Tag: living wage

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Groups Call for a Living Wage for All U of M Workers

CREDIT: Maya Smith

Maya Smith

Students demand living wage for all campus workers

Students protested at the University of Memphis Friday, asking for a living wage for all campus workers and an overall more equitable campus.

The Memphis Young Democratic Socialists (901YDS), comprised of U of M students, staff, and alumni, helped organize Friday’s event.

The protest comes a day after U of M president M. David Rudd announced he would not be accepting a near $100,000 salary increase. Rudd currently earns a base salary of $394,075, according to the university.

Rudd

Rudd was expected to sign a new contract to receive $525,000 annually beginning October 1st, but said Thursday that he believes “it is in the best interest of the institution to forgo any salary increases at this time.”

“Overall institutional efficiency has been at the forefront of my agenda from the day I started, a value I firmly believe and will continue to live,” Rudd wrote.

Tre Black, co-chairman of the 901YDS, said although he is “overjoyed” with the president’s decision, “there is still much work to be done.” He noted that Rudd didn’t mention if he would still accept the near $2 million in bonuses and benefits offered by the university’s board of trustees.

At the protest, students honed in on the issue of every campus employee making a living wage of $15 dollars an hour. Rudd assured the campus in July that a plan to raise all employees’ pay to $15 an hour over the next two years was in the works, but the details of that plan were never shared.

Rudd’s promise of paying a living wage to campus workers came after Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris moved to veto $1 million in county funding going toward the university’s new natatorium until a plan to pay all university employees was presented.

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“We have a definitive plan,” Rudd said at the time. “We’ll be at $15/hour in two years. And in a sustainable manner.”

Black said that 901YDS wants all campus workers to earn a living wage, including those hired under a work-study contract, those earning a stipend, part-time and full time employees, graduate workers, and adjunct professors.

The protesters also want Rudd to participate in a public forum with 901YDS and United Campus Workers, another organizer of Friday’s action, to address these and other issues relating to “inequality and unfair treatment of a large section of students and workers.”

As an example, Black cites graduate workers not receiving health care or a living wage, yet working more than 40 hours most weeks.

According to United Campus Workers, about 330 employees on campus are paid less than $15 an hour.

Maya Smith

Students demand living wage for all campus workers

The group has a petition on the Action Network website. In addition to asking Rudd to forgo additional bonuses, the petition asks that Rudd reveal the university’s plan to raise campus workers’ hourly wage to $15 an hour.

The petition also notes that the groups oppose any increases in tuition and fees: “We call upon the president and the board of trustees to freeze tuition and all administrative fees, not to be increased without approval of the students.”

See the full petition here.

The university did not immediately respond to the Flyer‘s request for comment. 

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Time to Trickle Up

Despite decades of evidence that it doesn’t work, Republicans are still advocating for a trickle-down economy. You know their thinking: If we just get out of the way and let the magic job-creators do their sweet capitalism, unimpaired by all those government regulations and taxes, the money will flow down to the middle class like tips to Mitt Romney’s pool boy.

The latest manifestation came last week, when Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a bill prohibiting cities across that state from establishing mandatory minimum wage and employee benefits, including vacation or sick leave days. Oklahoma City was trying to pass an ordinance raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. Nope. Not going to happen, said GOP legislators. They contended that efforts to increase the minimum wage could potentially harm local business communities. So much for small government.

Tennessee, of course, is ahead of the curve on this road to nowhere, having passed similar legislation last year. Meanwhile, the income inequality gap just keeps getting bigger and the middle-class keeps shrinking. According to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, raising the minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 to $10.10 would boost collective earnings by $31 billion for 33 million low-wage workers and lift an estimated 900,000 people out of poverty.

And what do you think those low-wage people will do with that extra $31 billion? They won’t be funneling it into off-shore investments. They won’t be stashing it in Swiss bank accounts or taking European vacations. They will spend it — on food, housing, appliances, maybe even a car. Many of them will move from subsistence living with government benefits to being able to enter the economy and inject it with fresh revenue. That means more money in circulation, money that will flow to businesses in need of customers. Call it “trickle up.”

A healthy, vibrant middle class has always been the cornerstone of the American economy. We’ve tried letting the rich get richer and waiting for it trickle down, and it hasn’t worked — except for the rich, who have indeed gotten much richer over the past three decades.

And here’s the thing, even $10.10 an hour isn’t a living wage. It’s $22,000 a year. But that’s better than $15,000 a year, your salary if you make $7.25 an hour. And no, most of those 33 million people earning minimum- or low-wage are not teenagers working at fast-food restaurants.

Now that the early presidential sweepstakes are heating up, the Republicans, even Romney, are making noises about fixing the income inequality problem. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell were on CBS’ 60 Minutes last weekend, saying they were all for improving the plight of the middle class — as long as we don’t, you know, actually raise the minimum wage. Or do anything other than continuing to sing the praises of a trickle-down economy.

The middle class is getting trickled-down on, all right. But it’s not with money.

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Opinion Viewpoint

A Living Wage

Memphis has the second-highest unemployment rate among large metro areas, and the highest poverty rate of cities with less than one million people. Nearly half of all children here live in poverty, and average wages are 11 percent under the national mean. In this bleak setting, efforts to raise wages are particularly important. So it was a significant victory last week when the University of Memphis affirmed plans to raise employees’ base pay to $10.10.

Nationally, economists have raised concerns that income inequality and low wages pose serious threats to economic growth. Some cities have responded to these concerns, and to growing public pressure, by hiking minimum wages significantly. Those that have are seeing some of the fastest job growth in the country.

Not so in the Volunteer State. In 2012, Tennessee’s legislature passed a bill barring local government from raising minimum wages or setting any number of community-benefit employment standards. The law preempted efforts to raise Memphis’ minimum wage. It also overruled a 2006 Memphis city ordinance, which required that city employees and workers at city contractors, be paid a living wage — a level that meets the cost of living. In 2014, ballot initiatives to raise state minimum wages passed in four red states, but Tennessee was not one of them. Governor Haslam has stood firm by an economic policy that has given our state the highest rate of minimum wage jobs in the country. 

It is in this hostile political environment that the University of Memphis, bowing to protracted pressure from a grass roots movement, raised base pay to $10.10. The increase affects about 130 workers and establishes a pay floor 40 percent above the federal minimum wage. The new policy is a bump for Memphis’ economy and a testament to what committed grassroots organizing can accomplish. 

Four years ago, three groups came together to launch a living-wage campaign at the University of Memphis. United Campus Workers is a union of higher-education workers. Progressive Student Alliance is a group of active and concerned students. Workers Interfaith Network (WIN) is a faith and labor community organization that led the broad effort in 2006 to gain a city living-wage ordinance. The three united around the idea that a job should keep you out of poverty, not in it; and that the University of Memphis needed to do better. 

The campaign kicked off with a campus speak-out to shine a light on U of M’s wage policies. More than 75 percent of workers in facilities services made less than the cost of living; scores of custodial employees were paid less than $8 an hour, even after years of service. Two U of M custodians in the union, Emma Davis and Thelma Rimmer, shared the story of their personal struggles trying live on poverty wages. 

The next year Davis, Rimmer, and I, and 1,500 other working people from Tennessee went to Nashville to meet with legislators and rally for living wages. Later that day, 50 workers took over the legislative chamber where senators were voting on anti-worker bills, and seven of us were arrested in an act of civil disobedience. We returned to the capital every year after that and continued to rally on campus. Last year, we were joined by fast-food workers, and the national movement for $15 and a union. We continued to organize, write articles, hold demonstrations, and send postcards, petitions, and letters to the governor, the legislature, and to the president of the University of Memphis. 

And then, almost suddenly, U of M made its announcement: Base pay would rise to $10.10. Despite an adverse political climate, we won. Our lessons — organize, connect to national politics, and apply pressure to a leader with executive authority — will need to be applied elsewhere. Even $10.10 is still below the cost of living, and the raise excludes part-time employees, adjuncts, and subcontracted workers. And there are still tens of thousands of low-wage workers making less with other employers in Memphis.

We need to pressure more employers to raise pay and force the city to require that companies receiving tax breaks commit to pay their workers fairly. And ultimately, we need to build a fair economy, united in the idea that everyone deserves a job that keeps them out of poverty, rather than in it.

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News The Fly-By

Power Pay

The City Council approved a plan last month requiring city service contractors to pay their employees a living wage, defined as $10 an hour with health insurance or $12 without. Though a division of city government, Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) wasn’t included in the original resolution, and now its labor union is pushing for the same requirement for companies that contract with MLGW.

After Bill Hawkins of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local Union 1288 asked the council during a public-comments period if the measure included MLGW contractors, the issue was referred to committee.

This week, the council referred the issue to the MLGW board of directors. They’ll have 90 days to determine if a living wage for contractors would affect the price of utility rates.

According to Hawkins, some contracted workers are currently being paid minimum wage.

“We hadn’t really thought about [MLGW] before,” said Rebekah Jordan, who, as head of the Living Wage Coalition has been fighting for the city service contract ordinance for two years. “We definitely want to follow up with [the MLGW resolution] though, because if the city is going to do this for their contractors, MLGW should do the same.”

“MLGW has $2 billion coming in a year, and a big portion of that is being spent on contracts,” said Rick Thompson, business manager for IBEW Local 1288.

MLGW contracts with companies to provide services in seasonal ground maintenance at its substations, pest control, courier service, janitorial work, as well as utility construction work such as installing city streetlights and laying gas and water pipes.

“We use service contracts if there’s a service that’s not being done by our employees or we don’t have the specific knowledge to perform what needs to be done,” said Chris Stanley, an MLGW spokesman. “Or if we don’t have enough employees to lead the work, like with seasonal construction shifts, we bring in contract employees.”

Stanley said MLGW does not have any say in how much those employees are paid by their employers.

Council members are open to the resolution. “We need to get some numbers, but MLGW is in much better shape financially than the city, so they’re in a stronger position for us to look at [enacting a living wage],” said council member Carol Chumney.

Councilman Dedrick Brittenum agreed. He said that “it makes sense to include MLGW” since the council has already decided to extend a living wage for city contracts.

But Brent Taylor, the council member who cast the lone dissenting vote on the living wage resolution for city contracts, said he’ll do the same when the MLGW issue comes up for a vote.

“I think wages are better set by the private sector than by government,” said Taylor. “Eventually, the higher cost is going to be passed on to the MLGW ratepayers. If we adopt this, I don’t think rates will go up the next week. But it obviously increases costs, so a rate increase will be necessary.”

Jordan said research in other cities shows the overall cost is minimal with regard to living wage ordinances.

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News The Fly-By

Working for a Living

When people mention “government work,” there are certain connotations that go along with it: needless paperwork, grumpy employees, and a decent salary. But that’s not always the case.

The City Council’s economic-development committee met last week to discuss requiring companies that do business with the city to pay a “living wage.” The discussion is part of the proposed living-

wage ordinance that includes full-time city workers, temporary city workers, and employees who work for companies that get substantial amounts of money from the city in contracts or in subsidies such as the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program.

In the past decade, roughly 100 cities have adopted living-wage laws requiring employees to be paid enough to support themselves and their families at a subsistence level. Locally, the Living Wage Coalition began campaigning for the ordinance three years ago, and in February, the full council voted to pay full-time employees at least a salary that equates to about $10 an hour. The complete proposal — including recommendations for temporary workers and employees for outside companies — is scheduled to come before the council in October.

“It does not apply to vendors. It’s not for companies we buy office supplies from,” says Rebekah Jordan, executive director of the Mid-South Interfaith Network for Economic Justice, one of the member organizations of the coalition. “It’s only for people doing actual work for the city.”

Under the Living Wage Coalition’s proposal, temporary workers who are employed throughout the year would be included, but those employed seasonally, through such initiatives as the summer youth job program, would not.

In discussing contractors, councilmember Carol Chumney said she favored Atlanta’s system, which gives preference for contracts to companies that pay a living wage but doesn’t require it.

The Living Wage Coalition sees a flaw with that. “Our position is: If you say to contractors, ‘We hope you pay a living wage and we’ll give you preference if you do,’ if none of the companies [pay a living wage], you’ll have to contract a low-wage employer,” says Jordan.

Council members asked for information on the cost impact to the city’s budget. The human-resources department is currently working on the analysis, but internally, director Lorene Essex says the policy won’t just affect low-wage workers.

“There’s a ripple effect,” she says. “When we move that bottom tier of people up to $10.21 an hour, it probably moved them in line with someone in a higher grade. In order for you not to overlap [salaries], you have to move everybody up at the same rate and distance.”

But what a living-wage ordinance would mean to contractors is still up for debate. Council members asked members of the administration to find out how much contractors currently pay employees and how the change would affect employers.

“I’d hate for companies to say, ‘Okay, if we’ve got to do this, I’ll let three people go.’ It may mean a living wage for a few people while other people are looking for a job. … That’s the risk we run,” says council chair TaJuan Stout Mitchell.

Judging by a report from New York’s Brennan Center for Justice, the cost to the city would be modest. In 12 cities the study looked at, the contract cost increase was less than 0.1 percent of that city’s overall budget.

“The studies have found that contractors absorbed some of the cost,” says Jordan. “We’ve assumed all the cost increase is passed onto us.”

The impact is also lessened because many of the city contracts are for professional services.

“In addition to doing the right thing, the city is going to see an improved ability in the quality of the work they get,” says Jordan. “When you pay a living wage, workers want to keep their job: They work harder, they [stay] longer at one job, they learn to do it better. The companies are not continually recruiting new people.”

I’m always trying to advocate for spending our tax dollars wisely. And that doesn’t always mean going the cheapest route. In this case, if we award a company a city contract based on the fact they submitted the lowest bid — but they’re not paying their employees enough to live above the poverty line — we’re in effect subsidizing that company. I’m talking food stamps, subsidized housing, and medical care for their employees.

We may be getting a better deal on the contract, but overall, it’s not a great deal for the city.

Companies under the much-discussed PILOT program could create a similar situation. If they’re not paying a living wage, and we’re already giving them a tax break to locate here, who exactly is benefiting?

A living wage won’t just help individual families. It can mean a stronger overall tax base, parents who don’t have to work two jobs and can be more involved in their kids’ education, and a stronger economic forecast for the future.

And that’s good enough for government.