Living Wage

Top state officials have quietly signed a work contract that is making Maryland history: They are providing a "living wage."Under the contract, the state will pay about two dozen janitors at the World Trade Center in downtown Baltimore $6.60 an hour, more than $2 above the federal minimum wage of $4.25.Today, the trade center janitors get their first improved paychecks, and Gov. Parris N. Glendening will hold an afternoon news conference announcing the increase.The wage increase, approved by the state Board of Public Works last month, is part of a growing movement to ensure that full-time workers are paid above the poverty line in hopes they can avoid using public subsidies to survive.

I applaud The Sun for its recent editorial on income inequality ("Labor reawakens," April 27). The increasing income inequality in this country affects the ability of families to survive, much less thrive, on what they earn from minimum wage jobs. The editorial highlighted a labor strike by Chicago low-wage workers and their "Fight for 15" rally. Yet the fact that Baltimore workers are organizing around "fair development" was mentioned in only one sentence. I wonder why The Sun did not find it important to cover the local "reawakening" here by reporting on the Fair Development Rally and March held April 20th.

The current bill making its way through the Baltimore City Council to require retailers with gross sales over $10 million to pay their employees a living wage is an important piece of legislation which was unnecessarily maligned by columnist Marta Mossburg ("Baltimore can't live with this 'living wage' bill," July 20). Every study which has been conducted on living wage laws has shown they do not increase the cost to employers, because the higher wages paid lead to decreased turnover, which lowers the costs of hiring and training as well as reducing workplace errors.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. writes about "How the welfare state has grown" (April 7). But if the programs of the New Deal and the Great Society have been less than successful, it should be noted that the lack of funding from "big government" has been instrumental in causing these programs to crumble. The working poor are poor due to unemployment or low-wage jobs. Try making ends meet with subsistence level pay and no benefits. One major medical bill and you're on the way to homelessness.

The Baltimore City Council is slated to hear testimony today on a controversial proposal to require large retailers in the city to pay employees a "living wage" — currently, $10.59 per hour. The measure has sparked strong opposition from business leaders, who say it would deter retailers from moving into the city. But it has drawn support from labor activists, who say many workers do not earn enough money to support their families. Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said she was inspired to introduce the bill after listening to presentations about a planned Walmart store in Remington and learning that large retail chains are looking to expand in urban areas.

LAST WEEK, community leaders from some of Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods called for private employers to follow city government's example by paying a "living wage" to their lowest paid workers and providing health benefits.Johns Hopkins University should take the lead in such a campaign. Hopkins, the largest private employer in Maryland, has more than 1,000 workers who make poverty wages.A living wage is defined as one that lifts a family of four above the federal poverty line. In Baltimore, that's $7.70 an hour, which will rise to $7.90 in July.

The Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill yesterday that would require state contractors to pay workers a "living wage," despite objections from rural lawmakers who said their constituents would be short-changed by the proposed pay system. The 88-50 House vote sent the measure to the Senate, where that chamber's president, Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller, says it is likely to pass before the General Assembly adjourns Monday. Legislators moved swiftly to pass the bill after Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislative leaders reached an agreement this week to resurrect a proposal that had appeared moribund.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. writes about "How the welfare state has grown" (April 7). But if the programs of the New Deal and the Great Society have been less than successful, it should be noted that the lack of funding from "big government" has been instrumental in causing these programs to crumble. The working poor are poor due to unemployment or low-wage jobs. Try making ends meet with subsistence level pay and no benefits. One major medical bill and you're on the way to homelessness.

Life's great dramas are often played out in the most prosaic of places, which was how protagonists in Baltimore's economic struggle found themselves crowded into a small second-floor downtown office the other day, deep in the machinery of city government.Crucial issues were at stake. The ability of thousands of workers to earn enough to support themselves was being tested, along with the future of the city.Baltimore's middle-income industrial jobs are being replaced by minimum-wage service jobs, and if the holders of those new jobs can't earn enough to support themselves, the city's prospects are dire indeed.

The BUILD organization has a modest proposal: A man who cleans toilets at Baltimore's publicly financed ballpark shouldn't have to live as a pauper in a homeless shelter.Charles Riggs, 32, worked such a $4.25-an-hour, minimum-wage job cleaning Oriole Park at Camden Yards last summer for Harry M. Stevens Maintenance Services Inc. At quitting time, Mr. Riggs says he went to a shelter because he couldn't afford to rent a room.BUILD, the church-based social action group, believes that is wrong.

Recently, Dan Rodricks took on the Republicans in Congress who want to pay down the federal budget deficit by raising taxes on the middle class and the poor ("Tax the poor, protect the rich," Aug. 21). Never mind that these segments of the population already barely have enough for necessities, much less the wherewithal to pay taxes that should be borne by those who have the most: wealthy individuals and corporations. Yet the wealthy are considered more moral, somehow better people than the rest of us, and thus deserving of windfall profits and legal loopholes that allow them to pay little or nothing in taxes.

A Baltimore City Councilwoman says she has backed out of talks with Walmart officials about worker pay at a proposed store in Remington after they asked her to withdraw her support for a bill that would require all major retailers to pay a "living wage. " Councilwoman Belinda Conaway said she had attempted to negotiate higher wages for store employees, but that she refused Walmart's request that she abandon the living-wage bill proposed by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. "You get to a point where you don't have anything to negotiate with," said Conaway, who represents portions of West Baltimore, including the proposed site of the 25th Street Station development.

In his column "Risk to city outweighs benefits of living wage" (July 25) Jay Hancock perpetuates the myth that wage rates are the dominant factor influencing decisions of where large business will locate within the greater Baltimore regional marketplace. As a general rule, nothing could be further from the truth. In making location decisions, transportation access and the availability of a skilled workforce are very important to the success of a manufacturing concern; transportation and proximity to customers to a warehousing operation; and the existence of underserved demand and public access are crucial to retail sales outlets.

I have great respect for Jay Hancock and in the words of an old country western song was almost persuaded by his reasoning on why a living wage hourly salary for 3,000 Baltimoreans laboring at big box retailers is counterproductive to the local economy ("Risk to city outweighs benefits of living wage," July 25). Just when I'd reached the same conclusion I noted in the same business section that the heirs of George Steinbrenner are exempt from estate tax of over $500 million due to the happenstance that the Boss expired in 2010, having survived several of the managers he consigned to unemployment, such as Billy Martin and Bob Lemon.

There was plenty of talk about jobs, poverty and wages at last week's City Council hearing on making large Baltimore retailers pay workers a minimum of $10.59 an hour. But hardly anybody mentioned tax revenue. This was very strange. Less than a month ago, a very large shortage of tax revenue caused the same council members to adopt one of the most painful budgets in years. One would think they would have remembered. Along with manufacturers and wholesalers, big retailers are the most important tax-paying companies in a city that, let's face it, doesn't have enough of them.

Marta Mossburg's column ("A 'living wage' bill Baltimore can't live with," July 19) was short on logic and facts in charging that a proposed living wage law for large retailers in Baltimore would wreak havoc on the city's economy. First, Ms. Mossburg illogically blamed Baltimore's 1994 living wage law --- which affected a small number of city service contractors and a few hundred workers of their workers --- for Baltimore's loss of population and work force since enactment. Any Econ 101 undergraduate understands that the challenges facing Baltimore's economy are unrelated to $10.59 an hour for Baltimore City's tiny number of contractual custodians, parking garage attendants, security guards and tree-trimmers.

ON THIS page on May 20, Ben Cashdan, a member of the Student Labor Action Committee at the Johns Hopkins University, argued that Hopkins' recent action to increase the wages of its lowest-paid employees does not go far enough. I beg to differ with Mr. Cashdan. In fact, Hopkins has been a leader among universities on this matter.When the "living wage" issue emerged locally about three years ago, Hopkins officials raised the university's minimum wage, first to $5.50 and then to $6 an hour (the federal minimum wage is now $5.15 an hour)

IT IS TROUBLING to see 170 employees of Broadway Services Inc. still denied the wage increase the city promised contracted service workers more than a year ago. After all, that company supported the city's decision to improve the floor wage paid to janitors, cafeteria workers and others who are employed by private companies to work at city buildings.Broadway Services president Tom McGowan even predicted some companies might not pass on their increased labor costs to the city because they would want to remain competitive in bidding for city work.

After more than four hours of testimony by business and religious leaders Thursday, a bill that would have required major retailers to pay workers the city's living wage died on a tie vote in a Baltimore City Council committee. Councilman Warren Branch, chairman of the three-member labor subcommittee, voted against the bill. Councilwoman Belinda Conaway voted in its favor; Councilman Nicholas D'Adamo was absent because of his parents' poor health. After the vote, the measure's sponsor said she was hopeful it could be resurrected.

The current bill making its way through the Baltimore City Council to require retailers with gross sales over $10 million to pay their employees a living wage is an important piece of legislation which was unnecessarily maligned by columnist Marta Mossburg ("Baltimore can't live with this 'living wage' bill," July 20). Every study which has been conducted on living wage laws has shown they do not increase the cost to employers, because the higher wages paid lead to decreased turnover, which lowers the costs of hiring and training as well as reducing workplace errors.