Santa_Monica_OPINION_Living_Wage

Santa Monica's Living Wage: An Ethical Imperative

By The Right Reverend Frederick H. Borsch

What is the opposite of a living wage? Through my involvement in the Los Angeles and Santa Monica Living Wage campaigns, I have had the privilege of getting to know low-wage workers personally. Through these relationships, I have realized that the opposite of a living wage is a wage that slowly drains away the hopes and dreams of individuals and families, a wage that maintains exhausted workers in nearly desperate poverty.

In Los Angeles County, over 30 percent of working adults are unable to provide their families with basic necessities without government assistance. The cost of rent alone often eats up most of the $964 per month that a minimum-wage worker earns at a full-time job. When the family also lacks health insurance (as do 60 percent of the working poor in Los Angeles), even a minor illness can create unconscionable choices like food versus medicine.

When we realize that the heads of the corporations where these family members work often make 300 times and more than what their poorest laborers earn, many of us do more than wonder when we are told the companies cannot stay in business if they were to pay employees a living wage.

We remember the words of the prophets about those who take advantage of the circumstances of others and "trample on the heads of the poor" in order that they may have a fine life for themselves. When the employees of these companies must then obtain food stamps in order to feed their children, we realize that our tax dollars indirectly go to subsidize that corporate wealth.

A living wage of $10.50 an hour enables people to earn a little more than $400 a week for their work. To many of us, that may still seem precious little, but it does enable them to better provide for their families and to have more dignity in their lives.

There is a lot of economic evidence -- especially in these times -- that a stronger and more stable economy is built from "percolate up "rather than" trickle down. "A greater common good as well as a fairer society comes from more people striving to become part of a middle class rather than wealth supposedly trickling down from a much smaller group of very well-to-do.

Measure JJ, the Santa Monica Living Wage law, will encourage one group of workers who are the most vulnerable among us. According to an economic study commissioned by the city of Santa Monica, the majority of the workers who would be affected by this living wage law are low-income heads of households with three or four members. Even though they work full-time, most are still living in poverty or near poverty.

Measure JJ will also give corporations the reward of more decently paid employees. As the former "CEO" of a large concern, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, I know the temptation to try to balance budgets and keep expenses down by paying at low levels for employees looking for almost any kind of work. Our Church, however, is blessed to have compensation policies in place that keep us accountable to our employees and our community.

In the case of Measure JJ, the only businesses that will be covered by this Measure bring in over five million dollars a year annually, and even those will be eligible for a hardship exemption. This exemption was built into the law in order to protect businesses that really might suffer hardship under this law and distinguish them from those that will not.

The majority of the workers who will be helped by JJ work for Santa Monica's luxury beach-front hotels, which are second only to New York hotels in room and occupancy rates. All of these hotels have received significant benefits from 180 million dollars worth of public investment projects and zoning restrictions, which prohibit the development of competing hotels. According to a city-commissioned study affirmed by a renowned Harvard economist, these hotels are well able to pay a living wage.

Bolstered by our belief that Measure JJ makes good economic sense, the community also has a moral right to demand that the hotels provide reasonable and just compensation for their employees.

The Right Reverend Frederick H. Borsch is Bishop (ret.) of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles