JUNE 4 (Reuters) — The Los Angeles City Council gave a second nod of approval on Wednesday (June 3) to a proposal to increase the minimum wage in the nation’s second-largest city to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9, but the measure must still come back for another vote, officials said.
The council voted 13-1 to approve the measure, just over two weeks after a preliminary 14-1 vote in favor of the ordinance.
Calling this a historical moment for the City of Los Angeles, City Council President Herb J. Wesson also pointed that this also represents a key moment for council members supporting this measure, saying “this may be one of the most important votes that we take in our entire political career.”
Opponents of the bill say a minimum wage hike is pointless if no high paying jobs are coming into the city. “We need to create good paying jobs, we don’t have good paying jobs, we’re talking about minimum wage jobs, I want these people to have good paying jobs in the city, but those good paying jobs aren’t coming to the city,” said Stewart Waldman, president of The Valley Industry and Commerce Association, one of the most influential business advocacy organizations in Southern California.
While Councilman Jose Huizar, who supports the measure said that passing the measure was “just and needed,” meeting attendee Miguel Angel Pantaleon said that the wage increase is just one element of an ailing economic system.
“I agree and disagree. I agree because people are going to have a better income and I disagree because this is only a band aid to the illness, the solution is not a wage increase, the solution is to fix the economic system that’s broken,” said Pantaleon.
But because the latest vote was not unanimous, the matter must come back for a final vote next Wednesday (June 10) that will take place without public debate. No amendments were anticipated and the next vote will not need to be unanimous.
The measure would require businesses with more than 25 employees to gradually increase wages to meet a $15 hourly pay level by 2020, while smaller businesses would have an extra year to comply with each step in the wage escalation ladder, according to a text of the proposed ordinance.
The Los Angeles City Council’s support of the measure is seen as a victory for labor and community groups that have successfully pushed for similar pay hikes in other major U.S. cities, including Seattle and San Francisco.
California’s minimum wage is currently $9 an hour.
With the federal minimum wage stagnant at $7.25 an hour since 2009, supporters of raising pay for the lowest paid workers have expressed little hope for an increase from the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress. (Los Angeles, California, USA)
