Will San Diego Raise the Wage for Tourism Workers?
Which Side Are You on San Diego?
As the country continues to lurch toward unchecked oligarchy, there was some distinctly good news last week here in San Diego. Sean Elo-Rivera, chair of the City Council’s Select Committee on Addressing the Cost of Living proposed a $25 an hour minimum wage for tourism workers, which moved forward on a 3-0 vote. As reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune before the hearing:
In a move to significantly boost the pay of San Diego’s service workers, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera will formally propose next week a $25 an hour minimum wage for those employed in hotels and event centers, as well as janitorial service workers in the city’s tourism sector.
The proposed hourly pay, if ultimately enacted by San Diego’s elected leaders, would be substantially higher than the city’s own mandated minimum wage of $17.25 an hour, which rises each year based on the consumer price index.
Elo-Rivera plans to introduce his proposal on Thursday at the first meeting of the council’s Select Committee on Addressing Cost of Living, which he chairs. His hope is to get buy-in from the two other members so that an ordinance can be drafted by the City Attorney’s office, following consultation with city staff, the Independent Budget Analyst, and affected workers and businesses. If adopted by the full council, the hope is to have it go into effect by Jan. 1 of next year.
Broadly defined to include a wide swath of service sector and tourism industry workers, this effort would raise the bar for the entire region’s service sector and perhaps signal that San Diego’s days as America’s Finest Tourist Plantation may be numbered. Following in the footsteps of Long Beach and Los Angeles, this proposal, if adopted, would indicate that some progressive San Diego elected officials are not satisfied to simply usher in an “era of austerity” while they sit back and wait to do anything that improves the lives of ordinary San Diegans.
In a good indication that Elo-Rivera has the right idea, the Chamber of Commerce and local hoteliers, who historically have been used to getting things their way, came out swinging against it despite the many millions of dollars they have been making on the backs of their underpaid workforce. While the final details will need to be hashed out, the clear benefit of this initiative is that it establishes a far more livable wage. Given the fact that last year tourists spent $14.3 billion in San Diego—driving up massive profits for hotel chains and corporate CEOs while the workers who clean the rooms, serve the meals, and maintain the venues were left behind—it is only fair to share the wealth with those who created it.
Elo’s proposal would help local workers keep up with our city’s ridiculous cost of living where someone needs to earn $30.71 per hour to afford necessities and a family of four requires more than $53 per hour to keep pace. Thus, rather than delivering a huge boost, this policy would simply help many local laborers from falling even further behind. Tourism workers would be able to pay rent, buy groceries, and care for a family while they slaved away at places where affluent tourists come to enjoy luxuries those who serve them cannot afford.
And at a time of record-breaking profits for corporations and surging incomes for the very rich, it is also a welcome dose of accountability and fairness rather than rewarding corporate greed as usual. As the SDUT reported, in his comments last Thursday, Elo-Rivera put the measure in the larger context of San Diego history:
“Decisions in this city for too long have been made to benefit out-of-town corporations, wealthy investors, and a few powerful people while the people who make San Diego run are the workers who are left struggling to survive. That has to stop,” he said. “Here’s the truth that opponents of this proposal don’t and won’t acknowledge: There is no tourism industry without tourism workers.”
Union activists, like IBEW 465’s Nate Fairman, put the struggle of these local workers against their employers in the even larger context of American labor history as he sang “Which Side Are You On?” to get his point across at the Council committee meeting.
With that in mind, it is important to recognize that this wage policy is also a model for the kinds of things we can do in blue states and cities to fight for real economic justice for working people when, at the federal level, they are receiving nothing but grief. By adopting a proposal like this, San Diego can serve as a laboratory of inclusive democracy and a light in the greater darkness of Trump’s America.
If you are interested in helping this effort, you can sign a petition indicating your support here.
When San Diego workers win, we all do.