Jean Harris, a representative of the Ventura County League of Women Voters. She added that the county, by passing such a law, would set an example for other local businesses.

Ventura County awards several millions of dollars each year to private companies to provide services--from construction work to maintenance to gardening. Many of those business owners pay their employees at or slightly above the federal or state minimum wage. Federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour; California’s minimum wage is $5.75.

A full-time minimum-wage worker in California earns $11,960 a year, far below the federal poverty level of $16,450 for a family of four. Currently, 23% of the county’s 727,000 residents earn wages below the poverty level.

The ordinance would affect contractors and those receiving $25,000 or more through contracts, subsidies or from leases. They would be required to pay their full- and part-time employees a minimum of $8 an hour with benefits or $10 an hour without. Businesses with five or fewer employees, most nonprofit agencies and youth employment programs would be exempt.

Only one of the 10 people who spoke before the board objected to the proposed law.

Mike Saliba of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. said such a law would drive businesses out of the county. He also said he believed workers’ unions with personal agendas are behind the proposed law.

“It seems like what unions are trying to do is back door their own ordinance,” Saliba told the board. “This is a union-backed and union-controlled organization.”

The Ventura County Living Wage Coalition, which pushed for the ordinance, counts nine labor unions among its members, including the Tri-Counties Central Labor Council, which represents about 33,000 union members countywide.

“This is not union-sponsored, union-backed or union-thugged,” Marilyn Valenzuela, executive secretary of the Central Labor Council, told the board. “The benefits to the companies will include lower turnover of employees, less absenteeism and a happier, healthier, more secure and productive work force.”

The coalition also includes several community groups, such as El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, the Ventura County chapter of the NAACP, the Sierra Club, Ventura County Democratic Central Committee and churches and temples.

Rabbi John M. Sherwood of Temple Emet in Oxnard said he was insulted by Saliba’s comments.

“I’ve been a taxpayer for 50 years and have never seen a taxpayer advocate say anything that represented me,” Sherwood said. “Today’s minimum wage is a families’ oppression, because a family can not live on that.”

Marisela Morales of the Latino Health Coalition said a living wage should be every worker’s right.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not just for companies, it’s not just for corporations, and it’s not just for rich people,” Morales said. “It’s for every individual.”

Supervisor John Flynn said he hopes board members will adopt the ordinance when it returns to them within the next few months.

“My family was a working family, so I know what this means,” said Flynn, a retired history teacher. He added that he was raised during the Depression. “When you think of the hundreds of families and the struggles they’re going through. This is a wealthy county and we’re allowing this to happen.”

Coalition Chairman Marcos Vargas of Ventura said he and other members on Tuesday night would urge members of the Oxnard City Council to adopt a similar ordinance.

Earlier this month, 11 construction workers filed a lawsuit against CNS Engineering and Construction Inc., accusing the Oxnard contractor of paying only a fraction of the required minimum wage. They also allege the contractor has submitted false payroll documents to the city.