Labor Day Lies From Bauters and Welch

 Bauters' Audacious Labor Day Message

Mayor Welch Joins the Prevaricating & Pontificating Prose

Opinion

Happy Labor Day, Emeryville community!  It’s a nice thought that people can wish happiness for the community on this day we honor labor but like nearly everything else in post Trump America, even this has been co-opted and wrapped up in a lie by politicians seeking personal gain at the expense of the community.  Even here in Emeryville.  

Take the audaciousness of Council member John Bauters in his social media blitz today as he campaigns for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors race.  It’s shocking but not surprising that Council member Bauters is going around telling potential voters in the county, he supports labor.  It’s a deceitful re-write of his record.

People who have lived in Emeryville for more than a few years remember how Council member Bauters led a drive to drive down the wages of the poorest working people in Emeryville when as mayor, he rolled back Emeryville’s landmark and progressive Minimum Wage Ordinance.  Actual low paid workers struggling to make it on minimum wage were going to have their wages cut if Bauters had been successful.  Luckily, the Alameda Labor Coalition fought back and by a massive last minute resident signature drive, forced Bauters to back down.

It’s true that Mr Bauters has gotten the endorsement of police and fire fighter’s associations (some call them “unions”).  But those associations are not real unions.  You can tell because police officers and fire fighters NEVER walk fellow union members’ union picket lines like all union members are supposed to do.  Remember, the word is UNION.  The Carpenter’s Union did endorse Bauters but that’s because his public policy works for large development corporations.  The Carpenters' are making a bad calculation that by breaking with their union brothers and sisters, they will get rewards from all the new development Bauters says he will bring.  Splitting unions like this is part of the anti-union corporate playbook it should be noted.

John Bauters and his protege, the corporatist Democrat Courtney Welch (who is now Mayor and who said she “supports Bauters 100%”) are using Labor Day to convince voters Bauters’ record on labor is not his record.  It’s Trumpian in its shamelessness and dark, calculating disposition.

 We know you and we remember, John.  You are lying when you tell voters who don’t know you that you will “fight to protect workers’ rights, fair wages and safe working conditions”.  We hate this kind of cynical politicizing and hoodwinking.  The truth will be told about your record and Alameda County voters will know you don’t value labor if we have anything to say about it.  You can say what you will about other things you have fought for, like LGBTQ+ rights.  We won’t take that away from you, John.  But we will intervene when you lie about your record on labor rights.  

Happy REAL Labor Day, Emeryville.  

Say what you will about Councilman Bauters, but 'willing to fight for
fair wages' is an outright lie. Many politicians lie, of course.  We're not so 
deluded to think otherwise but when we see a brazen lie like this, especially
by an elected official, we report it here at the Tattler.

This is not a politician trying to put a positive spin on something they are exposed on.  This is just 

a lie.

Forget the Minimum Wage; It's Time to Rollback Our City Council Healthcare Costs

If Rollbacks Are Fair Game, How About 

This One, City Council?

Opinion
We all watched with amazement last May as the Emeryville City Council majority, a self proclaimed ‘progressive’ lot, voted to roll back our Minimum Wage Ordinance and punch down against the working poor, the traditional victims in contemporary America.  In so doing, they conspicuously switched victims and chose instead to pour their empathy on the small business restaurant community and their Emeryville patrons who want cheap eats.  The rollback, supported by Council members John Bauters, Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue was ultimately pushed back by the combined forces of the labor community and the people of Emeryville, who have shown they have more empathy (and numbers) for the working poor than those seeking a bargain at the local ramen eatery.

But the whole spectacle got us to thinking.  This City Council majority, who clearly feels the pain of the business community shouldering the costs of paying a living wage to their employees, must surely also feel the taxpayer’s pain who are shouldering the costs of the Council members' individual health care premiums.

Emeryville taxpayers are forced to pay almost $6000 every month for the five of them; a cost we don't have to be burdened with.  And $6000 is just for this month, next month might be more....the rates keep going up. It's a lot to bear for the constantly tapped Emeryville taxpayer. 
Councilwoman Dianne Martinez said it best when she voted last May to roll back Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance; we need to protect Emeryville’s small business community against these high labor costs in order to “keep them viable” she said.  Now it’s time for Ms Martinez who’s currently personally profiteering off the taxpayers to the tune of almost $2000 a month, it's time for her to protect us, the taxpayers…to keep us viable.
If Councilwoman Martinez and the rest of them want health care, let them buy it themselves.  Because there's a perfect analogy between the struggling business community and the struggling taxpaying residents.  Why is it OK that the Council use its power to provide monetary relief for the business community and not the residents?  In whose interests are the City Council looking after? Where's OUR rollback Mr Bauters, Mr Donahue and Ms Martinez? 

For Shame: Emeryville's Minimum Wage Roll Back Debacle

Dust Has Settled From City Council's Use of Minimum Wage Rollback Bludgeon

Citizens Want to Know Why

They Took Us There

News Analysis/Opinion
Three months ago Emeryville City Hall launched a divisive attack on the working poor in our town; a paroxysm of pro-business ideology in action forwarded by three members on the City Council.  At their May 21st meeting, the Council majority three, working at the behest of certain restaurant owners in town and without consulting any affected workers, voted to rollback Emeryville's hard fought four year old progressive Minimum Wage Ordinance (MWO).  The injudicious action was subsequently beaten back by the people of Emeryville by way of a voter ballot initiative petition brought by a coalition of labor and community groups forcing the Council's hand who voted to retract the wage rollback on July 23rd.
So now that the dust has settled and the minimum wage has been successfully defended, we're right back where we were before this whole thing got started.  The people's befuddlement and acrimony however is lingering over the whole sordid and unnecessary affair. 
Citizens would be right to ask why did all that just happen.

It's been a roller coaster of drama in the people's hall, the actors all playing their parts: posturing, feigning, kibitzing, doubling down, pivoting and then closing with a July 23rd “heartsick” capitulation, to quote Councilman John Bauters, the initiator of the whole spectacle.  Dramatic to be sure, but it was drama the people of Emeryville never asked for.

The May 21st City Council minimum wage incursion, led by Mr Bauters and joined by his colleagues Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue, formed the spare three member majority needed to roll back wages for small restaurant workers in town.  The insurgent majority set up an ambitious timeline for themselves; by July 1st, they would have to finish the required second reading necessary to amend the existing ordinance (effectively creating a new ordinance), in order to make sure the restaurant workers didn’t get their MWO mandated Consumer Price Index pegged raise set to take effect on that date.  A lot of finagling of schedules was necessary owing to California’s Brown Act ‘sunshine law’ notifications and individual Council members’ personal calendars, to make the hard July 1st date.  The 'Council three' made use of a controversial but technically legal provision performed by a family event obliged Councilman Donahue phoning in live from the East Coast to cast the deciding vote.
All their hard work paid off and in the eleventh hour, the City Council three was able to stop the Emeryville restaurant workers from getting their raise, just in time.

Or so they thought.

The problem is they didn't sufficiently calculate the passions of an aroused and aggrieved Bay Area labor contingent.  Because  of the audacity of the Council’s action, the coalition of labor groups and community activists known as East Bay Working Families entered the fray with a bevy of hot off the presses voter petitions.  Weeks of door knocking and 871 Emeryville registered voter signatures later, the Council majority’s whole ambitious anti-worker plot came to its inglorious end.

Emeryville's Restaurant Sector 2013-2018
The Minimum Wage Ordinance took effect in 2015.  
Restaurant owners are claiming the high minimum wage  
costs are driving them out of business or forcing them to flee.  
Notice what happened beginning in 2015 with new start-ups.

That’s the history of the last three months in a nutshell.  Those seeking more detail may want to make use of the Tattler search bar; “minimum wage ordinance".  But still unanswered is why?  Why did this gang of three suddenly make this incongruous turn?
Surprisingly, in retrospect, the three Council members were all endorsed by the progressive citizen activist group Residents for a Livable Emeryville (RULE).  Cutting the wages of the poorest among us is not something one would expect progressives to do.  The official explanation didn’t shed any light. That argument posited that the restaurant owners had assured the three they were all pushed to the edge, business failures and bankruptcies looming if their workers were paid more as relayed and repeated by the Council majority.  But the City Council never checked to see if the bankruptcy claims were true.  They just took the business owners at their word.  And they failed to listen to workers or labor groups at all.  Again- not how one would expect progressives to act.

Trust But Verify
Emeryville, being a small town, has certain advantages when it comes to making decisions such as the Council made based on the word of the restaurant owners.  In this case, the Council could have easily directed the staff to check the veracity of the owner’s claims of looming bankruptcy.  With only as few as 22 restaurants affected by the minimum wage roll back in question, a manageable number, the City could have easily opened the books of these businesses.  A city like Oakland, with hundreds of restaurants, could not enjoy Emeryville’s capacity to actually check before they leaped into such consequential policy change.
Our City Council majority, instead of finding out before they tore asunder the lives of the working poor in our town, instead forged ahead based simply on the assurances of those business owners with a material interest in lying. 

Unlike the City Council, the people of Emeryville, historically, have shown they don't trust the business community to tell the truth when profits are on the line.  In 1997, the City Council looking to increase revenue, began discussions about whether to raise the taxes on the Oaks Club card room up to the Bay Area card room average.  At the time, the Oaks enjoyed an Emeryville tax rate at about 25% of the Bay Area average.  The Council majority believed the owner of the Oaks Club when he said the increase would drive his business into bankruptcy and they dropped the issue.  The people picked it up with a ballot initiative petition and ultimately Emeryville voters approved the tax increase on the Oaks.  Sharp eyed readers will note the Oaks club is still operating at their San Pablo Avenue address - the owner, John Tibbetts having been revealed to have lied about going bankrupt. 
Again in 2005, the people brought a ballot initiative concerning raising wages for hotel workers in Emeryville up to the Bay Area average after the City Council majority believed the hype coming from the hospitality industry warning about wholesale business failures with hotels fleeing Emeryville or being driven into bankruptcy.   An alarmed Council majority alerted the voters not to be "dupes" to organized labor and to vote NO to the 'Hotel Workers Living Wage Ordinance' proposal.  Emeryville voters didn't listen to the City Council who was listening to the warnings of the Hotel owners and they passed the 2005 Measure C easily.  Again, the hotel owners were lying about the effect increased costs would have on their businesses and the only people duped were the Emeryville City Council majority.  Emeryville at the time had four hotels, now we have five, making it hard to make the case for "wholesale business failures".

By 2014 however, the City Council finally learned that businesses will lie to protect their profits.  That year, a new more progressive Council majority didn't believe the dire warnings about wholesale business failure and bankruptcies from the California Association of Realtors and the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce if Emeryville were to raise real estate transfer taxes up to the Bay Area average.  Again, the voters approved Measures U&V that allowed for the increase in taxes and again, the business failure boogyman turned out to be nothing more than the business community not wanting to pay more money to conduct business in our town.

Moving ahead to 2019, it would appear it's back to the future for us.  The City Council majority seems to have unlearned what they knew in 2014 and it's back to the old familiar saw about wholesale business failures if the business community is forced to pay more money.  We'll have to wait and see if this time the warnings were prescient but something tells us it's gunna be more of the same.

So why did these three Council members take us down this path again?  Especially when their own staff told them the 2018 Emeryville Mills College Business Study that reported that restaurant business stress, while extant, was not sufficient to propose public policy changes, "A piece of trash that we never should have paid for" Mayor Ally Medina said of the Mills document.  The staff conducted their own research that showed little or no stress for Emeryville's restaurant sector from added labor costs.  High rent costs were shown to be the primary source of business stress according to the staff report that accompanied a May 7th Council meeting on the MWO and the commissioned Mills Study.

The question of why this Council majority listened to the business community instead of the people of Emeryville or the low wage workers who toil here will likely remain unanswered for the time being.  Following the political careers of John Bauters and Dianne Martinez however might help Emeryville citizens find the answer.

http://emeryville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=1686&meta_id=165991

Portrait of a Growing Emeryville Restaurant Sector
From the May 7th staff report to the Council.
Sales are beating the Consumer Price Index.  The Council had this info before 
they voted to rollback wages of restaurant workers despite the claims of looming 
bankruptcies from restaurant owners.
A 3.56% per year rise in restaurant sales average from the first year of the MWO
to 2017.  California CPI 2015 .01%, 2016 1.3% 2017 2.1% source: FRB 9th District

Breaking News: City Council Fully Rescinds Minimum Wage Roll Back

CITY HALL   ---- Breaking
Tonight the City Council voted (5-0) to rescind their earlier vote to roll back wages of small restaurant workers in town, a vote Councilman Scott Donahue characterized as  doing "the least harm".  The vote represents the end of the drive initiated by Council members John Bauters, Dianne Martinez and Mr Donahue beginning May 7th to make a carve out in Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance.  The bid to carve out a lower pay scale for an identified restaurant worker class was stopped after a coalition of labor and community groups known as East Bay Working Families gathered 871 signatures in a petition drive of Emeryville voters.  The Council could have pushed the issue into 2020 after the drubbing the three Council members suffered as a result of the petition drive,  by putting it to a vote of the people but they chose instead to end it here tonight.
 
A buoyant contingent of East Bay Working Families was on hand to witness the final putting to rest the whole affair.  Afterward, Liz Ortega of the East Bay Working Families told the Tattler the victory belongs with those struggling in the lowest paid jobs, "Workers in Emeryville won tonight" she said, smiling.
And with that, the issue of lowering Emeryville's MWO is ended two and a half months after it started.  Every minimum wage worker in Emeryville will now be paid the same amount.  Issue over.

Breaking News: Council Continues Minimum Wage Vote

Tonight the Emeryville City Council took comments from the public about their plan to roll back the minimum wage for certain restaurant workers in town and then they voted to not vote.  At least not tonight.
After certifying the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ certification that the voter petition drive to stop the roll back has passed, the Council had three options before them; to repeal the roll back they voted on May 29th, throw the issue over to the voters of Emeryville in a future plebiscite. or  continue the whole thing to another meeting.  It was the first two choices the Council said they didn’t want to make tonight and they directed the City Manager to bring the issue back to them in a future meeting, probably in July.
However, the stalling action tonight means the restaurant workers will receive their raises that were mandated by the original Minimum Wage Ordinance, so it will effectively be as if the Council had voted to repeal their roll back vote.  However, the workers could still see their wages rolled back at a future date, but that decision would have to come from Emeryville voters.  If the Council ultimately says NO to repealing their May 29th roll back, the question before the voters will be, ‘should Emeryville restaurant workers have their pay cut?’.
The Tattler will closely follow this issue as it progresses....watch this space.

Minimum Wage Petition Drive is Successful: Council Cannot Lower Wage by Fiat

Council Majority Loses Bid to Lower Minimum Wage

Bauters, Martinez, Donahue Constrained 

by Labor/Community Group's Petition Drive

After a dramatic push by the Emeryville City Council to lower the City's minimum wage by decree last month, a coalition of labor and community members has successfully beaten back the edict following a city-wide petition drive, the City Clerk announced today.  The petition, signed by 871 Emeryville voters will now force the Council's hand who on Tuesday must decide whether to reverse their decree or allow the people of Emeryville to decide about the issue in the form of a ballot initiative, probably in November of 2020.

The City Council majority, made up of John Bauters, Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue voted May 29th to amend Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance to lower the wage for restaurant workers.  That action brought a coalition of labor and community members called the East Bay Working Families (EBWF) to begin a petition drive to fight off the Council led attack on the lowest paid Emeryville workers.  Before the State mandated 30 day cut off period, the group had collected the signatures of 871 Emeryville voters, far more than the minimum required 666 (10% of the registered voters in town).  The Alameda County Registrar of Voters certified the count saying earlier today,  “The petition is found to be sufficient to require the City Council of the City of Emeryville to take the appropriate action specified in the California Elections Code.”

The City Council meets Tuesday to decide whether to give up on their bid to cut the minimum wage or let the people of Emeryville decide at a later date.  However, the petition drive is a victory for Emeryville minimum wage workers who would have seen their pay cut starting July 1st.  They will instead now receive their full pay until the people of Emeryville decide to cut their pay in a future election unless the City Council decides to restore the Minimum Wage Ordinance on Tuesday.

The Emeryville City Council Appearing United for the Photo 
The Mayor and the Vice Mayor stand up for the minimum wage.
Their three colleagues now face the wrath of Emeryville voters.

John Bauters Wags the Dog (Literally)

John Bauters 

is cutting the minimum wage and he 

Saved a Puppy

To 'wag the dog' means to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance.  By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.  The expression comes from the saying that 'a dog is smarter than its tail', but if the tail were smarter, then the tail would 'wag the dog'.

Opinion
Poor Emeryville City Council member John Bauters.  He touched the third rail in Bay Area politics.  After kicking over a hornets nest, a couple of weeks of very public self inflicted wounds with his plan to cut Emeryville's minimum wage, he's now facing an accountability moment.  He's not taking all the resultant insults lying down however.  Councilman Bauters brought a cute puppy to the fight.

It all started when, taking a leadership role among his colleagues, he tried to cut the Emeryville minimum wage by Council fiat without warning and done so quickly that the Bay Area labor community would be caught unawares.  The issue has instead blown up in his face.  The labor community rapidly formed a coalition with residents to push back against the plan, starting with a city-wide mailer sent to every voting Emeryville household warning them about the planned wage roll back.  Now, Mr Bauters is facing another PR nightmare; his minimum wage cutting scheme has been petitioned for recall by over 850 Emeryville residents.  The successful petition drive means he's going to have to make a new decision; to give up on his plan to roll back the minimum wage or give the decision to Emeryville voters, probably next March.

Most politicians, facing such an onslaught of push back from a constituency he publicly claims allegiance with would attempt to get out in front of the mounting controversy.  Mr Bauters instead is telling us all he recently saved a puppy.

Did you know that?  You could barely miss it.  He's been telling everyone all about it on his most recent blog entry made after the labor/community pushback kicked into high gear.  He rescued the pup from a hot car.  He's got pictures of the dog wagging its tail after it was saved.  Or is it instead the tail wagging the dog?
In the midst of a boatload of self inflicted embarrassing news, his hand now forced by a legally binding petition drive of outraged residents, Mr Bauters is silent on all that.  He's using his City Council blog instead to make everybody know what a hero he is because he saved a puppy.

John Bauters is a really smart guy.  But his response to the blowback, what anybody could have guessed would come as a result of such a public blunder, leaves us baffled.   It's so overt, you have to wonder if he's totally guileless and he screwed up or is he totally calculating and shameless and this is all part of some grand scheme.  What's really wagging here?

Awwww!
Minimum wage cut?  What minimum wage cut?
Look at this instead!

John Bauters' & Dianne Martinez's High Campaign Contributions Raise Questions

Nexus Between Votes to Cut Minimum Wage/Votes Against Family Housing & Campaign Coffers?

Bauters, Martinez May Be Looking to Expand 
Political Careers Beyond Emeryville

News Analysis
Beginning earlier this spring, Council members John Bauters and Dianne Martinez have been on a tear, working collaboratively to roll back the progressive agenda in Emeryville.  First the two moved to roll back Emeryville's General Plan provisions designed to make housing more family friendly, then they moved to roll back Emeryville’s progressive Minimum Wage Ordinance designed to help the working poor among us.  These two Council members’ attempts at taking down these two central pillars of Emeryville’s progressive framework, represent a curious and abrupt turn around for these self styled progressives. The duel action by these Council members against the progressive Emeryville body politic has drawn ire and concern from citizens and labor groups, some of whom are pointing to evidence the two may be looking to start up respective campaigns for higher political office outside of Emeryville, a charge neither has publicly confirmed or denied.  This shifting to the right could represent the first inklings by these two Emeryville politicians of the classic 'pivot to the center' political tactic well trodden by progressive politicians.

Mr Bauters, elected in 2016, who arrived on the Council after the landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance (MWO) took effect as well as the family housing unit mix regulations (both enacted in 2015) has shown us that he considers Emeryville too progressive, at least on these two fronts.  Ms Martinez, now in her second term, is also is showing us she considers Emeryville as too progressive but her advocacy in rolling back the progressive agenda, reveals a change of heart.  The Councilwoman, first voted into office in 2014, personally voted for both the MWO and the family housing unit mix during her first term.
Both these legislative votes at the Council were unanimous, it should be noted.

Emeryville City Council Members'
Political Contributions and Cash on Hand (in dollars)
From most recent Form 460s

The three on the left voted to cut minimum wage workers' pay.
The two on the right voted to save Emeryville's
Minimum Wage Ordinance and protect working poor families.
Is Mr Bauters headed next to the State Senate race? 
Perhaps Ms Martinez too or someplace comparable?

Both these 2015 Council led directives are being vigorously pushed back against by the business community.  The developer of the proposed 700’ Onni apartment tower on Christie Avenue has indicated he is unwilling to provide the family housing Emeryville’s law dictates for his project and he is now seeking relief by Council fiat.  The restaurant owners in town are nearly united against the Minimum Wage Ordinance and they too are seeking relief by City Council intervention.

Rumors have been swirling that these two Council members, who’s voting records have taken a turn towards helping the business community could be setting themselves up for their respective futures in politics.  A check of their Form 460 political campaign records of monetary contributions and cash on hand hints there may be something to the rumors.  John Bauters, the most vocal of the two in mounting anti-progressive policy and rhetoric shows a campaign war chest of $25,399.46 cash on hand as of January and Dianne Martinez shows a total of $12,723 in monetary contributions.  By contrast and taking up the rear, Vice Mayor Christian Patz, who has most vigorously defended family housing and the wages of the working poor against the attacks by Mr Bauters and Ms Martinez, shows $753.17 in his campaign coffers while Mayor Medina, who also voted NO to rolling back the MWO, has just $79 available.  Mr Patz, on a side note, won election to the City Council after raising only about $8300, the lowest by any Council member seeking election in recent history.

The Tattler will continue to follow the suspicious nexus between campaign funding and policy that benefits developer and business interests.  We expect to see these funding numbers change as these proposed policy changes grow more pressing.  Watch this space.

Labor Group Identifies Councilman Bauters as "Leader" in Minimum Wage Roll Back Scheme

The labor/community coalition known as East Bay Working Families is really turning up the heat on the City Council majority that recently voted to roll back Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance.  The labor coalition is working to restore the ordinance and they have focused their ire against Council members Dianne Martinez, Scott Donahue and especially John Bauters, whom the group sees as the leader in the scheme to cut the wages of the lowest paid workers in Emeryville.  To that end, 8 1/2 x 11" glossy full color fliers on heavy card stock are being sent to Emeryville voters' homes (see below) in addition to the earlier reported city-wide ballot initiative petition the group has begun.  It would appear Mr Bauters and his two colleagues have poked a hornet's nest by this action against the working poor in our community.

Labor Group Starts Petition Drive to Defend Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance

Bauters, Martinez & Donahue Face Petition Defending Minimum Wage

Labor Across County United Against Three Council Members

A coalition of labor and community groups known as East Bay Working Families has begun a ballot initiative petition drive in response to a recent City Council move to roll back Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance.  The coalition partners refer to the targeted minimum wage ruling made at the May 29th Council meeting as a “corporate minimum wage loophole” that cuts the wages of restaurant workers in town.  The newly amended legislation, forwarded by Council members John Bauters and Dianne Martinez, provides a carve-out in the existing law meant to protect all workers’ wages, specifically cutting the wages of workers in restaurants with up to 55 employees in Emeryville, including chains with up to 20 locations globally.  The vote to roll back the wages of restaurant workers happened when holdout Council member Donahue joined the two progenitors to the action, leaving Mayor Ally Medina and Vice Mayor Christian Patz in the minority.

From the East Bay Working Families
anti anti-minimum wage campaign
Emeryville's three Council wage cutters are identified by name.
Sent out to 135,000 union members.
 

The petition now circulating around town, needs to show 661 legitimate signatures of Emeryville registered voters in order for the ballot initiative to be successful, a number a spokesperson for East Bay Working Families predicts will be relatively easy.  “We’re on track and we hope to get 1000” Liz Ortega, Executive Secretary of the Alameda County Labor Council told the Tattler, “we feel comfortable we’ll get it” she added.  The group claims they had obtained more than 200 signatures only two days after they began their drive, an indication that Emeryville’s minimum wage is popular with Emeryville citizens.

Many Emeryville residents joined East Bay Working Families in decrying the May 29th roll back decision, noting that the City Council had only heard from business owners in town.  A business survey conducted nine months before the May 29th vote did not include any findings about or opinions from workers themselves, a fact that is driving criticism of the harried May 29th vote by the Council. Gary Jimenez, a regional vice president with SEIU 1021 noted City Hall’s fact finding asymmetry, “This poorly drafted legislation was written without input from the workers or the community and it shows” he said.  The lopsided ‘business only’ testimony brought denunciations against the two Council members, especially John Bauters whom Working Families has reserved special condemnation, “Is Emeryville turning into ‘Trumpville’? asked Ms Ortega.  She called out Mr Bauters specifically for his attack on the lowest paid workers in town, “Is it Trumpville when we have a councilman like John Bauters leading the charge to cut wages of the working poor?”  She called his action, “very disappointing”.

The new Emeryville legislation freezes wages for the restaurant workers now and allows for small increases over the next eight years when their wage will finally catch up to other minimum wage earners in town.  The workers will have a July 1st expected raise of $1.30 snatched away from them by the Council's action.

That the attack on Emeryville’s landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance came from its former City Council backers, John Bauters, Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue, came as a surprise to labor leaders, “Frankly, we expected something like this from the business community” a member of Working Families who wished anonymity told the Tattler, “…not from the [air quotes] progressive Emeryville City Council” he added.  Other labor leaders added their disapprovals; “Adding a flawed loophole to the minimum wage doesn’t reflect [Emeryville’s] values and is fundamentally unfair” said Kate O’Hara, Executive Director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, a group that helped write the Minimum Wage Ordinance in 2015.  Liz Ortega from the Alameda County Labor Council agreed adding, “One job should be enough to support a family and pay the bills.  The minimum wage in Emeryville is fair and we should not be giving exemptions to restaurant chains” she said.

Working Families, who represent 135,000 labor union members in Alameda County, will have 30 days to gather at least 661 signatures and if they are successful, the City Council must either repeal the restaurant rider to the ordinance or put it before voters, probably this November.

More information on EBWF's protect Emeryville's minimum wage campaign can be found HERE.

Breaking News: City Council Cuts Wages of Working Poor

City Council Action:

Minimum Wage Cut, Restaurant Chains Redefined Helping Corporations with 'Global' Footprint

Breaking News (Emeryville City Hall 8:13 pm)

Tonight the City Council passed a roll back of Emeryville’s landmark minimum wage ordinance with a second and final reading of an amendment that takes away a substantial raise for the poorest workers in town.  The vote broke the same way as the first reading with Vice Mayor Patz who called the amendment "A pay cut [for workers] plain and simple" joining Mayor Medina in voting NO to the roll back.  Council members John Bauters, Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue voted YES to cut the workers' wages.

The language of the wage roll back amendment rescinds a scheduled $1.30 raise for 'small independent' restaurant workers for eight years, making Emeryville one of many Bay Area cities with a $15 or nearly $15 minimum wage.  The wage roll back City Council insurgency, led by members John Bauters and Dianne Martinez was joined by Scott Donahue after Mr Bauters changed the deal, to allow a yearly pittance wage increase until 2027 for these workers (with no increase at all for 2019).  The amendment carve out also redefines the words 'small' and 'independent' restaurants to include corporate chains with up to "20 global locations".
The new law provides that in the year 2027, restaurant workers will finally catch up with other workers in Emeryville, barring another Council driven minimum wage roll back.

The about-face in labor policy converts Emeryville from leadership to near pariah status among the progressives in the Bay Area labor activist community, many decrying the region wide erosive nature of the roll back.  Spokespeople for East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), the East Bay’s premier labor advocacy group, warned the roll back action would embolden anti-labor forces throughout the Bay Area and beyond.  EBASE, instrumental in helping formulate Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance to great fanfare in 2015 was notably snubbed by the Council in its current drive to reverse it.
Despite concern from labor, the roll back policy this time was derived with input solely from the business community and the latest 'Business Conditions Report' aka the 'business study' or MWO study' commissioned by the City and completed last summer.  Critics have complained the study only looked into the business side of the MWO, ignoring labor.  No efforts were made to check the veracity of dramatic claims of sliding business bottom lines or looming bankruptcy by either the study or the City Council in the lead up to the roll back it should be noted.  That, plus the subsequent ignoring of labor concerns by the City Council prompted a chastising response from EBASE Executive Director Kate O'Hara, "The study did not ask businesses to provide specific data from their own experience to back up the opinions they are providing" she said in a letter to the Council. 

Labor backers have noted City Hall’s new minimum wage policy, in addition to increasing suffering, will leave Emeryville now vulnerable to labor shortages with working poor families fleeing to communities paying the same wage but with a lower cost of living.  After the California statewide $15 minimum wage law takes effect in less than three years, this vulnerability could reach crisis proportions with working families decamping wholesale to lower cost cities elsewhere in the state.  This likely eventuality brings into question the City Council majority's exact intent with the roll back.  Tonight they made no effort to address this issue.

A simple check of apartment costs in California reveals Emeryville’s dramatic exposure to the loss of its already stressed low wage workforce.  It’s easy to find a nice one bedroom apartment in Vacaville for $1200 per month.  A comparable apartment in Emeryville would be about $3200…an extra $2000 per month.  Venturing farther afield…say Alturas California, a one bedroom place can easily be had for $500 per month.
Formerly a beacon for the working poor in the Bay Area, Emeryville, after the roll back with its lowest wage at $15, now the same as many other cities, loses its competitive advantage it had to draw higher quality workers.  The City of Emeryville with its putative progressive City Council has used its power to transform itself from a city that sought to solve regional problems into just one of multiple cities adding to the region's problems.

In the coming months, long after the City Council has washed its hands of this, the Emeryville Tattler will, in a planned series of worker interviews, continue to report the effect this historic wage roll back is having on the working poor and their families in our community.  Look to the Tattler to do what the Emeryville City Council refused to do when they passed this roll back of our Minimum Wage Ordinance: listen to those working at the bottom of the wage scale.

Council Insurgency Uses Unpresidented Tactics to Roll-Back Minimum Wage Ordinance

Councilman Bauters Pulls Off Upset in Minimum Wage Fight

After Failed First Try, He Pulls Out Secret Plan to Roll-Back Wages

............ 

Insurgency Gains Crucial Third Vote by Phone

Councilman John Bauters
Won't call the working poor people
in Emeryville to tell them he
took away their raise they're
expecting on July 1st.

The City Council showed their hand last Tuesday night when a conservative insurgency made up of Council members John Bauters and Dianne Martinez, moved to roll back Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance with an attempt to strip away the ordinance’s provisions protecting worker’s scheduled raise by use of a subterfuge tactic planned in advance by Mr Bauters.  Councilman Bauters and his colleague Dianne Martinez were hoping to make a majority on the five member Council by trying for a third vote to straight away remove the scheduled raise for working poor families in Emeryville in a motion to amend the ordinance.  When that motion went down to a 2-3 defeat, Mr Bauters, undaunted, brought out his back up plan, made in secret with help from the City Hall staff, to allow for a very small raise for the poorest workers in town, hoping to peel off a third vote.  Mr Bauters and Ms Martinez got their third vote when Councilman Scott Donahue switched over and agreed to so amend the MWO, thereby satisfying a State required ‘first reading’ to change the ordinance.
The Council will vote to change the MWO in the final ‘second reading’ in a special meeting set up for Wednesday night May 29th.

The working poor in Emeryville will have to wait for eight years to get the raise currently owed to them in July if the second reading vote goes like the first.  If Mr Bauters’ now out in the open roll-back plan is successful, the poorest workers in our town will not see their wages rise to what the existing Minimum Wage Ordinance provides for until 2027 instead of July 1st of this year.

Councilwoman Dianne Martinez
Member of the MWO roll back insurgency.
Wanted to hear from business owners,
not workers before she voted.

Phone In Vote
The conservative insurgency is very determined to get under the wire and make the second reading happen before the end of the month when Brown Act provisions would prevent the lawmakers from stopping the July 1st  $1.30 raise the MWO mandates.  After Councilman Donahue told his colleagues he would be out of town on Wednesday the 29th making for a likely 2-2 tie vote that would not be binding, Mr Bauters, citing special legal provisions, revealed allowances for Mr Donahue to cast his vote from his out-of-state location live by telephone as the whole vote is taken.

The legal time constraints forcing the insurgents’ hand will make for a very unconventional event for City Council watchers.  As they proceed to take the final vote to roll-back Emeryville’s landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance on Wednesday at 7:15 pm, the City Council is taking this unprecedented provision allowing City Hall attendees to be witness to the spectacle of a vote taken live by phone. Councilman Donahue’s voice will be broadcast live on speakers in the Council chambers.
It cannot be said this City Council doesn’t think on its feet as they thus remind us of the truism that necessity can drive people to come up with creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

Neither Mr Bauters, nor his two insurgent colleagues it should be noted, have volunteered to place calls to the workers expecting their raises on July 1st, telling them they won’t be getting their raises after all.  It is expected the bosses will give the working poor in our town the news sometime after Wednesday but hopefully well before July 1st so those who need to will have time to secure PayDay loans to cover their daily living expenses.

Breaking News: Minimum Wage Ordinance to be Rolled Back

BREAKING: City Hall

Tonight the Emeryville City Council voted 3-2 to roll back the City's landmark minimum wage ordinance as had been proposed earlier in the month in response to a blitzkrieg from restaurant owners in town.  In a drive led by Council members Dianne Martinez and John Bauters and joined by Scott Donahue, the Council voted to stop the July 1st scheduled wage increase for Emeryville's lowest paid workers.  After negotiation with Councilman Donahue who held out for a small increase in wages, the ordinance is proposed to be changed to increase wages at a much slower rate than what is written in the existing law.  Council members Bauters and Martinez had wanted no increase at all and only agreed to the small change after Mr Donahue voted NO with the Mayor and Vice Mayor.

Mr Bauters expressed his concern that restaurants would go out of business en masse in Emeryville if the lowest paid workers get the full increase as it exists after hearing from the business owners.  In response to arguments from labor advocates, he reminded the crowd that Emeryville has done enough to help low paid workers and the July 1st increase of $1.30 is unwarranted.
Mayor Ally Medina stated the Minimum Wage Ordinance as it is reflects the values of Emeryville and that she had been elected specifically to support the ordinance as voiced by many voters when she was elected to the Council in 2016.  She and Vice Mayor Christian Patz voted NO to the roll back proposal.

The vote was the so called 'First Reading' of the ordinance change and the Council will vote again at their next meeting in the required second reading before the law is changed.

Breaking News: City Council Considers Minimum Wage Ordinance Roll Back

Business Owners Convince City Council to "Hit Pause" on Minimum Wage Ordinance

BREAKING- (City Hall)
In a major turn around of long standing City policy, tonight the City of Emeryville is considering a roll back of its landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance.  After hearing from individual Emeryville business owners following an agendized presentation of the Minimum Wage Ordinance, the Council suddenly moved to consider overturning central provisions of its hugely consequential ordinance, set to increase workers wages on July 1st.  Expressing urgency, the Council directed the City Manager to make a vote possible before that date.
The roll back action was initiated by Mayor Ally Medina and enthusiastically taken up by Council member John Bauters who called upon his desire to “hit pause” on the ordinance.

Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance was enacted in 2015 after consideration of business community concerns and testimony from the minimum wage workers in town.  Tonight however, after hearing only from the business community, the Council proclaimed that the provisions for wage increases be stopped before the July 1st wage scheduled increase, a job the City Manager said would be very difficult owing to a lack of time. 
There was very little back and forth among the Council members tonight about the ramifications of this drastic proposal; the majority of their time was spent finagling around Brown Act directives to make sure any vote taken to overturn the ordinance would be legal.

Council member Christian Patz took issue with the cavalier manner in which his colleagues jumped into amending the long standing ordinance.  The other Council members expressed no such reservations.  A special meeting will be announced soon by City Hall so that the State required two ‘readings’ of a change to the ordinance can come in under the July 1st wire.

The Tattler will report in more detail on this fast moving story in the days to come.  Watch this space…

Emeryville Releases New Minimum Wage Study

Most Businesses Have Accepted the Minimum Wage Ordinance

Restaurant Sector is Still Angry 

___________________

Wages Up Regionally as Neighboring 

Cities Follow Emeryville's Lead

The City of Emeryville this week released a revised and recommissioned academic study for its minimum wage ordinance, the results showing a business community that has largely come to terms with the 2105 ordinance, excepting a defiant restaurant cohort who’s animosity towards the ordinance has grown since the release of the first business study in 2016.  The current data rich study, called the City of Emeryville Business Conditions Report and commissioned by the City, is comprised of a comprehensive city-wide business survey with an analytical academic investigation.  It was conducted by the Lorry Lokey School of Business and Public Policy at Mills College, the authors of the first Minimum Wage Ordinance (MWO) study.  This most recent study was completed last summer.

Unlike the first MWO study with it’s look exclusively into the effects on Emeryville’s businesses, the current iteration is more expansive.  Findings have been based on a survey focused on “…how City of Emeryville Labor Ordinances (i.e., Minimum Wage, Paid Sick Leave, and Fair Workweek) have impacted revenues, prices, and employment patterns among local businesses” according to the study’s executive summary.

The survey part of the Business Conditions Report included only Emeryville business owners or managers, workers were not surveyed. The survey, sent out to 319 private Emeryville businesses across the spectrum of business types netted 101 respondents.

All Business Owners' Sentiments About the MWO
as a Percentage
More are neutral and positive about it than against it
but more are against it than in 2016.

Most business owners in all cohorts responded that ‘business is worse’ at a rate of 33% over those who found business to be better (14%) since the MWO was enacted.  However most also found that their productivity had increased 22% versus 19% stating a decline.  Morale has been found to have improved dramatically because of the MWO at Emeryville’s businesses with 33% reporting an increase over 18% stating a decline.  Another factor that has improved for businesses the survey reports, is the number of job applicants for business owners to select from; a 27% increase.  This improvement comes against a generally improving employment rate in the Bay Area that is credited with driving down the number of job applicants in the aggregate at businesses outside Emeryville.
Emeryville businesses have been shown to have increased their prices in response to the challenges brought by the MWO’s implementation by wide margins, especially in the food service sector.

Emeryville's Retail Business Likes The MWO
The green pie slices represent those businesses that
like the MWO.  The red and yellow are those who don't. 

Business owners’ reaction to the ordinance is evenly split the study found, independent of their bottom lines.  After the Minimum Wage Ordinance wage increases hit $15 per hour for small businesses in 2018 ($15.69 for large businesses), business owners collectively responded favorably, seeing it as good or fair at a rate of 21% for those businesses affected by it with an additional 7% expressing favorability for those businesses not affected by the MWO. These numbers were offset by a rate of negativity about the MWO at 24% with an additional 4% of business owners responding negatively whom are not affected by the wage increase.

Food Service Sector Unhappy
Those most unhappy with the MWO, by far, have been shown to be restaurant owners/managers.  An entire section of the study is devoted to them.  Their overwhelmingly negative responses dragged down the overall rate of satisfaction for all business types citywide.  When viewed separately, restaurant owners were found to be dissatisfied with the MWO’s latest wage hike in 2018 at a rate of 67%, owners stating the wage increase negatively impacts their businesses. The category of taxes and regulation, which includes the MWO, are very unpopular with restaurant owners; 41% responding that is their biggest problem in Emeryville, closely following parking availability, 42% of whom found that to be their biggest problem running a business here.

For businesses not in food service, the study shows business owners as mostly favorable to Emeryville’s MWO.  The retail sector generally showed an acceptance of or even support of the MWO.  Overall, about 22% of the retail managers have negative feelings about the Minimum Wage Ordinance, while 47% report support for the ordinance.

Neighbor Cities Raise Theirs
The passage of Emeryville’s landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance caught many municipal neighbors by surprise and many have rushed in to effectively meet Emeryville’s challenge.  Beginning in 2019, the cities of Berkeley and El Cerrito have matched Emeryville’s small business $15 per hour rate while other neighbors have also raised their minimum wages in response to Emeryville’s lead.  This reaction, predicted by the Tattler in 2015, represents a new effective progressive regional minimum wage reflecting the shared values in the Bay Area and serves as a moral counter to previous calls for a ‘regional minimum wage’  at a much lower rate en masse by the business community.
Emeryville's minimum wage, formerly the highest in the nation, has recently been eclipsed by SeaTac Washington.  However, Emeryville's rate increase scheduled for July 1st could put it back on top by a few cents.

Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance Elevates the Regional Wage
A 'regional minimum wage' can be poverty rates region-wide if no city
makes a move to raise theirs
or
region-wide livable rates if one city moves to raise theirs.

The City of Emeryville Business Conditions Report can be seen HERE.
The first MWO Business Study from 2016 may be seen HERE.

Actual Response From a Restaurant Owner to a Survey Question
The redaction provided by the City of Emeryville
...but you get the picture.

Emeryville's Progressive Minimum Wage Ordinance Draws Praise

Much has been written about Emeryville's 2015 highest-in-the-nation minimum wage ordinance and how its implementation has helped improve the lives of low wage workers economically at risk in our community.  Grinding poverty has been associated with poor physical health and it has been assumed Emeryville's ordinance would help in that regard.  To assist, New York Times writer Matthew Desmond documents how Emeryville's landmark 'living wage' law improves the physical health of the lowest wage workers in our town.  As part of the Time's 'Future of Work' series entitled Dollars On the Margins, Mr Desmond depicts regions of low minimum wage as loci of suffering and deteriorating health.  The author however singles out Emeryville as a place where workers can lead healthy lives in dignity.  It's high praise for our town in the national edition of the New York Times Sunday magazine section and it can be read HERE.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/21/magazine/minimum-wage-saving-lives.html 

Minimum Wage Study Shows Little Effect on Emeryville's Business Climate

Emeryville's Landmark Minimum Wage Ordinance: 

Tempest in a Teapot

The long awaited City Council commissioned Minimum Wage Ordinance Business Study, ordered after passage of Emeryville's landmark living wage law and released this month shows an Emeryville business community remarkably unfazed by the increase in employee labor costs brought on by the 2015 ordinance.  Upon presentation of the study and in summery, Emeryville's Economic Development Manager Chadrick Smalley told the Council members at their November 15th meeting, "The picture is good. Emeryville is still a good place to do business".


The staff presentation of the plenary study conducted by students at the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business at Mills College revealed an Emeryville business climate that is healthy and growing after passage of the ordinance and an improved quality of life for minimum wage workers, a significant contrast to dark prophecy loudly expressed by several business owners in the run-up to the ordinance.  Alarms raised by the business community before the passage of the MWO included warnings of wholesale business closings and businesses fleeing to other cities with lower labor costs but have been proven to be unfounded the study clearly reveals.

The increased minimum wage has barely registered a blip with Emeryville businesses.  A survey associated with the Mills Collage MWO Study completed by business respondents shows the biggest problems facing Emeryville's businesses is not increased labor costs but rather finding skilled and experienced employees, rising rents and the general cost of living.  Further, the survey shows fully 60% of businesses had a positive reaction to the MWO while 21% reacted negatively but that number is tempered by what Mr Smalley said is a combined negative reaction to any government regulation some business owners display.

"After implementation of the 

Minimum Wage Ordinance, 

Emeryville lost 188 businesses

but gained 238 new businesses"

Further, the study shows 82% of businesses have no intention to leave Emeryville after the MWO while 16% said they could or would but again Mr Smalley told the Council members the 16% number is misleading, "If you ask businesses without passing such an ordinance, you would get comparable results" adding, "There is no increase due to this ordinance".

The staff warned the Council not to put too much stock in businesses openings and closings tabulated before and after the implementation of the Minimum Wage Ordinance because those numbers don't necessarily correspond to the MWO but the Business Study does show an increase in new businesses and more than 1,100 new Emeryville jobs created in the year after MWO implementation; a 6% increase over the previous year before the MWO.  That number, even though it beats Oakland job increases represents "no significant difference between pre and post MWO" the Economic Development Manager said.  Berkeley it was noted actually lost jobs in the same time period while it also had the lowest rise in its minimum wage.

The Business Community Was Alarmed
They predicted massive business failures.

Although the Business Study, more than a year in the making, was formulated primarily to show the effects the Minimum Wage ordinance would have on Emeryville's businesses, part of the study was undertaken to show the effects the ordinance has had on minimum wage workers in town.  Those are revealed to be mostly positive effects as one would expect including improved cognitive and behavioral outcomes for the children of workers as well as improved stability for families and improved mental health owing to reduced stress levels of these workers.

The staff additionally cautioned the City Council that the Study, while complete is not necessarily definitive for all time.  As yet unknown effects could make themselves evident given more time.  "The Business Study should be revisited in a year or two", Mr Smalley said.

MWO Business Survey HERE

Emeryville's Business Climate Since MWO 
ratio of closed to opened businesses
Red = closed businesses
Green = newly opened businesses

Month by month tabulation of Emeryville's new businesses vs closed businesses
since the MWO took effect
In the 16 months of study, more business openings are shown than business closings
in all but three of those months.  However the City staff cautioned making 
too much from these numbers.

Emeryville's Minimum Wage Ordinance took effect in July 2015
More business openings means more jobs: 1,100 from the implementation of the MWO
up to the end of 2015 alone.  During the study period (July 2015 up
to November 2016) 238 businesses opened while 188 closed. 

We Beat de Blasio...But Not For Long: NYC Raises Minimum Wage to $15

Right Wing (in Emeryville & Elsewhere) Faces Rising Tide of Concern Over Wealth Inequality

E'Ville Eye/Businesses Argument Fails

News Analysis/Opinion

Progressive
minimum wage law:
She beat...

In 2016, Emeryville's status as highest in the nation minimum wage is being challenged from all sides; after Califonia Governor Jerry Brown announced Monday the entire state will henceforth be a $15 per hour minimum wage zone come 2022, now New York, not to be outdone, announced Thursday is also raising its minimum wage in New York City to $15 but they're instituting theirs in 2018, same as Emeryville.  Additionally, NYC will provide for more guaranteed paid sick days than Emeryville making for a more progressive minimum wage law than Emeryville all in all.
And so the rising tide of rising minimum wages all around us is seen as a boon for wealth equality and a blow to the intransigence of the right wing on its core principle of market piety.

After years of stagnation on the minimum wage nation-wide, Republicans controlling the debate, municipalities and now an entire state are fairly tripping over themselves to raise their lowest wage to $15.  The dramatic turn around represents a rise in general anxiety that's been precipitated by a intractable increase in wealth inequality over the last few decades but really picking up in intensity after the Great Recession.
The trend, as would be expected has been vigorously contested by the right wing around the nation and specifically here in Emeryville.

...him (but only temporarily).

Right Wing Looses Key Arguing Point
The right wing in Emeryville is losing its prime, albeit never cogent arguing point; the simple uniqueness of our Minimum Wage Ordinance serving as a stand in for failure itself.  Our (soon to be former) highest minimum wage in the nation status has been used by its opponents as a straw man argument; something sold as unreasonable and outrageous on its face.  However the new paradigm of $15 minimum wage arising everywhere around us will serve to discredit that argument leaving only the tactic much used by Emeryville's right wing blog, the E'Ville Eye; that being the chalking up each business failure as somehow proof of the destructive effect of raising the minimum wage.  The fact that the minimum wage of every other city around Emeryville will now also be $15 tends to dilute that arguing tactic but also an endless repetition of reporting on new businesses opening as that blog likes to do, will subvert its own ideological goals of keeping the the minimum wage low.  People will find it difficult to see new businesses opening as proof Emeryville's high minimum wage is a failure.

And we all beat this guy
(allied as their ideas are with
the Republican Party).

Emeryville business closings, now reported wall-to-wall and credited with the MWO at the E'Ville Eye, of course leaves out the possibility that businesses come and go in any market, irrespective of any minimum wage law.  As common to zealots everywhere, the E'ville Eye presents a tautology: business failures reported are held up as a straw man proof of its ideological bound worldview but also in the hermetically sealed world at that opinion blog, each new business opening happens in spite of the MWO.  Meanwhile the inconvenient truth as reported on the six month anniversary of the MWO by the Tattler is that business openings are up when compared to the era before the MWO while business closures are actually way down.

As the $15 minimum wage becomes the norm around the country, those tilting at windmills, positing it must be rolled back will be relegated to the status of Birthers and Flat Earthers.