San Jose airport wants to cut 'living wage' 10%

[Newsjock]

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Two years after requiring airport businesses to give their employees a "living wage" -- at the urging of labor leaders -- San Jose officials Tuesday will consider changes aimed at making it more palatable to airlines and other companies they desperately need to keep and attract.

Businesses and airline officials had objected to the requirement, saying that it imposed a costly burden.

... San Jose's airport living-wage minimum is $14.19 an hour without benefits or $12.94 if the employer provides health insurance and pays half the cost. Oakland requires $12.82 an hour without benefits or $11.15 with them. San Francisco has two wage provisions requiring either $11.54 or $12.33 an hour depending on the type of employee, as well as a separate health care requirement.

... Ben Field, chief of staff at the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, which had urged adoption of the living wage for the airport, said the airport staff's "parity" proposal, which would lower the wage requirement with benefits to $11.65 an hour, would amount to a 10-percent pay cut for many workers now making $27,000 a year. "It would not make the airport more competitive, but would be devastating to hundreds of airport workers," Field said.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_16785823

[InkAddict]

1. As things stand now, those workers are screwed either way...

since in two years they will be mandated to purchase that health insurance, FT or PT. Granted, at that income level, they will receive subsidy but only on the next tax year's form which could be markedly different in terms of income of say, marrieds filing jointly, while their company and it's directors and officers will receive instant tax breaks on their obscene incomes and bonuses without regard to other forms of status.