Critics Say L.A.'s Minimum-Wage Victory is Tainted by Organized Labor's Push for Exemptions for Union Workplaces

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At the Los Angeles Times, "Labor leaders' credibility slips in minimum-wage debate":

L.A.'s decision to boost the minimum wage should have been the sweetest of victories for organized labor.

Mayor Eric Garcetti helped union leaders and their allies achieve a long-sought goal Saturday, signing an ordinance that moves the city's hourly minimum to $15 by 2020.

But for some partisans on each side of the debate, that historic moment has been tainted by labor leaders' last-minute push for an exemption for unionized workplaces. The request for a union waiver — proposed and then abruptly shelved — drew national attention, much of it negative, to the county Federation of Labor and its recently installed top executive, Rusty Hicks.

When Hicks and his allies advocated for the increase, "they basically said everybody who works in Los Angeles is entitled to $15 an hour — that that's the minimum people should be paid so they can pay rent and support their families," said lobbyist Steve Afriat, who bucked other business officials by endorsing a $15 minimum wage last fall. "And then … they hardly take a break before they say, 'We want our members exempt from it.'"

That request hurt the credibility of union leaders, Afriat said, particularly among L.A. leaders who are not their "knee-jerk" supporters. Other assessments were similarly harsh.

Political analyst Harold Meyerson, an expert on organized labor, called Hicks' handling of the proposal a "self-inflicted disaster" in an op-ed in The Times. The gossip site Gawker outright mocked backers of the idea.

And USA Today's editorial page said the opt-out clause showed labor was looking to use the minimum wage increase as "a weapon to pressure companies to unionize," since unionized companies would then have the ability to negotiate a subminimum wage.

Hicks said he broached the idea of an exemption to the citywide minimum wage last month, in phone calls to staffers with City Council President Herb Wesson and Councilman Curren Price. Those calls took place after the council had backed a plan for raising the wage but before its vote on the specific language. Once the information got out, spurring a backlash, Hicks held a news conference to explain that city leaders would take additional time to study the idea.

Wesson is now planning a discussion of the issue this fall. But others say labor leaders might have done better to let the idea die a swift and public death...

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