Living Wage Bill Already Finding Powerful Opponents
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A new bill mandating a “living wage” for those working on city projects is set to be introduced to the City Council this week, and it’s already members getting push-back from some powerful interests, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg. NY1 Political reporter Bobby Cuza filed the following report. Supporters of a bill being introduced by some City Council members say they’re simply fighting for a living wages, ensuring those at the bottom of the economic ladder can make ends meet, by requiring any project receiving city subsidies pay workers $10 an hour plus benefits. That’s almost 40 percent more than the minimum wage.
“When we look at how much money people will make with those that are not making the living wage, they are making less than $20,000 a year,” said Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez. “And no one can survive in this city so expensive as New York.”
Councilman Rodriguez is a member of the council’s recently-formed progressive caucus and one of many council members who support the bill. They find themselves at odds with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who says the wage mandate would mean many projects do not get built at all.
“A lot of those jobs just, the economics don’t work if you have to pay more,” said the mayor.
It’s an echo of the debate over the city-owned Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx. Last year, the City Council defeated plans to build a mall there, in part because the developer refused to accept a similar wage mandate.
Whether this broader bill gets passed will hinge on Council Speaker Christine Quinn; while she stood with her members in voting against the Armory project, this time she’s not yet taking sides.
“It just having been introduced, I don’t have a position yet,” she said. “It will get referred to the appropriate committee and begin to make its way through the legislative process, at which some point in that process, I will take a formal position on the bill.”
Business leaders like Kathryn Wylde of Partnership for NYC say what the bill amounts to is city taxpayers subsidizing the wages of low-income workers, and that in the end the policy will backfire.
“Ultimately, it means that marginal projects, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, will not get built,” Wylde said.
Council members are set to introduce the bill on Tuesday, marking the start of what promises to be a long-running debate on this issue. There will be at least one public hearing on the bill before it goes to a full vote by the City Council, a process that’s likely to take at least several months.