The Buffalo News, March 13, 2008, Thursday

The Buffalo News

The Buffalo News

Panel cites strides on Living Wage Law

By Brian Meyer NEWS STAFF REPORTER
March 13, 2008, Thursday

When crusaders against poverty camped out in tents on Niagara Square last fall to protest lax enforcement of Buffalo’s Living Wage Law, they vowed to keep up their fight.

Six months later, a watchdog panel that oversees enforcement of the Living Wage released an upbeat annual report that touted major strides.

For the first time, school crossing guards and seasonal workers who pick up trash are being paid wages that comply with the law. In addition, three vendors that do business with the city — including the lone ambulance provider — came into partial compliance with the Living Wage Law, said commission Chairwoman Lou Jean Fleron. She estimated the strides made in the past year have placed 400 additional workers under the Living Wage Law.

“And it makes an enormous difference in people’s lives,” Fleron said at a City Hall news conference Wednesday.

Advocates agreed that more progress was made on the Living Wage front in 2007 than in any previous year. For one thing, the city changed the law to add an automatic cost-of-living adjustment to hourly rates each year.

The law applies to vendors with city contracts worth at least $50,000 and who have more than 10 employees. Companies that provide parking, food, security, janitorial and landscaping services are among those that must comply. The city has also applied the rate to seasonal and most part-time employees. The current minimum rate is $9.90 an hour with health insurance, or $11.11 without benefits.

Despite the accomplishments, the commission’s vice chairman said there are some daunting challenges.

“We have a long way to go,” said the Rev. Merle E. Showers. “I wouldn’t want us to feel that we can rest because we’ve made great progress.”

Showers said one goal should include continued efforts to prod the Board of Education to pay all workers a living wage. The commission estimated that at least 1,000 School Board employees — including food service workers and bus aides — make less than the living wage. School officials and some city control board members have warned that such a move would compound the Board of Education’s long-term fiscal problems.

Commission members said another goal is to improve the city contracting process, calling it “chaotic, inconsistent and prone to legal violations.” Ferreting out city vendors that don’t comply with the Living Wage provisions has been difficult. City Community Services Commissioner Tanya Perrin- Johnson said that steps have already been taken to boost compliance and that the city’s contract process will be overhauled by the end of the year. She said the Law Department is working on reforms that will make the system more “efficient, accessible and accountable.”

bmeyer@buffnews.com