Buffalo News (New York), December 7, 2006, Thursday

Copyright 2006 The Buffalo News
All Rights Reserved
Buffalo News (New York)

December 7, 2006 Thursday
CENTRAL EDITION

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B6

HEADLINE: Living wage law has only modest success, panel says

BYLINE: By Matthew Spina - NEWS STAFF REPORTER

BODY:
The effects of Buffalo's 7-year-old living wage law have been modest so far, the commission that enforces it said Wednesday as it encouraged Common Council members, the Buffalo Board of Education and city leaders to take action on a number of fronts.
So far, the commission says, it has been able to prod raises for about 170 workers so they can earn a wage that keeps them above poverty. But in releasing a status report Wednesday, the commission said there are hundreds more workers whose wages should be lifted by the city law.
In fact, some of those employees work for the city itself.
Buffalo's ordinance, passed in 1999 but not fully implemented until 2003, requires the city and contractors doing more than $50,000 in business with City Hall to offer a living wage if they have at least 10 employees. Since 2004, Buffalo's living wage has been defined as $9.03 an hour with health benefits and $10.15 without.
The city itself has employees earning less than those amounts, including crossing guards, seasonal laborers and interns -- a job title that the city has applied more broadly than just to students picking up career experience.
The ordinance does not apply to independent authorities such as the Buffalo Sewer Authority and Buffalo Water Authority, or to the School Board, which as recently as 2005 paid food-service workers as little as $8.25 an hour with no health benefits, according to a city audit.
Commissioners are calling on city officials to notify all prospective contractors about the law and to expand the ordinance so all city employees earn a living wage. But would raises for city workers violate the wage freeze imposed by the state control board?
The commission's compliance coordinator, lawyer Sam Magavern, doesn't think so. He said that under state law, the freeze applies only to pay raises linked to collective-bargaining agreements, not a living wage standard set by a city law. The city's own attorneys are reviewing the matter.
Similarly, Magavern said he does not think the control board's wage freeze bars the cost-of-living adjustment that Lovejoy Council Member Richard A. Fontana has introduced to bring the minimum living wage to $9.59 an hour with health benefits and $10.77 without.
"I think the Council is supportive," Delaware Council Member Michael J. LoCurto said when asked if he thought the adjustment would pass. "We are trying to get legal opinions from our counsel as to whether this violates the wage freeze."
Six private employers have come into compliance with the ordinance, the commission said, but several have resisted. Right now, the commission is negotiating with Rural/Metro Medical Services, which argues that the ordinance does not cover its agreement to provide 911 ambulance services in Buffalo.
Rural/Metro insists its contract with the city is a franchise agreement that falls outside the living wage law. The company also says that when figuring fringe benefits, its lowest-paid employees earn at least $10.41 an hour.
The Living Wage Commission is rooted in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, which provides the commission chairwoman, Lou Jean Fleron, as well as office space, staff support and other services. The Margaret L. Wendt Foundation provided the money that let the commission hire Magavern as part-time compliance coordinator.
e-mail: mspina@buffnews.com