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Rockland Living Wage activists have created a website at www.rocklandlivingwage.org where they have published a proposed Living Wage bill. They would like to phase in the so-called living wage of 125% of the federal poverty level for a family of four, over 3 years. That would equate to $10.35 an hour with benefits provided or $12.85 without for year one, $11.10 an hour with benefits provided, $13.60 without for year two and $11.80 an hour with benefits provided, $14.30 without for year three. Thereafter the wage would be adjusted to the appropriate rate yearly and remain.
The law would apply to any business with an annual contract of over $10,000 with the county and any non-profit with a contract for over $25,000 business with the county. The wage laws would apply not only to a company's business with the county but to the company's dealings in the free market.
"How can we expect companies to do business with the county if it means they will be at a disadvantage in the free market," RBA President and CEO Al Samuels asked.
Some contractors, like those in healthcare, have no choice but to deal with the county and the fallout of a living wage ordinance. Carol Greenberg, President of Concept Care in Westchester County, where a Living Wage ordinance was passed in 2002, said that Westchester health care contractors have split their payrolls to cope with the effects of the law. In fact, she recently received a call from a worker who demanded to work only on Medicaid cases, which were subject to the Living Wage laws.
"It's a very difficult situation. Caregivers are the backbone of our industry. We all believe they deserve more money, but our hands are tied. And now the costs deter some from accepting Medicaid. It's truly unfortunate," she said. Greenberg warned Rockland residents about the harmful effects a living wage ordinance will have on the health care industry. "I hope you fare better than we did," she said.
In Rockland, care contractors like Camp Venture in Nanuet will be affected by any living wage legislation. "I agree that workers involved in governmental services deserve as high a wage as possible, but if drafted incorrectly a living wage ordinance could turn into an unfunded mandate impossible to comply with," said Daniel Lukens Executive Director of Camp Venture.
His non-profit agency contracts nearly $1 million with the county every year, a sizable portion but still a small percentage of their entire budget. It would not make sense that a county contract could dictate his entire payroll, he said.
One item proposed in the Rockland living wage bill is county set-asides to help non-profits pay for the higher wages. Samuels finds this proposal amazing. "Where is this money coming from," he asked.
Lukens said it will be impossible for the county to compensate contractors with a large workforce that extends beyond county business. "They will not want to cover millions of dollars," Lukens said.
Contractors in Westchester have been able to split their payrolls as Greenberg said. This practice has still created major problems in how they do business and the happiness of employees who naturally desire the higher paying, living wage jobs. Still, some in the RBA community are supportive of the mandatory wage hikes, believing it sends a strong message that something must be done to give people a better chance to make ends meet in the county.
Samuels believes this can be accomplished by offering tax credits and creating affordable housing in the county, the working class' most pressing need. "Of course people deserve to make ends meet, but the Living Wage is absolutely not the way to do it," Samuels said.
Living Wage activists claim on their website that the purpose of Living Wage laws is primarily to send a message to the business community that there should be more jobs that pay well and that the government will not reward businesses who pay low wages and thus can offer lower bids for services.
The actual number of employees affected by LWO's is usually very low, coalition activists estimate about 2,000 in Rockland's case. Samuels questions the validity of that number.
Samuels agrees with researchers at the Employment Policies Institute, a free-market think tank that aims to counter the arguments of the Living Wage movement. Samuels and EPI claim that LWO's are primarily a pawn in the chess game of American politics.
Unions such as the AFL-CIO have put hundreds of millions of dollars in into Living Wage movement.
"It's part of their strategy to change the political direction of the country and consolidate power in their own hands," Samuels said. "ACORN, for example, is so motivated by political power they won't even follow their own principles in running their agency."
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| One of the lead organizations of the national Living Wage movement is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, acronym ACORN. Founded in the 1970’s as an offshoot of National Welfare Rights Organization, this group says it is “the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.”
ACORN’s stated mission is to protect workers’ rights to unionize, raise the minimum wage and create affordable housing, but ACORN’s own business practice has not represented these values. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled they illegally fought the efforts of their own workers to form unions and improve working conditions and they have been implicated in vote fraud schemes and other fraudulent activity.
In 1995 ACORN actually fought in court to be exempted from California’s minimum wage laws. They fought the wage, then only $4.25, saying it placed an unfair burden on their organization. They argued that their workers could better understand the plight of low-income people if they earned less money.
The judge in the case called ACORN’s argument “absurd.” ACORN also said that by raising wages they would have to reduce their staff, which is the same dilemma that many businesses are faced with upon passage of a mandatory wage increase.
ACORN has also been sued in court by its employees for unsafe working conditions and union busting, though the lion’s share of ACORN’s platform calls for protecting and increasing the rights of employees to unionize.
Kimberly Olson, head of the Dallas office of ACORN, which was the subject of an employee union drive, told her employees that they were not workers but believers in “the movement” and should expect to make sacrifices. Former ACORN organizer John Rees said the Dallas branch was “under enormous pressure from ACORN national management to engage in illegal union-busting tactics.”
The NLRB found that Olson had gathered employees together to explain the “negative aspects” of unions and warn them that unions could “bring down” ACORN. Ironically ACORN’s founder and chairperson, Wade Rathke is a member of the International Board of the Service Employees International Union and has long been politically associated with unions. Politically, ACORN is generally considered an arm of America’s unions.
Though ACORN is not directly involved in the Rockland Living Wage Coalition, their website is hyperlinked to the coalition’s website. It is because of their efforts in conjunction with The New Party, The Working Families Party and national unions that the Living Wage movement is as powerful as it is today.
Here is a further list of ACORN’s problematic history, provided by the Employment Policy Institute.
For greater detail, EPI has published a study of ACORN’s dubious activities, which can be found at www.EPIonline.org
ACORN and Minimum Wage Hypocrisy
Most egregiously, ACORN promotes ballot initiatives and local ordinances to force businesses to pay higher minimum wages.
In 1995, however, ACORN actually sued the state of California to have its employees exempted from the state minimum wage. ACORN argued that being forced to pay higher wages would mean that they would hire fewer employees – the very dilemma faced by businesses. Incredibly, ACORN stated that paying its employees a lower wage would allow them to be more sympathetic to the low- and moderate-income families they were attempting to help. ACORN argued that abiding by the state minimum wage would limit their ability to promote their agenda and would therefore be a violation of their First Amendment rights. The trial court judge dismissed ACORN's suits, stating, "leaving aside the latter argument's absurdity ... we find ACORN to be laboring under a
fundamental misconception of constitutional law."
ACORN Involved in Florida Voter Registration Fraud
In 2004, ACORN was at the center of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement statewide investigation into widespread fraudulent voter registrations tied to its ballot initiative campaign to raise the minimum wage. An ACORN whistleblower reports that ACORN illegally threw out Republican registrations while paying gatherers for Democratic ones. He also charged that ACORN targeted ex-cons and that he personally set up registration tables outside the Miami police department and Dade County jail and went on to state, "The voter registration project has been operating illegally since it started."
ACORN bilks AmeriCorps
In 1996, the Inspector General of the AmeriCorps program, Luise Jordan, stripped a $1 million grant from the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC). When applying, AHC had denied any connections to ACORN,
since the grant was not intended for political advocacy organizations. Evidence later uncovered by the Inspector General found that not only was AHC created by ACORN, engaged in numerous transactions with one another, and sharing staff and office space -- but it utilized the AmeriCorps grant to increase ACORN membership, a violation of federal guidelines. AHC also utilized its government-funded loan counseling program to steer low-income families toward ACORN memberships. Jordan found that AHC had distributed leaflets stating that low income, first-time homebuyers were required to join
ACORN, at an annual cost of $60, in order to receive the government-subsidized counseling.
ACORN Union-Busts Own Workers
On March 27, 2003 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that ACORN had violated the National Labor Relations Act and was required to rehire and pay restitution to employees terminated for attempting to form a union. The NLRB ruling is just the latest in a trend of ACORN's union-busting tactics. ACORN employees have historically demanded higher wages, safer working conditions and more timely contracted wages. These efforts have been repressed behind closed doors by the hypocritical ACORN leadership, which publicly advocates higher pay and better working conditions for private sector workers.
-- by Dylan Skriloff
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