Ventura Passes a Living Wage Ordinance

Advocates for the working poor didn’t get very far when they tried to pass a minimum-wage ordinance in Ventura five years ago. Yet this week, the Ventura City Council voted unanimously to enact just such a law.

This time, the Ventura Chamber of Commerce signed on, as did Jim Monahan, the City Council’s staunchest pro-business member.

Why the change of heart?

“Everybody gave a little bit,” said Zoe Taylor, president and chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce. “To sit down at the table and come to an agreement is a win-win.”

By negotiating the language of the ordinance with labor advocates, business leaders were able to pare away more objectionable elements, Taylor said. In return for the chamber’s support, wage advocates agreed to abandon a ballot proposal that could have been more sweeping in scope.

With Monday’s vote, Ventura becomes the fourth government in Ventura County to adopt minimum wage standards.

“We got a standing ovation, so I guess it was the right thing to do,” said Monahan, who said he was glad that the ordinance addressed his concern by exempting nonprofit groups.

Ventura’s law provides that employees receive a minimum hourly salary of $12.50 without medical benefits and $9.75 if benefits are offered. Similar to ordinances in Oxnard, Port Hueneme and unincorporated Ventura County, it applies primarily to companies that contract with the city to provide services, such as gardening and janitorial work. The state’s minimum wage is $6.75 an hour.

Members of the Ventura County Living Wage Coalition have pushed for wage standards since 1998. Advocates say the area’s high cost of housing, combined with soaring health expenses, make such laws critical for workers to meet basic needs.

Their argument resonated with several members of the Ventura City Council.

Councilman Bill Fulton, an urban planning analyst, noted that a generation ago, anyone who worked hard at a full-time job could afford to pay for rent, food and other living expenses. That’s no longer true, said Fulton, whose Ventura research firm tracks demographic and development trends in California.

In addition to adopting wage standards, high-cost communities should consider more affordable housing, job training and education programs to help working people, Fulton said.

“The ladder of upward mobility is broken, and we have to take many steps to repair it,” he said.

Living wage laws have been adopted in more than 100 cities around the nation, including Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco. They frequently anger business leaders, who view them as an unwelcome intrusion into free markets.

Attempts in recent years to increase the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour have stalled in Congress. Inflation has eroded the value of the last hike, approved nine years ago, according to the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a national group that advocates for the working poor.

After failing to get a Ventura law passed several years ago, the Ventura County Living Wage Coalition obtained sufficient signatures to qualify a ballot measure for the fall election.

The proposed measure would have been more onerous for business, setting a minimum wage standard of $12.50 an hour with benefits and $15 an hour without. It also would have applied to any city contract of $10,000 a year, while the council-passed ordinance applies to annual contracts starting at $25,000.

Ventura was able to reach consensus on the issue by making business leaders part of the negotiations, City Manager Rick Cole said.

“A very pragmatic solution emerged when the Chamber of Commerce sat down with the lefties on the Living Wage Coalition,” Cole said. “Unlike in Sacramento, they were able to work this out.”