Posted on 01/26/2018 1:56:57 PM PST by grundle
Many of the minimum wage laws passed in recent years, including in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, include waivers allowing unionized businesses to pay their employees below the minimum.
The waivers in effect make unionizing workers a low-cost option for businesses unwilling or unable to pay the new minimum wage, which in cities such as San Francisco and SeaTac, Wash., which also has a waiver, will climb as high as $15 an hour when fully phased in. In those cities, businesses can sign a collective bargaining agreement with a union that sets the wages below the local minimum.
Similar waivers were included in recent minimum wage increases in Long Beach, San Jose, Richmond and Oakland, Calif., as well as Milwaukee County, Wisc. according to a study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, titled "Labor's Minimum Wage Exemption." In addition, the Washington, D.C., Council passed a minimum wage ordinance last year that included a union waiver, but Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed it. Later that year, Gray and council approved an increase without the union waiver.
The waivers are a good deal for the business, which gets lower labor costs, and the union, which gets more members. It's not such a good deal for the workers, though, since they would be paid less than the minimum wage and would be obligated to join the union and pay it membership dues or, if they decline to join, at least pay it a representation fee.
The waivers invert the common understanding of collective bargaining's purpose, which is to get workers better wages and benefits than they would otherwise get, and that of a higher minimum wage, which is to boost struggling workers. Critics say that shows that the unions' real intention is to boost their membership, not help the workers.
"By creating a carve-out from minimum wage laws, unions are hoping employers will embrace unionization to avoid costly new mandates. They are enlisting the coercive power of government to make labor the 'low-cost' option," said Glenn Spencer, vice president of the Chamber's Workforce Freedom Initiative, which produced the study.
Organized labor has been a major supporter of the movement to raise the minimum wage, with service-industry unions such as the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE and the Service Employees International Union at the forefront. Unions accounted for 98 percent of the $1.7 million spent to promote Sea-Tac's Proposition 1, which voters approved last year, setting its $15 minimum wage.
In the case of San Francisco, the collective bargaining waiver language was established by the city in 2006. A successful November ballot initiative, sponsored by organized labor, will raise the rate to $15 for all employers by 2018. However, the ballot initiative left the waiver language in place, giving businesses a way to opt-out provided they have a union. SEIU Local 1021 designed the initiative, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Donna Levitt, manager of the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, said the city had included similar language in its ordinance requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. The purpose of the language is to give the employer and the union room to negotiate, she says. A union might opt for lower pay to boost other benefits or to shore up a pension.
"The parties are well aware of their rights under the ordinance and they are choosing to trade it for something else," Levitt said.
She cautioned also that she had never seen any waiver language in a contract and had no idea how often unions and management struck such agreements. "It has never been an issue," she said, since no parties to a collective bargaining contract have ever filed a complaint based on the waiver language.
Most contracts are private documents, noted the Chamber's Spencer, so it is hard to tell how often unions are undercutting their own members. "It's not really possible to know the wages that are being paid without looking at the contracts, which we do not have access to," he said.
SEIU and UNITE HERE offices in Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment, nor did UNITE HERE offices in San Francisco.
Organized unions = organized crime
A law applies to all, or to none. Those that apply only to some are invalid, and not binding.
>>businesses can sign a collective bargaining agreement with a union that sets the wages below the local minimum
Well, that really is hilarious.
Technically, a collective bargaining agreement with a union can pretty much thumb their noses at most labor laws in this "fine" state. I recall some years ago when the non-union job I had did away with the "9/80" or "4/10" working options.
Basically, 9/80 said that within a two week period, you worked 9 hours a day for 8 days, 8 hours a day for 1 day, and you had the 10th day in that period off. Alternatively, with 4/10, you could work 10 hours a day for 4 days and have the 5th day off each week. Our company was forced to dump the system because the state said we'd have to be paid 1 or 2 hours overtime each day we worked, regardless of the day off, which I believe was also declared illegal.
I remember speaking to a friend around that time who worked for a quasi-state government agency that was unionized. He still had his 9/80 work schedule with no overtime involved. When I inquired, he said that was what the agency and the union "negotiated". Didn't matter that the supposed law of the state said you couldn't do this!
Maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law to all Americans, instead of the 3 tiered system of Laws and Justice we have now??
How does that minimum wage treatment enhance the allure of union membership for potential recruits?
They’ll bring in as many new members as the can, then lower the boom and jack up wages. When the business goes under they still have the member in the union. Then, if you want a job you have to be in the union or no job.
bkmk
The minimum wage was always about helping union labor. First, it prices lower skilled people out of the job market, which decreases competition for union workers. Even more important, the wages paid to unions on federal contracts is tied to the minimum wage. The higher the minimum wage, the more union workers get paid when they work on government contract jobs. It’s a scam and always has been
The waivers are a good deal for the business, which gets lower labor costs, and the union, which gets more members. It's not such a good deal for the workers, though, since they would be paid less than the minimum wage and would be obligated to join the union and pay it membership dues or, if they decline to join, at least pay it a representation fee.It also works for owners of fish canneries, right Pelosi?
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