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Living
wage provisions are won through legislation or ballot initiatives.
Campaigns focused
on legislators and regulatory commissions have been more successful than
ballot initiatives. Ballot initiatives face more legal challenges
and require a substantial amount of money in order to compete with well-funded
corporate opposition. To date, only three initiatives have succeeded
(St. Louis, Missouri; Corvalis, Oregon; and Detroit, Michigan) and the
legality of the St. Louis initiative is being contested in court.
Because living wage provisions are enacted locally, they can be customized to suit the needs -and political reality- of the community.
Determining
the Scope of a Campaign
Writing the Provision: What to Include
Legal Coverage
Other Conditions
Exemptions
Administration and Enforcement
Living wage requirements apply to differing types of employers. This includes employers who:
Provisions can be tailored to individual contracts. Focusing on contracts is a narrow, yet effective way, of conducting a winnable living wage campaign. This strategy will aid a specific group of employers that deliver services to a jurisdiction.
Regulating municipal contracts alone benefits only a small number of people. New York City, for instance, adopted a provision in 1996 that covered less than 1,500 workers. Since then, the city's living wage coalition has been working to achieve a wage of at least $10 an hour applicable to all businesses that receive subsidies or contracts from the government.
Ordinances which cover more categories of workers and apply to more agencies will have broader impact on the standard of living in the community. Campaigns that have won success at the contract level usually move to focus on businesses that receive economic development subsidies . Development provisions cover employers who receive direct financial assistance, such as tax abatement and credits, grants, loans, and other types of assistance. These broader campaigns usually face greater opposition from the business community. [Challenges]. The living wage provisions on economic subsidies can apply to both developers and tenants of the development.
Since 2000, campaigns have gone beyond targeting public contracts and developments to focus on geographic areas that receive substantial public investment, requiring tenants in that area, or "zone," to pay a living wage.
At the forefront of these campaigns is Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART) and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). SMART and LAANE have focused on the coastal area zone in Santa Monica where significant public investment created a major tourism zone. While owners of companies in the zone argue that they are independent tenants and operators who have earned their economic success, the living wage proponents cite city government investments of more than $170 million in a series of land use, zoning and investment decisions that concentrated visitor-oriented development, services and infrastructure.
In May 2001, the Santa Monica City Council adopted an ordinance requiring businesses in the city's beachfront and downtown area that gross $5 million or more to pay their employees at least $10.50 an hour with benefits, or $12.25 without. The provision covers some 2,000 workers in the area.
Campaigns that focus on zones must demonstrate a case for distinguishing between businesses in and outside of the zone. These distinctions focus on area-specific subsidies, tax breaks or other incentives.
While living wage provisions vary in scope, the growing body of literature, case studies, impact analyses, and resources provide general guidelines for writing a successful ordinance.
Each campaign needs to assess the political climate, needs and resources of the community. There are three important components to consider when proposing a living wage provision:
This includes the key provisions, such as:
A. Base wage level . Living wage campaigns use different standards to assess the wage level. While some calculate living wages at the basic poverty level for full-time work, others use the higher "real costs of living" standard for that local community as a way of portraying the inadequacy of minimum wage for that community.
There are a number of standards that can be used to calculate the living wage, including:
Poverty level : The US Department of Health and Human Service's 2001 poverty guideline for a family of four was an income of $17,650. To attain this level, a worker needs to earn an hourly wage of $8.50 (working 52 weeks per year, 40 hours/week) to raise his or her family out of poverty. (http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/poverty.htm)
Food stamp level :
Some provisions use the standard that the federal government
sets for food stamp eligibility (http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/).
To be eligible for 
food
stamps a household's income cannot exceed two thresholds:
Self-Sufficiency Standard: Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) has calculated a self-sufficiency formula that measures how much income is necessary for a family to live and work without pubic or private assistance. This standard, which considers county-by-county variations in the costs of living, has been used in several cities to set living wages.
Statewide Living Wages: National Priorities Project-a national organization that analyzes the impact of federal spending on the state and local levels, along with Jobs With Justice have developed statewide "living wage" figures that consider household expenditures such as transportation, clothing, utility bills and health care. Findings are available in: Working Hard, Earning Less.
As an example, in California in the year 2000 , an adult with a preschooler and an infant needed to earn the following hourly wage, based on location, to be self-sufficient:
Family Budgets : Economic Policy Institute (EPI) provides an on-line issue guide that calculates different family budgets, by state.
Regional cost of living index: Some areas have a much higher cost of living than other areas. For instance, while San Jose won one of the highest living wages in the country, $9.50 an hour with health benefits, $10.75 without benefits, the wage is still an insufficient amount to subsist in the high-cost area.
Indexing
: Will the wage be indexed annually to account for
inflation? If the provision does not allow for an annual index,
the wage needs to be set at a higher level to account for future inflation.
Whichever standard is used, campaigns should request a wage slightly higher than the region's cost of living, to allow bargaining room during the legislative process.
B. Who is covered
. The most comprehensive living wage provisions
cover all employees-full-time, part-time and temporary. The provision
in Somerville, MA, covers both full- and part-time employees.
Los Angeles County, on the other hand, covers only full-time employees
while prohibiting the use of part-time employees on county contracts without
justifiable cause.
While many campaigns exempted nonprofit service providers from the provision,
campaigns are increasingly including non-profit contractors that provide
home health care, childcare, and other human services. Denver, Colorado
marks the first city to include language that covers childcare workers.
The provision in Suffolk County, New York extends coverage to childcare,
home healthcare, and Head Start employees.
C. What benefits are included. Most living
wage provisions calculate a two-tiered wage based on whether the employer
offers health benefits. Linking health insurance to living wages
is a way to ensure that workers earn enough to sustain their families.
Most low-wage jobs do not offer benefits and provide insufficient wages
to allow employees to purchase private insurance. Offering two-tiered
wages provides a lever for attaching health coverage to low-wage jobs.
D. Which employers must comply . The provision must articulate which employers will be subject to the regulation-based on either the dollar amount of the contract, the number of employees in the company, or the amount of revenue a company receives.
Some provisions contain specific language addressing conditions of community hiring, worker retention, and support for labor representation. The Ypsilanti, Michigan provision includes the right for collective bargaining to supercede living wages, incentives for local hiring by contractors, and an annual recognition list of living wage employers. Some provisions specify how employees can file complaints and mandate the posting of employee living wage rights.
For examples of specific language used in writing living wage ordinances, click here.
The provision can exempt certain
businesses that would be unduly harmed by 
the provision.
Examples include hardship waivers for nonprofits or exemptions for construction
or other work that is covered by prevailing wage laws.
Campaigns need to research the implications of welfare reform in their area. Welfare to work has exacerbated pressure on low-wage labor markets, increasing the number of working poor. Living wage provisions should include coverage of welfare-to-work recipients or employers will hire these workers to replace higher paid workers.
Successful groundwork pays off:
Working Partnerships USA-a community-labor partnership in San Jose, California-began a living wage campaign by integrating research, grassroots education, policy development and leadership development. WPUSA's study of the growing wage and income divide in Silicon Valley entitled "Growing Together or Drifting Apart" generated significant media attention to economic development in the region.
The coalition calculated its living wage at $12.50 an hour for one adult raising a single child, based on the minimum self-sufficiency standard adopted by Santa Clara County Social Services Agency. They set their target on businesses that enter into a contract for over $20,000 with the City of San Jose; or businesses that receive subsidies in excess of $100,000 from the City. Organizing in the ten council districts, through churches, labor unions and community organizations, coalitions gathered a broad support base, including the mayor and key city council members. The coalition passed a provision requiring a wage of $9.50 an hour with health benefits, or $10.75 without. It mandated that new contractors hire existing workers, that the central labor council be given notice when bids let out, and that companies with public contracts must ensure labor peace.
Key allies in the campaign included the Central Labor Council, service sector unions, faith institutions and neighborhood organizations. These groups have gone on to work together on universal health coverage for children, rent stabilization and affordable housing campaigns-all aimed at lifting the floor under working poor families.
A successful living wage provision must contain strong enforcement guidelines and mechanisms. Local governments are often slow in developing procedures for monitoring compliance with living wage, they sometimes develop procedures that are pro-business or aimed at weakening implementation. The provisions must specify which city or county department will oversee administration and enforcement. Examples of such departments include, but are not limited to:
Administration of living wage ordinances requires the city to hire monitors to ensure compliance. The city of Los Angeles, for instance, hired five "management analysts" to be compliance monitors; Boston hired two staff members.
The provision needs to contain guidelines that assign agencies powers of enforcement, such as:
Inspections . Allow for public inspection of workplace and employment records.
Routine reports . Require employers to keep records and file basic wage and employment information routinely with the city.
Penalties. Mandate serious penalties for wage violations. Such penalties can include:
The agency assigned with enforcement must be strict and persistent in ensuring compliance. When agencies have proved ineffective, campaigns have worked to change the enforcement agency.
Los Angeles' living wage provision assigned enforcement to the Bureau of Contract Administration (BCA), the department in charge of contract review and administration. A year after the provision was ratified, BCA had done little in the way of enforcement or audits, focusing most of its energies on deciding which contracts were covered by the provision. The BCA's actions favored businesses, not workers. With mounting pressure from LAANE, the Los Angeles City Council amended the provision to transfer enforcement duties to the City Administrative Officer (CAO), which provides staff support to City Council members and the Mayor's office.
A much more proactive CAO has:
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