When San Diego officials encourage and approve new hotel and tourism developments, they are shaping our local economy for years to come. And the shape they're molding is bottom-heavy with poverty-wage jobs.
In a VoiceofSanDiego.org article this week, CPI Research and Policy Director Murtaza Baxamusa and Marney Cox, chief economist for SANDAG, agreed that the Mayor and City Council must consider the long-term need to foster better jobs rather than continue to focus on tourism development.
As Baxamusa said: "Every single land-use decision we make as a city, it says something about the society we want to grow into." Rally Monday for family-sustaining wages! As a first step toward a healthier economy, CPI and many of our allies have worked hard to make family-sustaining wages a goal of San Diego's plan for future development.
This Monday, the battle for livable wages comes to the City Council.
Join us for a rally to tell the Council we must aim for a fair economy with quality jobs! RSVP for the event here!
Rally: 1 p.m. Monday, March 10
Civic Center Plaza
(1200 3rd Ave., San Diego 92101)
Council meeting: 2 p.m. Monday, March 10
12th floor, City Hall (202 C St., San Diego 92101)
12th floor, City Hall (202 C St., San Diego 92101)
Mayor Jerry Sanders has deleted all references to better wages and economic prosperity for workers from the city's General Plan, which sets guidelines for new development. The restaurant industry is lining up behind him with wildly misinformed alarms.
Let's fill the council chambers with the clear call for developments to bring our community quality jobs - jobs that include healthcare benefits and pay enough to make ends meet!
Contractors violating San Diego's Living Wage Ordinance
In just one month of outreach, CPI staff and allies found 13 workers who say they weren't paid the wages or given the healthcare benefits required of city contractors under the Living Wage Ordinance.
One example: a woman employed by a janitorial contractor to clean San Diego libraries, who supports three children and her sick mother, said she has been paid $8 an hour with no health coverage. Under the law, she should have earned $12.41 an hour or $10.34 an hour plus health benefits.
The workers must remain anonymous or risk losing their jobs, but their stories were presented Wednesday to the City Council budget committee.
The committee voted unanimously to draft ordinances to:
Include the cost of contract monitoring and enforcement in contractor bids.
Strengthen penalties or deterrents to enforce the living wage law.
Committee Chair Toni Atkins said she will create a Citizens' Advisory Committee on living wage enforcement. She and Councilmember Donna Frye noted that the having adequate staffing to monitor contracts is essential to protect taxpayers as the city moves to privatize some city departments through the Mayor's managed competition plan.
"As we get into managed competition, this needs to be part of the Mayor's proposal," Atkins said. "It should be included in the cost of the program."
Center on Policy Initiatives
3727 Camino del Rio South, Ste 100
San Diego, CA 92108
(619) 584-5744
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