A Living Wage and Employee Associations for All Who Work in San Diego
1. Living Wage: lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats like to keep things complicated, so they, as experts, can pretend to have all the solutions. Because they are the ones framing the questions they know the answer before they even ask the question.
They will tell you that it is not the city’s business that there are people suffering from the high cost of living in San Diego and its low wages (the worst cost of living to wage ratio in the nation, with our local inflation rate on goods and services often twice the national average.) It’s a jungle out there, they say, and market forces will determine which families thrive and which suffer.
Well, I’m here to say……. rather than hide behind the wealthy developers, fat cat, down-town speculators and slick lobbyists who virtually own the Mayor’s office: we, as a community, need to say “enough is enough” and start from a basic premise of fairness. The oligarchy which runs this city has financed high-rise hotels, a baseball stadium and many other projects of corporate welfare, yet, when it comes to people who work, they say “oh, you’re on your own.”
I propose we start from the basic belief that anyone who works should not live in poverty. Now, as a community there is not much we can do about poverty in Los Angeles or Timbuktu but we can mandate in San Diego a “Living Wage” for all who work. The “affordability crisis” is growing each year, with nurses, teachers, day care workers and many more of the middle-class pulling up stakes and moving to a more affordable place.
The current living wage benchmark set by the city is $13.20 an hour, which is what they require all contractors to pay their employees who work on city projects. I propose we make that figure the base amount for a city-wide minimum wage for all who work. Now, the San Diego oligarchy will tell you that minimum wage mandates are the state’s business not theirs. But any individual who does business in this city (I have had a city business license for years) has a social responsibility not only to their employees but to the rest of the citizens. Poverty wages leads to despair and hopelessness which, all too often, is a precursor of crime and violence. We, as taxpayers, subsidize the profits of wealthy businesses which pay non-livable wages, through food stamps, housing assistance programs, emergency room visits, school lunch programs, and dozens of other programs.
Here, in America’s Finest City, close to 50,000 families whose household head works can’t make ends meet. . Over 19 percent of residents in the city, including many children, are below the federal poverty level. The San Diego Food Bank’s food handouts are at an all time high and growing. In 2006, the Food Bank was giving food to 200,000 people per month. With the current recession that tragic figure had jumped to 340,000 people a month and is expected to top half a million by 2012. Churches who distribute food have seen more and more middle-class families arriving in late model cars to collect groceries.
Setting a living wage for all who work in the city of San Diego would not cost the city anything, except, perhaps, a staff person to keep track of compliance. It would, however, generate millions of new sales tax dollars for our roads, parks, libraries and other community needs. Rather than excessive profits being skimmed by corporate firms and being sent to distant banks in faraway cities, the additional fair wages of San Diegans would stay in San Diego and add to the economic vitality of our neighborhoods.
2. Employee Associations: Just as the state government requires auto insurance and, now, the federal government mandates everyone have a health policy, as a matter of policy to protect the general welfare of its citizens both as individuals and as a society; so too should one of the most important things we do in life – our work – be enshrined around certain rights and responsibilities.
The days of the big labor union are over. The corporate state has pretty much decimated the legal protections and organizing capabilities of unions. However, employees still need to be protected from abuse and excessive coercion. Therefore, I propose that the city of San Diego require that any employer, whether independent, a franchise or a corporate store, factory or business which employs more than 10 persons, full or part-time, maintain an employee association. These associations will be maintained by openly elected representatives who will act as guardians of employee rights, document abuses, represent the local association before governmental bodies, like city hall and state agencies, and at a city-financed San Diego General Assembly of Workplace Associations. Any representative who is terminated solely for their duties and advocacy would receive 10 years of wages as severance pay.
Sadly, it is not just seamstresses who work in garment factories, hamburger flippers tethered to a stopwatch or under-the-table construction workers who are often exploited. Even the officers who guard our journey on the San Diego regional trolley are treated badly. Un-unionized, without an employee association, they are paid low wages and must buy most of their equipment including uniforms and vinyl gloves, while their boss Larry Richman is just that – a rich man who lives in a mansion and exploits his employees. Adding insult to injury, it is all done with public money.
Employee Associations at every workplace would bring appalling job conditions and unscrupulous employers to public light, creating a sense of solidarity among employees, mitigating the dominance and callous nature of the corporate state and, particularly, its San Diego oligarchy.