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By TOM SHARPE | The New Mexican
January 1, 2006
Santa Fe's minimum wage
goes to $9.50 an hour today, but neither the city nor the organization
promoting the "living wage" is doing anything to notify
employers and employees of the increase.
"As far as I know, it's up to reading the papers and the outreach
that we did," said Carol Oppenheimer of the Santa Fe Living Wage
Network.
The network has been promoting the Living Wage Ordinance for more than
three years. But its last effort was in preparation for the City
Council's Dec. 14 hearing on a proposal to postpone the increase to
$9.50. That was defeated, although the councilors agreed they would vote
on any subsequent raises instead of letting them go into effect
automatically.
Oppenheimer said she believes most Santa Fe
residents, both workers and employers, are aware of today's change as a
result of the publicity surrounding last month's vote.
She said Santa Marķa de la Paz Catholic
Community and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church passed out leaflets in early
December, urging parishioners to attend the council session. Two
part-time network employees, Tomas Rivera and Maria Cornejo,
spoke to numerous low-wage workers about the hearing and gathered more
than 2,000 signatures on petitions opposing the proposed postponement.
"It was mostly to get people to come to the hearing,"
Oppenheimer said. "People knew about that, and now they know it's
passed, so we've not done anything more."
Sevastian Gurule, the
city employee charged with policing the city minimum wage, said he has
been off work since Dec. 19 and knows of no effort to notify people of
today's change. City Manager Mike Lujan did not return a message Thursday
and was off work Friday. Assistant
City Attorney Angela
"Spence" Pacheco, charged with prosecuting violations of the
minimum wage, also was not available for comment last week.
So far, no business has been prosecuted for violating the local minimum
wage. But Gilbert Ulibarri, a private
investigator on contract to the city, has looked into at least two cases
where violations have been alleged.
Workers at Sage Inn, 725 Cerrillos
Road, say the hotel shares housekeepers from
the Inn of the Governors to stay under the
ordinance's 25-employee threshold. Sage Inn manager Charlotte Silva
disputes this, but says the issue will be moot early this year when the
hotel surpasses the 25-worker level and will begin paying the local
minimum wage.
In another case, Sharon DiLeo, a former manager
of the bookstore at The College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive,
says she was fired last February for trying to get her company to pay the
minimum wage to her employees. DiLeo said
College Bookstores of America, which contracts with colleges around the
country, claimed it was not subject to the law, but subsequently began
paying the wage. Efforts to reach officials at the firm in Maryland
Heights, Mo., were not
successful.
The Santa Fe City Council on Feb.
27, 2003, voted 7-1 to make businesses and nonprofits in the
city with 25 or more workers pay at least $8.50 an hour to full- and
part-time employees by Jan. 1,
2004. The hourly minimum wage was to rise to $9.50 in 2006
and $10.50 in 2008.
Implementation of the first phase was delayed until June 24, 2004, by a lawsuit brought by the
Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and other business groups. On Nov. 29, the
state Court of Appeals rejected their appeal of a District Court decision
upholding the ordinance. Last month, the chamber announced it would not
pursue the appeal to the state Supreme Court.
A federal lawsuit against the ordinance, brought against the city by
Heritage Home Heathcare of Albuquerque, is
still pending.
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