Jessica Williams
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — Municipal contractors must pay their employees at least $15 per hour within two years under rules the New Orleans City Council passed Thursday, part of several recent efforts to ease financial strains on public workers.
The rules would see the city’s current base rate of $11.19 per hour rise to $13.25 per hour by 2022, and to $15 by 2023. Anyone not receiving the current base rate would see their pay raised to that level by this December.
After 2023, raises would happen each year keep up with inflation. The moves would apply to contract workers handling projects worth at least $25,000 and those working for city grantees that receive at least $100,000 in public funds.
City employees involved in projects or contracts where city money is distributed would also be eligible.
The unanimous vote is one of several moves being planned by the council to force pay raises for public employees. The council also voted to direct the city’s chief administrative officer, Gilbert Montano, to study the costs of raising pay for workers directly employed by the city.
A separate ordinance introduced Thursday would task Civil Service workers with a similar study. That change will be considered by the council at a future meeting.
An hourly wage of $15 “is the minimum amount needed to keep an individual’s food on the table, keep their lights on and keep a roof over their head,” said council member Jared Brossett. “Raising the minimum wage is a concrete step that the city can and should take to improve life outcomes for all of our residents.”
The moves were praised by workers who said they were tired of being underpaid and undervalued.
“We want to be recognized as being worthy of a living wage along with everybody else,” said Aaron Mischler, president of the New Orleans Firefighters Association. Others said they have to work two and three jobs to make ends meet with their current city salaries and that the city’s low wages are driving workers to other cities and parishes.
The pro-labor actions come amid mounting demands by contract and other public employees for better pay, better equipment and more respect at work. City sanitation workers went on strike last year over those issues; earlier this week, several Department of Public Works employees walked off the job and demanded to speak to supervisors over pay and other problems.
Low-wage private sector workers have also engaged in strikes to try to force higher pay, as state laws do not establish a minimum wage for private workers. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
Past forced pay raises from either the council or the mayor’s administration have set base pay at $10.55 an hour for city contractors and $10.10 for direct workers, with subsequent inflation adjustments. Mayor LaToya Cantrell also issued 10% across-the-board pay raises upon taking office.
But in order to afford basic living costs in New Orleans today, an average worker would need $15.01 per hour, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study Brossett cited. The city’s current base pay rate is $11.21 an hour.
The ordinance Brossett introduced Thursday for public workers would direct Civil Service staffers to study raising pay to $15 per hour for classified employees. If the full council approves that move, the study would be due by Sept. 1.
The motion filed by Helena Moreno and approved Thursday, meanwhile, requires Montano, the CAO, to provide more information about the costs of those pay raises and how the city would fund them by mid-August.
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