Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera paused while explaining to me why he was pursuing a new minimum wage for hotel and event venue workers.
“I don’t mean to go all Bernie on you but …”
He went all Bernie Sanders on me.
He’s fired up. I don’t know what I thought the Select Committee on Addressing the Cost of Living that Elo-Rivera chairs would do, but I didn’t think it’d be as interesting as pursuing a major increase in the minimum wage for hotel and event venue workers.
“This place is awesome and it attracts so many people and the idea that the only way this exists as a top-notch tourism destination is for the workers to live in poverty is ludicrous,” Elo-Rivera said.
What’s actually happening: The committee voted to research and come up with a draft ordinance that would raise the minimum wage for workers in hotels and event venues like Petco Park to $25 next year. But now begins a long process of hearing from the city attorney and stakeholders and crafting an actual ordinance.
Padres put up a fight: Elo-Rivera may be the most prominent Dodger fan in local politics and now he’s picked an actual fight with the Padres.
Diana Puetz, the vice president for public affairs for the Padres, spoke against the measure. Food and drinks are already expensive at Petco Park and this would only increase them.
“We’re concerned about being lumped in with tourism when the vast majority of people who come to Petco Park are from San Diego,” Puetz said.
The Padres have always told us, as we investigated their concessions and the now obvious dodging of existing minimum wage and other labor laws, that the company Delaware North is the one that talks about concessions. The city always punted questions about fake charities paying people under the table to run concession stands at Petco Park to the Padres and the Padres always punted them to Delaware North.
What’s really going on: “I’m trying to get rid of the charities at Petco Park,” said Brigette Browning, the head of the Labor Council and Unite HERE, hotel and restaurant workers union.
No, she’s not pushing all of this because of our years long quest to understand how supposed volunteers could provide so much of the labor force at Petco Park. I just thought that was interesting. Browning did offer some insight.
She’s in the middle of a battle with Delaware North to increase pay. “We have concession workers making $19 an hour. We can’t have people making $19 an hour,” she said.
She said she’s having trouble pushing hotels in Mission Valley and the one union hotel in La Jolla, the Marriott, to raise wages.
“We don’t really need this for the union hotels downtown hotels, we need it for further out,” she said.
Opponents muster arguments: Like Puetz, opponents are lining up to claim its unfair to single out the “visitor industry.”
Mark Cafferty, the CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., told the Committee he understood the deep concerns about the cost of living in San Diego and he wants to talk about it.
“Targeting one industry or one base of jobs during very challenging economic times is not the way to do it,” he said.
Puetz pointed out the city itself wouldn’t have to comply to the new minimum wage as proposed.
But it is awkward to try to carve out which sectors or venues that the minimum wage would cover and which it wouldn’t. Right now it looks like the proposal would cover Petco Park but not Snapdragon Stadium, controlled by San Diego State University.
The two venues are competitors for big acts like Coldplay and Pink. If one of them can offer a cheaper deal, that’s a big deal.
Browning gets that.
“We’re hoping the city attorney can include Snapdragon Stadium and the Sports Arena in the ordinance,” Browning said.
And SeaWorld? They appear to have left that place out of it.
The fear: The more entities you include in an ordinance like this, the more that may be willing to fund a referendum to throw the measure out.
SeaWorld is the kind of business whose owners would put up money for such a thing.
Too soon to judge the ordinance about what it does or doesn’t include.
“We haven’t drafted a full ordinance yet,” Elo-Rivera said. “Things that seem like they may be included may not be and things not in there now may be.”
His staff expertly highlighted the tourism industry’s own publicity – the headlines and chest-pumping about how much money hotels were making.
“I’m not dismissive that increased wages can have increased costs on the businesses affected but who is most able to absorb that right now? The tourism industry is the most able — they’re reports to their shareholders are very clear on that,” he said.
