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A group advocating for a $30-an-hour minimum wage announced Wednesday that it had collected enough signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot in Alameda County.
The Alameda County Living Wage for All coalition said it turned in 106% of the signatures needed to get the pay hike proposal in front of voters.
“This massive show of support makes clear what we’re hearing from voters across Alameda County and across the country: they’re done waiting. It’s past time for work to pay what it actually costs to live,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, a national nonprofit working to establish a living wage at the federal level, in eight states and the District of Columbia.
Organizers said in a news release Wednesday that if their Alameda County proposal passes, it will be the first $30 an hour minimum wage in the United States.
It would apply only to employers in the unincorporated parts of the county, not those doing business inside any city boundary, although the group is working to put a similar initiative on an Oakland ballot.
The “Living Wage For All” measure would require corporations with more than 100 employees and revenue of more than $1 billion to raise their hourly minimum wage to $30 by 2030.
Firms employing between 25 and 100 people would have until 2035 to raise their minimum wage to the same level, while those with fewer than 25 employees would have until 2037.
It would require annual increases of at least 3%.
The initiative also includes a provision that would allow workers subjected to illegal retaliation or wage theft to recover triple the amount of lost wages.
According to an analysis of U.S. Census data conducted by One Fair Wage, almost 40% of Alameda County’s workforce earns an hourly wage lower than $30.
The group’s signatures still must be validated by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office before the initiative is placed on the ballot. Interim Registrar Cynthia Cornejo wasn’t available for comment Wednesday.
In addition to One Fair Wage, the coalition includes the Black Organizing Project, an Oakland-based community organization, Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, a Bay Area-based immigrant worker center, and United Auto Workers Region 6.
Several cities in Alameda County currently have either a minimum wage ordinance, a living wage ordinance or both, but none are as high as that proposed by the Living Wage for All coalition.
For example, Oakland’s living wage is $18.26 hourly with health benefits and $20.97 without health benefits and it only applies to businesses with city contracts of about $25,000 or more or employers who get financial assistance or subsidies from the city worth about $100,000 or more.
Oakland’s minimum wage is $17.34 and it applies to most other workers in the city.
Currently Berkeley’s living wage is $20.01 per hour with medical benefits and $23.33 if no medical benefits are offered by the employer and, similar to Oakland’s, it only applies to companies and nonprofit groups with city contracts of various amounts.
Berkeley’s minimum wage is $19.61 hourly for most other employees in the city.
The minimum wage in California is $16.90 an hour for most employers. Fast food workers get at least $20 per hour and certain healthcare workers must also be paid a higher minimum wage, ranging from $19.28 to $24 an hour.
— Story by Kiley Russell, Bay City News
