'Living wage' threatens child care

Providers struggle to meet city law

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff, 7/22/2002

As many as 360 families, all low-income and many headed by former
welfare recipients, could lose government- subsidized child care in
coming weeks because providers say they won't be able to staff their
centers if forced to pay the city's so-called living wage.

Boston requires city contractors to pay a minimum of $10.54 an hour,
more than twice the federal minimum wage of $5.15. The providers say
they can't afford to pay the wage and have appealed to the city for an
exemption. A ruling is expected shortly.

The waiver request sets the stage for a significant test of the
four-year-old law: whether to enforce an ordinance intended to boost
the salaries of low-wage workers if doing so costs jobs and hurts some
of the city's poorest preschoolers and their parents.

''These parents are working people,'' said Robert Coard, president and
CEO of Action for Boston Community Development Inc., or ABCD, one of
the city's largest day-care providers. ''They will not be able to keep
their jobs without this child care.''

Advocates of the living-wage law say that exempting day-care centers
would open an unnecesssary loophole and strip away protection for the
sort of workers the law was designed to assist.

''Child care is an industry primarily staffed by women, many women of
color,'' said Monica Halas, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal
Services which represents ACORN, an advocacy group supporting the
living-wage ordinance.

''They should not be relegated to jobs that don't pay enough to live
in the city of Boston.''

Both sides agree on one solution. Because the city mandates the living
wage, providers and living-wage proponents say, the city should supply
the child-care centers with the money to pay it.

Such is the case in Santa Cruz, Calif., where city officials earlier
this month voted to spend $250,000 to boost the wages of child-care
providers under contract with the city.

Boston officials say the city is not fiscally able to pick up the
cost, which is estimated by providers at $1.8 million.

''We just don't have the funding,'' said Carole Brennan, a spokeswoman
for Mayor Thomas M. Menino. ''It's easy to say the city should be
funding this, but things are just tough. This is not just the only
issue we are balancing.''

Brennan said Menino is leaning toward granting a hardship waiver.

If granted, it would be the first living-wage waiver issued by the
city. Last month, recycling firms requested a waiver claiming they
could not pay their sorters the living wage. Last week, city officials
announced that the recycling contract would be rebid because the firms
mistakenly had not been informed of the living-wage requirements prior
to bidding.

The waiver issue is likely to surface with increasing frequency as
more city contracts come up for renewal and become subject to the
ordinance.

Also, more contracts now fall under the purview of the law following
amendments in September that made it applicable to nonprofits with 25
or more workers. Previously, the ordinance had applied only to
nonprofits with at least 100 workers.

Boston's living-wage law was among the first in the country when it
took effect in 1998. There are now 82 such laws nationwide, and more
under consideration, according to ACORN's Living Wage Resource Center.

Critics of the movement have long contended that the living wage will
cause job losses. Some states, including Arizona, Colorado, Utah,
Missouri, Louisiana, and Oregon, have gone so far as to ban such
ordinances.

In Boston, city officials conceded shortly after the law's passage
that its economic impact had not been fully studied, including its
effect on nonprofits.

''To single out a single occupation would send a message, particularly
one that is such a female-dominated occupation,'' said Constance Doty,
director of Boston's Office of Jobs and Community Services, who
ultimately will make the waiver decision for the city. ''This law was
passed in the hopes of protecting these very sort of workers.''

Boston child-care providers say that now more than ever they are not
prepared to pick up the additional cost of the living wage because of
state budget cuts.

The Legislature last week cut $9 million from the grant program that
covers preschool child care for low-income families. That came on top
of a $10 million reduction from the previous legislative session.

Douglas S. Baird, president and CEO of Associated Early Care &
Education, said he probably would shift his workers to caring for
children whose parents can pay for day care.

''There will be a lot of children who lose their care,'' Baird said,
''families that will be in trouble at the beginning of the school
year.''

Living-wage advocates say that the cost to larger providers is only a
sliver of their budgets. ABCD's contract in fiscal year 2003 for
preschoolers' care is valued at $4.7 million, according to the Boston
School Department, which helps administer the state grant. The cost of
complying with the living wage for ABCD is estimated at $144,567.

ABCD officials said the estimate undercounts their actual costs,
because all workers paid less than the living wage, including those
not covered by the city-administered grant, would have to have salary
raises.

Susan Kooperstein, an ABCD spokeswoman, said paying the living wage
would cost the company $500,000.

''We would be happy to pay it if someone would give us the money,''
she said.