LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Nikias should raise wages
Dear President Nikias:
By now I’m sure you’re well aware of a video circulating throughout USC’s social media that shows you being confronted by an employee of the university, imploring you to see the inescapability of a life based on $11 an hour.
To be honest, I can understand why you acted the way you did in the video. You were confronted, noticed you had cameras on you, and felt ambushed. You were — that’s just good organizing. And I understand how in that moment you might have known that you couldn’t say anything to Abigail Lopez because anything you said would be scrutinized very heavily. Possibly by students, likely by faculty — but certainly by the University’s Board of Trustees.
Perhaps you even feared saying almost anything at all would create a whirlwind of chaos on the University’s Board of Trustees, sabotage the school’s negotiations with Local 11, leaving you smack dab in the middle of it.
I understand that moment. But I ask you now, as an undergraduate student enrolled at USC, to seriously consider what Abigail Lopez’s plea means, and how you, as chief of the largest private employer in southern California, can dramatically improve the lives of thousands of Los Angeles residents very easily.
Imagine for a second, what your life would be like you if didn’t have more than a million dollars and a university to back you up, and instead made $19,200 each year. I mean it. I implore you to imagine what life is like when you are a single parent with two children, two jobs, and a $1,600-monthly budget. Think about the logistics; getting from job to job, while making sure your children are where they need to be and properly cared for. Or think about the challenge of making sure everyone is fed, when rent alone devours more than half your paycheck. Not to forget the electricity, gasoline and, if there’s anything left, a birthday gift for your daughter.
I understand if you can’t. For those of us privileged enough to have been born to circumstances that enable a life not terrorized by the fear of eviction, it’s impossible to really understand what it’s like to get up at 3:30 a.m. to board a bus to get to work at 5, enlisting your mother to care for your kids until school starts at 7:30. It’s impossible for us to imagine getting home at night, unable to even say goodnight to our children because they are already fast-asleep, not having seen us once during their waking hours.
It’s impossible for us, but it’s reality millions for working people across the country every single day.
And it’s a reality for thousands of people right here, employed by the University of Southern California.
Right now the University is locked in negotiations with Unite Here Local 11 Service Union. Their demand for a $15-an-hour working wage has been deemed untenable by the University. You may think that paying the workers who compose the foundation of our university’s functionality as little as possible is just a part of running a large institution.
But I think if you took a stand in favor of paying your employees a living wage, you would find overwhelming amount of support for your decision among students, staff, faculty, alumni, and even some Trustees.
As a student, and a member of the Trojan Family, I ask you simply to take a stand with the workers who keep our university running. I ask you to publicly declare your support of a living wage for the campus workers who maintain our beautiful campus, and feed our students for a living; a wage they and their families deserve.
We pride ourselves on being a university of “innovation” and “progress.” Why then, are we so intent on being one with archaic values that permit treating those who make our institution possible so poorly? If USC wants to be No. 1, why don’t we make the choice to become the first university in the country to pay its workers a living wage?
I, and so many others, would be much more proud to be affiliated with a university that dignifies itself on being the only institution in the entire country to pay its workers a living wage, rather than one that boasts about having the most collegiate-gothic buildings.
Matt Tinoco
Junior, comparative literature
Editors note: This letter was submitted to the Daily Trojan, and has also been published by Neon Tommy and DearPresidentNikias.tumblr.com
It is amazing that no one is talking about, at least the ball park figure, how much does it cost for USC to accept the demands? I have been asking people around to calculate this simple number but for some mysterious reason nobody is able to come up with that number.
Based on poverty line of LA county, I think each worker need to get at least $10000 more to survive. That would be 8 million USD every year for 800 workers.
There are 40000 students on campus. So $200 per year per student tution fee increase.
There are around 4000 faculty on campus. So a $2000 per year per faculty salary decrease.
Alternatively an endowment fund can be created where our strong alumni can donate. Frats and sororities can forgo some parties to donate that money. Churches have a lot of money, I heard. There are various NGOs who has money.
Before all this, is there no accountant worth his/her salt to dig through USC accounts to identify the frivolous spending by USC in the name of concerts, conquest etc and find at least some money out of 8 million?
Is there such a debate going on which I missed?
Naga.. established employers don’t determine wages based on resource availability. They don’t even determine wages based on the needs of the employee. Nor should they. Think of how silly the world would be if employers were required to pay employees whatever the employees deem is enough to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That’s absurd. Employers pay market value for the skills required by the job, or they suffer from (a) a noncompetitive work force, or (b) no work force at all. That’s capitalism for ya. It is not the employers fault that the market is saturated with unskilled or underskilled workers. A market saturated with unskilled or underskilled workers is not the employer’s responsibility.
Here’s a better idea.. don’t have three kids when you can’t afford even one. If you’re in a position that requires you to provide for more individuals than yourself with a low paying, hourly job, live in an area that isn’t one of the most expensive places in the US (e.g., don’t live in or near downtown Los Angeles, or anywhere in California for that matter). Or work two jobs, if you have to. If you can’t live in a cheaper area for whatever reason, and/or you can’t work multiple jobs, obtain skills to make yourself more marketable for higher paying jobs.
I will also say this – the types of jobs that pay $11/hr aren’t meant to provide income for an entire family. They’re transitional jobs. Jobs for teenagers. Or students. But employers cannot legally discriminate based on age. Put plainly, employers are legally obligated to hire ppl they do not necessarily want to hire or do not necessarily think they should hire. So think of how ridiculous it is to demand higher wages from your employer for a job your employer thinks should be done by a 15 year old. And to confront the employer and record it in an attempt to strong arm him/her via humiliation is even more absurd.
There is absolutely nothing to disagree with what you said. After reading your reply I noticed that I didn’t articulate my idea clearly.
I wanted to appeal to the human side of all of us. Please note that I am entirely emphasizing the solution to this based on “donation” or “charity”. I didn’t put it in proper terms in my previous comment. Let me try again.
Markets work precisely the way you described, I can’t beat that description. However, I want to talk about the humans who end up with the low skill jobs. Thanks to minimum wage farce, many such employees will never find a chance to acquire any skill that market actually needs and demands. (Due to accident of birth, they can’t afford good institutional training and due to minimum wage law, small businesses can’t hire them where they can acquire the skills on the job)
Contrary to popular belief, a substantial portion of our future is determined when and where we are born. Yes, through hard work and dedication people can change that. A lazy person born in relatively well-to-do family and society will do better than his counterpart in poor family.
My point is this: it is ridiculously unfair to expect the poor to work too much just because they were born into circumstances beyond their control.
My suggestion to solve this problem is a call for the “Trojan Family” to “donate” for the wages. I was merely exploring the options to raise 8 million dollars. I agree my last comment sounded “socialistic” for which I apologize :)
I, for one, don’t even think that there is an obligation on University administration to solve this problem administratively i.e by raising wages to pay extra for the work. My appeal is to the so called “Trojan Family” spirit to find a way to raise 8 million dollars a year so that the workers survive and also provide skill training to these workers (in a three year time frame?) for which market can pay decent wages to them. With our diversified and talented student body, I am sure we can figure out ways to solve this humanely and sustain-ably (i.e by not going against markets).
A family never abandons one of its own.
This is a good point. The human aspect behind minimum wage laws is important. I was thinking about this yesterday and have somewhat changed my perspective. I have always viewed minimum wage laws as a requirement of an employer to pay an employee, at minimum, X amount of money. But you can also think of minimum wage laws as being a requirement of the employee to sell his/her work to the employer for, at minimum, X amount of money. In other words, some people out there may legitimately be okay with a very low standard of living, and could feasibly work on the cheap if not for minimum wage laws. But that hurts the other employee working in the same industry who is not okay with that very low standard of living. That’s where I think it is unfair to have a very low minimum wage.
That being said, I still think certain jobs should be exempt from having a minimum wage that corresponds with a living wage. For example, jobs that are traditionally held by teenagers, students, etc. The problem, then, is that those jobs would not be available to unskilled older people who need SOME job to gain income. Idk, that’s where I sort of struggle with how I perceive minimum wage laws. It feels like certain employers should be able to pay lower than a living wage, in part because the majority of their work force isn’t relying on their pay as a living wage. That’s why, to me, it seems like the most fair route is to compensated employees for the market value of the skills required to perform the job. But there are of course always extenuating circumstances, which makes this topic a very difficult one to address. I’m glad I’m not a lawmaker, that’s for sure :p
This is false. The minimum wage was ALWAYS engineered to be a living wage, and up until the last half century, households were NOT penalized for not having dual incomes. That’s ignoring decades of American growth and a robust middle-class, often with stay-at-home parents.
Also, you’re wrong about the wages. The majority of minimum wage workers are not teenagers, they’re adults. And they’re not 21. They’re over 30. The minimum wage was never designed for teenagers, it was designed for adults. I’m not sure where you are getting this garbage from.
Facts would help your argument.
Will.. the first attempt to establish a statutory national minimum wage in the US was for 0.25 dollars/hour. It was ruled unconstitutional and failed. The second attempt to establish a minimum wage in the US was also for 0.25 dollars/hour in the late 30s and was successful. See Fair Labor Standards Act. 0.25 dollars/hour in 1938 corresponds with approximately 4-5 dollars/hour in 2015. So, no, minimum wage was NOT always engineered to be a living wage.
Facts would help YOUR argument.
From FDR, on the minimum wage, in 1933:
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country… By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.”
You’re conflating the protracted fight Republicans waged against the minimum wage with its conception as a proper living wage.
Also, adjusting the minimum wage in 1938 fails to address the varying degrees of inflation for things like housing, health care, etc. So that’s just ridiculous. We’re also comparing federal to local, which is a little ridiculous—you can make the case that $11 per hour is enough to live on in Macon, Missouri.
But facts are inconvenient when we talk about living wages. I get it.
I hear ya man. I agree with some of what you have to say. I addressed some of those comments below in response to Naga. This is a difficult issue to address – I shouldn’t pretend like I have all (or any?) of the answers :p From a more liberal social perspective, I totally agree with what you have to say. From a more conservative economic perspective, I don’t.
My argument is not entirely based on liberal idealism, it’s based on the fact that we end up paying for deficiencies in poverty-level wages anyway.
Children living in an unstable homes, with parents working multiple jobs, are most at-risk for incarceration. Average taxpayer cost for one prisoner in the state of California is $47,102 alone. Those who end up working minimum wage jobs will require a lot of financial assistance, and receive the largest federal subsidies on health care exchanges (or expanded Medicare). So again, tens of thousands of dollars in financial support.
These people do not have the time, or money, to pursue the kind of education that can generate jobs (like tech start-ups) in today’s market. So that’s a net loss for national productivity, on paper.
And all we have to show for it is low-skill labor jobs dependent on government assistance that you end up paying for anyway. Does raising the minimum wage pass the cost on to the customer, or cut some jobs? Yes. But we are absorbing the cost anyway. Americans, typically, have a very difficult time understanding the long-term cost of things.
Does “forcing” an employer to pay an employee $50,000 seem unreasonable? Sure, in some places and some states. But Los Angeles is a unique beast; we cannot dance around the fact that the are not cheaper units for these people to move into. They don’t exist. The ones that do are getting razed for higher-priced housing.
So you’re left with trying to lift workers out of poverty, with a combination of wage increases and aggressive housing policies, or an exodus of workers that feed, transport, provide care and perform menial tasks for high-skill labor workers. This is not San Francisco or New York, where mass transit is robust enough to allow low-skill labor workers to travel into expensive corridors for work. Our transit system is too spread out, too ineffective. They will just leave, become homeless, end up jail, etc.
You’re paying for it one way or another.
On the social liberal end, we often underrate the kind of work ethic these types of workers can bring to the market if we gave them the financial security to pursue more education. Abby Lopez has been on her own since she was 15-years-old. She has raised three kids, successfully. One is in college. Imagine if she had a MBA. She could probably run companies better than most. We are disregarding a huge pool of talent because we don’t want to DIRECTLY pay for their livelihood (but we do anyway, albeit indirectly).
PS.. just to clarify, I’m all for minimum wage being adjusted to compensate for inflation.
But to compensate for the standard of living locally or federally. That’s a huge difference. Los Angeles has the highest poverty rate in the nation and one of the lowest vacancy rates. It’s basically an income sinkhole for minimum wage workers.
I don’t buy this “not a living wage” and “transitional job” bunk because it’s bunk. Most people earning minimum wage are not teenagers, often in situations where upward mobility does not exist.
My grandfather never graduated from high school, and worked in a rock quarry. My grandmother never went to college, and worked in a munitions factory. Both earned enough to support four kids, buy a home, maintain two cars, etc. That was reality for Americans. Not this.
Even if Abby Lopez had a significant other earning the same amount, over 40 percent of their income would still be tied up in housing. That’s ridiculous. Any economist often says housing should be no more than 25 to 30 percent of your income. But Abby doesn’t even have the chance to lower that percentage without being HOMELESS.
Also, the whole concept of “living wage” is somewhat confusing to me. Is a living wage the amount of money a person needs to live comfortably for his- or her- self? Or does that include an entire family? Should minimum wage be adjusted depending on the size of the family? For example, taking LA alone into consideration… Abby Lopez says her rent is 1300/month. For her rent to be 25 to 30 percent of her income, she’d have to make 50-63k per year! So should minimum wage in LA be enough to support a 50-63k per year income? What about the single 20 something year old living on his or her own? Is the minimum wage the same for that person? That person could feasibly live in LA, comfortably but not lavishly, on 700/month rent. So should minimum wage be only 25-30k for that person? Either scenario is ridiculous.. it would be absurd, imo, to require that employers pay employees 50-65k per year at minimum (unless we’re going full communist). It would be equally as absurd, imo, to have different minimum wage laws depending on the size of your family.
Naga.. established employers don’t determine wages based on resource availability. They don’t even determine wages based on the needs of the employee. Nor should they. Think of how silly the world would be if employers were required to pay employees whatever the employees deem is enough to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That’s absurd. Employers pay market value for the skills required by the job, or they suffer from (a) a noncompetitive work force, or (b) no work force at all. That’s capitalism for ya. It is not the employers fault that the market is saturated with unskilled or underskilled workers. A market saturated with unskilled or underskilled workers is not the employer’s responsibility.
Here’s a better idea.. don’t have three kids when you can’t afford even one. If you’re in a position that requires you to provide for more individuals than yourself with a low paying, hourly job, live in an area that isn’t one of the most expensive places in the US (e.g., don’t live in or near downtown Los Angeles, or anywhere in California for that matter). Or work two jobs, if you have to. If you can’t live in a cheaper area for whatever reason, and/or you can’t work multiple jobs, obtain skills to make yourself more marketable for higher paying jobs.
I will also say this – the types of jobs that pay $11/hr aren’t meant to provide income for an entire family. They’re transitional jobs. Jobs for teenagers. Or students. But employers cannot legally discriminate based on age. Put plainly, employers are legally obligated to hire ppl they do not necessarily want to hire or do not necessarily think they should hire. So think of how ridiculous it is to demand higher wages from your employer for a job your employer thinks should be done by a 15 year old. And to confront the employer and record it in an attempt to strong arm him/her via humiliation is even more absurd.
Who is going to pay for the wage increases? You, the student, faculty and the employees of the universe ersion by the higher cost of attendance, such as higher fees, increased cost of food, services, to name a few. Someone has to pay for this increase. Unlike what president Obama and the labor unions want you to,think, nothing is free. There is always a cost.
As the rates for the labor union membership increase, so do their monthly dues.