Get ready to voice your opinion about what a good job really looks like. It’s one with wages that allow workers to support themselves and their families; it’s one where workers have a voice on the job to speak up about abuses or inequity; it’s one where a mother or father whose child is sick, can stay home for a day or two and take care of them, without worrying about losing that day’s pay. You’ll get the chance to speak up about a comprehensive Living Wage policy in Santa Clara County this summer.
The campaign for the country’s most comprehensive living wage is gaining momentum. Today, Supervisors Dave Cortese and Cindy Chavez meet at the County’s Children, Seniors and Families Committee to move forward the plan to complete research and a policy framework in three months. The law would effects thousands of workers whose employers have contracts with the County.
Supervisor Ken Yeager led the charge at last week’s Finance and Government Operations Committee meeting to ensure that the study process will bring to light the full impact of a comprehensive living wage ordinance. He called for a survey of the County’s largest contractors and those with high concentrations of low-wage workers doing work for the public on the public’s dollar.
He also pointed to the need for Santa Clara County to benefit from the lessons learned by some of the over 120 other jurisdictions with living wage ordinances. This research will be crucial to gather the best practices and avoid pitfalls – especially so that the County can make sure that once a law is passed, it is followed. It will also head off the “sky will fall” arguments that we know await us by showing that costs to taxpayers have been less than 1/10th – or in San Jose, less than 1/100th – of one percent of the total budget.
Most importantly, Supervisor Yeager said that low-wage workers must have an equal voice in the study process. He called for a town-hall meeting approach to engaging workers and their communities in telling their stories and talking about the changes to their lives that more good jobs can bring.
With new endorsements from organizations ranging from communities of color to nonprofit service providers to labor unions, our coalition is growing and diversifying. The Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women has endorsed the campaign and the County’s Human Relations Commission will call a special meeting on a recommendation to do the same. The endorsement of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council was affirmed by a unanimous vote of its delegates, representing 90 unions and over 100,000 working families in the region. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, with its 33,000 members, has joined them. Having this breadth of support is critical to win a policy that will lead the nation in reminding us what a good job looks like and what it can do in the life of a worker and their family.
Derecka Mehrens is Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA.
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Something to consider – when I was last temping, the company offered ‘reasonable’ health insurance premiums. However, they had to be taken from the first paycheck of the month, not spread out. Aside from losing most of a check right when many other bills are due, someone making a lower hourly wage & trying to cover their family might not make enough to cover the premium at all, or if borderline, could lose coverage if their hours were short the last week of a month – for example, following Thanksgiving or Christmas.