Boosting wages for those who work for the city of Syracuse and its many contractors is a possible solution to reduce the city’s highest poverty rate.
A new report on the Living Wage Ordinance from City Auditor Alexander Marion reveals it’s been difficult to enforce the 2005 law. It requires city vendors to pay their workers at a rate higher than the minimum wage.
Marion said none of the city’s vendors were instructed to participate. He says the Living Wage Ordinance needs a makeover.
“This makes sure that we are paying people at least closer to what they deserve for their time so they can live safely, stay out of poverty and live in this community,” Marion said.
Marion estimated about a couple hundred city workers would benefit from a revised Living Wage Ordinance.
Greater Syracuse Labor Council president Ann Marie Taliercio said unions negotiate living wages, which ultimately helps non-union workers earn more money. She said those wages should support workers as the economy bites into their personal budgets more.
“We back the city,” Taliercio said. “We ask the mayor to come forward and the councilors to back a living wage because that will help everybody. We need to be able to afford the community we live in.”
Taliercio said everyone should also have the option to buy a car or live downtown.
Marion said under the current living wage, city employees who accept healthcare benefits should earn a minimum of $16.41 an hour or $19.37 without health benefits. He suggests the common council form a new Living Wage Advisory Board.
The ordinance was signed into law by former Mayor Matt Driscoll at a time when state leaders were blocking increases in New York’s minimum wage.
