LA County Board Of Supervisors Vote To Raise Minimum Wage To $15 Per Hour By 2020

LA County Board Of Supervisors Vote To Raise Minimum Wage To $15 Per Hour By 2020

July 21, 2015 2:50 PM

https://cbsla.files.wordpress.com/20...0&h=349&crop=1(Photo credit: Jon Baird)

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to incrementally raise the minimum wage in unincorporated areas over the next five years, reaching $15 an hour by 2020.

The county wage hike will include a series of increases over the next five years for unincorporated areas, beginning on July 1, 2016.

Under the plan, wages will rise to $10.50 per hour in July 2016; $12 per hour in 2017; $13.25 per hour in 2018; $14.25 per hour in 2019; and $15 per hour in 2020.

“Many county residents, despite working full time, earn too little in wages to cover even the bare necessities, such as safe housing, healthy food, adequate clothing and basic medical care,” said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

Officials explained the ordinance will delay the increase by one year for businesses that have fewer than 26 employees. The bill will also enforce wage theft and increase the number of paid sick days.

After 2020, the minimum wage will be adjusted annually based on the cost of living.

The proposal was discussed in June, but city officials postponed a vote due to concerns from the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation and other business owners who expressed concern that the wage hike may cause them to close their shops.

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Southern California to discuss the importance of increasing the federal minimum wage and expanding over time protection.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/...wage-proposal/

University of California Raising Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

SAN FRANCISCO — Jul 22, 2015, 12:52 PM ET
By LISA LEFF Associated Press

The movement to raise the minimum wage across the U.S. gained ground Wednesday with the huge University of California system announcing plans to increase base pay for its employees and contract workers to $15 an hour over the next two years.

The move follows similar steps by local governments and employers to give employees what activists call a "living wage." Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco have all approved phased-in increases that eventually will take their minimum wage to $15 an hour, or about $31,200 for a full-time job.

UC President Janet Napolitano said that as California's third-largest employer, the university should be taking the lead in ensuring its lowest-paid workers make decent wages. UC has 10 campuses, including UCLA and Berkeley, nearly 240,000 students and a staff of 195,000.

"Our community does not exist in a vacuum. How we support our workers and their families impacts Californians who might never set foot on one of our campuses," she said. "It's the right thing to do."

The university's hourly wage earners — a group that includes students and full-time employees working in dining halls, dorms and bookstores or as gardeners, housekeepers and custodians at campuses and hospitals — currently make the state minimum of $9 an hour.

Napolitano said she will boost that to $13 in October for employees who work at least 20 hours a week and by $1 an hour in each of the next two years.

About 4,200 UC employees and a much larger but undetermined number of workers hired by university contractors will receive the higher wage, UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said.

"I just thought it was important for a public university to plant the flag here for low-wage workers and a more livable wage," Napolitano, who was President Barack Obama's homeland security secretary before she assumed leadership of the University of California nearly two years ago, said in an interview.

The higher minimum-wage argument has gained traction amid concerns over the shrinking middle class and rising income inequality.

Supporters argue a higher wage floor will help lift the working poor into the middle class. Opponents warn businesses will have to raise prices, shed jobs or cut employees' hours. At least 15 states have passed laws barring local governments from setting their own minimum wage.

Democrats, including presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, have said they support a higher federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 per hour.

Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to promote a higher minimum wage during a stop Wednesday at a washroom equipment manufacturer in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County, the nation's most populous county, voted to craft a law to raise the minimum wage to $15 over the next five years.

On the other side of the country, a New York state board Wednesday was poised to recommend a minimum wage increase for fast-food workers. The state's minimum wage is now $8.75 an hour and is set to rise to $9 an hour at year's end. Many fast-food workers say their industry should pay a minimum of $15 so that they can afford the high cost of living in New York City and elsewhere.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, announced in February that it was raising its wages for a half-million employees to at least $10 an hour by next February.

The $15 minimum has become the rallying cry of labor groups nationwide who argue the base wage hasn't kept up with inflation.

University of California officials estimated that the raises for workers directly employed by UC will cost $14 million a year, a fraction of the system's $12.6 billion annual payroll. Klein said UC also predicts contractors will pass some of the cost of higher wages onto the university.

In recent months, workers and UC union leaders have complained about the university's increased reliance on contractors who, they allege, treat employees unfairly.

Napolitano said she is setting up a hotline and online reporting system so complaints about contractors' labor practices go directly to her office. The university also plans to audit its contractors to make sure they are paying their workers the higher base wage, she said.

Napolitano's minimum wage plan does not need approval from the governing Board of Regents, who on Wednesday were scheduled to consider a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for campus chancellors, medical center directors and other top executives.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/u...-hour-32619131

New York Panel Recommends $15 Minimum Wage for Fast-Food Workers

By PATRICK McGEEHAN JULY 22, 2015

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/...-master675.jpg

If approved, a minimum wage of $15 would be a more than 70 percent raise for workers earning the state’s current minimum of $8.75 an hour. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press


The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City set off four years ago has led to higher wages for workers all over the country. On Wednesday, it finally paid off for the people who started it.

A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour. Wages would first be raised in New York City and then the rest of the state.

The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed that the mandate would quickly spur pay raises for employees in other industries across the state.

“Chalk one up for the 99-percenters,” said Bill Lipton, director of the Working Families Party in New York, which has campaigned for the $15 minimum wage. “There’s clearly a new standard for the minimum wage and it’s actually a living wage for the first time in many, many decades.”

The decision comes on the heels of similar increases in minimum wages in other cities, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to raise the county’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, matching a move the Los Angeles City Council made in June.

But a different political terrain in New York forced Mr. Cuomo to take a different route.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded a higher minimum wage in the city to account for its higher cost of living. But neither he nor the City Council has the power to set wages citywide.

When lawmakers in Albany balked at the idea, Mr. Cuomo convened a board to look at wages in the fast-food industry, which is one of the biggest employers of low-wage workers in the state, with about 180,000 employees. The acting state commissioner of labor, Mario Musolino, can issue an order accepting, rejecting or modifying the board’s recommendations.

The wage board said the increase in the minimum wage to $15 should come by 2018 in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state.

After hearing testimony from dozens of fast-food workers who complained that they could not support themselves or their families on the low pay offered by big chains like McDonald’s and Wendy’s, the board members decided that the state should mandate that fast-food chains pay more. Advocates often pointed to the huge profits those companies reaped and the giant pay packages they gave to their top executives.

The restaurant industry has chafed at being chosen. “We continue to say that we think it’s unfair that they singled out a single segment of our industry,” said Melissa Fleischut, the executive director of the New York State Restaurant Association.

McDonald’s, a multinational corporation which paid its chief executive more than $7.5 million last year, said in April that it would raise the minimum wage it pays its workers to $9.90 by July 1 and to more than $10 next year.

But workers in New York City who have staged protests at airports, in Times Square and on the steps of City Hall have argued that even $10.10 is not a living wage in New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/ny...d-workers.html

NY's Minimum Wage Increase To $15 Per Hour Is 'Outrageous,' Dunkin' Donuts CEO Says

The New York Wage Board recommended a minimum wage increase of $15 per hour for fast-food workers. Dunkin' Donuts CEO Nigel Travis views the increase, which would be in place by the end of 2018, as unreasonable.

By Christine Gaylican | Jul 24, 2015 08:43 AM EDT

http://images.hngn.com/data/images/f...rate.jpg?w=650An increase of $6.25 an hour to fast-food employees' wages in New York will take effect over the next three years . (Photo : Twitter Photo Section)

Dunkin' Donuts CEO Nigel Travis is not so keen on the $15 minimum wage increase recently recommended by the New York wage board that could mean a 71 percent jump from the current wage benchmark.

Travis said in an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow that a more reasonable increase should be imposed, as the $15 per hour could bring the downfall of small businesses especially franchises, according to CNN.

"The increase is outrageous," Travis told the publication.

He said the minimum wage increase would prevent him from opening new shops and even lead to lay-offs.

Labor groups are pushing for a $15 new standard minimum wage per hour across the U.S., which is almost double the current $7.25 an hour imposed since 2009.

Anti-poverty advocates see the $15 minimum as a means to uplift the standard of living in most states, according to the Associated Press.

This call follows a successful labor agreement reached by the employees of the University of California, as announced by university president Janet Napolitano on Wednesday. UCLA would pay its employees the minimum of $15 an hour by late 2017.

In New York, which has about 150,000 fast-food workers, the wage board elevated the minimum wage of fast-food workers to $15 an hour.

Among the states that have already made such a move is Washington, in which the minimum wage increase in Seattle would be given in a phased-in approach that allows a $11-minimum wage this year and $15 in 2017 or 2018, according to CNBC News.

California cities San Francisco and Los Angeles have taken the same path in terms of imposing the minimum wage in tranches. The cities of Sacramento and Berkeley are still studying the issue.

http://www.hngn.com/articles/112399/...kin-donuts.htm