Top 10 of 2021: #2 – Republicans Propose Eliminating Living Wage Ordinance

Republican Mayor Erin Stewart’s new 12-3 Republican City Council has proposed repealing an ordinance that requires living wages be paid to workers under certain city service contracts.

The ordinance, called the city “Living Wage ordinance” requires that, if the city contracts with a company for certain services, the workers for that company be paid a certain living wage. The amount of the living wage in the ordinance, currently $15.03 per hour, is determined by a formula based a federal data.

The proposal to repeal the living wage ordinance was one of a raft of proposals Republicans put on the Council agenda in the second week of December, when most people were focused on the upcoming holidays. And this proposal is then to be considered by a Council committee that meets the week after New Year’s Day. Republicans could very well sweep the living wage ordinance off the books in the full Council by the second next week after the holidays.

Stewart is fond of marketing herself as “bi-partisan”, but this proposal, being so brazenly hard-edged conservative, is not an early sign that she intends to wield her 12-3 Republican Council majority in a way that is very “bi-partisan” or even “moderate” at all.

A “substitute” for the proposal to repeal the Living Wage ordinance appears on the agenda of the January 5, 2022 Council committee. The substitute removes the proposed strikeout of the Living Wage ordinance and thus, as worded, would keep the ordinance intact. This lends some hope that the public pressure exerted so far may be causing Republicans to back down from the Living Wage repeal. Hopefully, it is not a prelude to weakening it, however.

The Living Wage ordinance should, in fact, be improved by increasing the amount of the living wage so that it is always well above the minimum wage, requiring enhanced health benefits and pensions for workers of contracting companies, protecting the right to have unions and by applying the Living Wage ordinance, with all of these enhancements, to more types of city contracts.

The Council committee meeting at which the proposal is on January 5, 2022 at 7:00pm in City Hall, in the Council Chamber on the second floor.

As in every year, there was so much news that the New Britain Progressive covered 2021 that choosing our traditional Top Ten stories of the year is difficult. But this stridently conservative, anti-working people proposal, the consideration of which will be among the first stories of 2022, makes this the #2 of the New Britain Progressive‘s Top Ten Stories of 2021.

Republicans Propose Eliminating Living Wage Ordinance

December 3, 2021

City Council Republicans are proposing the repeal of an ordinance that requires living wages be paid to workers under certain city service contracts.

The ordinance, “Labor Standards in City Contracting and Purchasing,” requires that, if the city contracts with companies for certain services, the workers for that company be paid a certain living wage. The amount of the living wage in the ordinance is determined by a formula based a federal data.

For 2021, that living wage is $15.03 per hour.

The proposal to repeal the ordinance on living wages is being proposed by the Republicans’ Council President Pro-Tempore, Ald. Robert Smedley (R-4).

The living wage ordinance that Council Republicans propose to repeal requires the $15.03 per hour living wage for workers under any contracts with the city over $25,000, “for the provision of food, clerical, transportation, building, property, equipment or maintenance services,” as well as, “janitorial cleaning, maintenance or related service.” The ordinance does not apply to construction or contracts for services that are “as-needed” or for fewer than five days.

The ordinance that Republicans seek to repeal also includes a provision to give first preference to hiring prospective workers who are residents of New Britain when they are hiring.

City Council Republicans now control 12 of Council’s 15 seats after 2021 city elections, providing total control of city hall to Republican Mayor Erin Stewart and her Republican political machine.

The repeal proposal is on the agenda of the December 8, 2021 Council meeting. Public participation for that meeting begins at 7:00pm, but Council Republicans in the last term decided that only in-person public participation is now allowed. The meeting is on the second floor of city hall at 27 West Main Street.