Cities, Employers And The Living Wage

Since the Baltimore city government adopted a living wage six years ago, the campaign has spread to 55 other municipalities, including Cambridge, Boston and Somerville.

Throughout the course of the sit-in, Cambridge Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio regularly made appearances at PSLM? rallies, speaking vehemently against the Harvard Corporation and urging the University? governing bodies to follow the city? lead.

But Harvard did not necessarily think that it should, or had to, heed the calls for a living wage from Cambridge officials.

?hy should we let City Hall tell us what to pay??says Polly Price, associate vice president of human resources. ?ll they do is make our lives difficult and not let us build where we want to.?

PSLM activists often draw parallels between Cambridge? implementation of a mandatory wage floor and the success such a policy might have at Harvard.

Of the city? adoption of a living wage, Deputy City Manager James P. Maloney, Jr. says, ?t was proposed to the city by a lot of the same groups that proposed it to Harvard. We faced all the same issues that Harvard did.?

But though PSLM has called for the $10.25 wage floor to apply to all Harvard workers, Cambridge? living wage does not apply to every person who works in the city.

Instead, Cambridge? recently adjusted living wage of $10.68 per hour applies only to three clearly defined groups of workers?hose directly employed by the city, subcontracted workers whose firm has a contract of greater than $10,000 with Cambridge and organizations who receive grants of more than $10,000 from the city.

Contracts generally run from one to three years and primarily involve construction work, service delivery, day care and medical services. The stipulation that the workers are paid no less than the living wage figure is made part of the contracts for these services.

Cambridge recalculates its living wage yearly. The city? ordinance is readjusted each March to correlate to the average percentile increase in the cost of living. Just this March, city government adjusted the living wage figure from $10.25 to $10.68 per hour? move that was all but ignored by protesters on campus.

Since the living wage figure shifted from $10.68 to $10.25, Director of Personnel Michael Gardner says the city has accounted for 260 directly employed workers whose wages have been raised. When the living wage changes, it immediately affects directly employed city employees and new contracts.