Deceptive ballot measure would repeal the Living Wage Ordinance.
By Susan Duerksen | April 15, 2010 |
This week, even as we celebrate the 5th anniversary of San Diego’s Living Wage Ordinance, special interests are ramping up a stealth campaign to kill the Living Wage.
City contractors and developers are pushing a deceptively named ballot initiative that would repeal and outlaw the Living Wage Ordinance.
The Living Wage Ordinance is under attack! Don’t give money or your signature to the misnamed “Competition and Transparency in City Contracting Initiative.”
On Tuesday, hundreds of San Diegans celebrated the 5th anniversary of the Living Wage law. We threw a party at City Hall with an inspiring performance by Michelle Shocked, and signed a mass letter thanking the City for lifting low-wage workers out of poverty.
The Living Wage law has strengthened our local economy by requiring that contractors who receive taxpayer dollars pay their workers enough to live on. These workers — landscapers, janitors, security guards and others — can pay their bills and stay off public aid. Cloaked in phony claims about “city spending,” the proposed initiative would push those workers back into poverty and raise costs for all of us — except the contractors.
We need your help and your voice to protect the Living Wage Ordinance. Share this message as widely as you can and then talk to 5 friends.
Last month, a city report showed that the same interests now trying to kill the Living Wage Ordinance were wrong 5 years ago when they predicted it would break businesses. In fact, half of employers report that paying the Living Wage has improved their service quality and has lowered turnover and absenteeism. Other local businesses benefit because workers have money to spend.
True concern for taxpayers focuses on the real public cost of poverty, not a cheap price tag on a poverty-creating city contract.
We need your voice to counterbalance the attack by one City Councilmember, Carl DeMaio, and the millions of dollars being spent on behalf of irresponsible employers!
Tell your friends: Reject the deceptive ballot initiative from the contractors’ lobby.
