Mayor Eric Garcetti said today he is open to studying an idea to exempt workers with union contracts from the city’s proposed $15 per hour minimum wage ordinance, but stressed it is not in the current draft expected to cross his desk soon.

“The ordinance that they (the council) put forward — and I hope comes to my desk — doesn’t have that in it right now,” the mayor said, referring to the proposed exemption.

“Anything that comes after a long process, I’m always open to hearing about, to look at, to studying, but that’s different than whether we’re moving forward” with the idea, Garcetti said during an impromptu news conference this morning on a separate matter.

Labor leaders are pushing for the minimum wage ordinance to exclude workers covered under collective bargaining agreements.

“For every local wage ordinance it has ever adopted, the Los Angeles City Council has respected agreements that businesses and employees have mutually reached,” said Rusty Hicks, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and co-chair of the Raise the Wage coalition, which pushed for the minimum wage hike.

“L.A. should continue to do what other cities in California have done when raising its minimum wage,” Hicks said. “Big business tries to use every trick in the book to undermine collective bargaining. This is a standard clause to protect basic worker rights.”

An exception for union workers was included in a wage hike ordinance recently approved for Los Angeles hotels.

Council President Herb Wesson said he and his colleagues “haven’t ducked” the proposal by labor and said it will likely come up Friday when the Economic Development Committee meets to discuss the ordinance enacting the tentatively approved wage hike.

“It deserves a conversation. We’ll have a conversation,” he said.

Councilman Mike Bonin said he supports the ordinance “as drafted.” He said “any further changes” and “their impact on working families” would be studied “as thoroughly as we studied the wage increases.”

Business leaders said they are reaching out to city leaders to scuttle the proposed exemption.

Ruben Gonzalez, senior vice president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said the exemption for unions could force employers who cannot afford to raise wages into allowing their workers to unionize, “creating an organizing tool” for labor groups.

“It defies credibility that labor leaders and progressive leaders fought for over eight months for the right to now give their members sub- minimum wages,” Gonzalez said. “I doubt that the dozens of union members given T-shirts and bused into City Hall knew this is what they were cheering for.”

— City News Service

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