City Creates Outreach “Team” to Ensure Local Businesses Understand, Comply With Minimum Wage Ordinance

Pasadena has hired a local labor advocacy organization which earlier this year mounted noisy demonstrations at Pasadena businesses demanding payment of wages it said were owed to workers to assist the City with its minimum wage ordinance outreach.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), led locally by labor advocate Pablo Alvarado, has been awarded a $50,000 city contract.

In doing so, the City’s Planning and Community Development department acknowledged “community-based organizations often have trusted relationships with the communities they serve.”

Pasadena’s own city-wide minimum wage ordinance — passed last March a mere 21 days before California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a State version — went into effect July 1.

The City’s contract with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network specifies the group will conduct community outreach, education and training to workers and employers, as well as participate at neighborhood and community fairs, forums, meetings, parks, churches and both Pasadena City College campuses.

The group will also support mediation in unpaid wage cases and the referral of unresolved minimum wage violation cases to the Planning and Community Development Department and work directly with the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber, which had previously campaigned against the adoption of the minimum wage ordinance, will be working to reach out to local businesses to implement the new ordinance.

Said former Councilmember and current Pasadena Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Paul Little, “On the face of it, the arrangement might look a little curious, but the reality is that we don’t want any businesses in our community to be unaware of the regulations and then be subject to any kind of penalties or harassment.”

“At the same time,” Little said, “we’ll be talking to business owners about best practices when it comes to employees, things like keeping appropriate records, and paying with a check. We’re doing our best to look out for not only our members, but the entire business community.”

Alvarado is a familiar face in Pasadena’s Latino community; a regular visitor to City Council meetings, where for months, he argued for the passage of the City’s minimum wage ordinance, which is expected to raise the minimum wage in Pasadena to $15 an hour by 2020. In 2005, TIME Magazine named him one of the “25 Most Influential Hispanics” in America, calling him “The Cesar Chavez of the jornaleros (day workers).”

“We are the only workers’ organization in Pasadena,” said Alvarado, “and we have worked directly with workers from a lot of different industries in wage theft cases.”

Alvarado said in an interview this week that NDLON “is the only organization that can truly outreach to workers who have been cheated out of their wages. These are workers who are part of the janitorial industry, the restaurant industry, and the car wash industry, and these are industries that are very much affected by wage theft.”

Along with the NDLON, Pasadena Code Compliance Officer Jon Pollard has been named as the chief officer to handle complaints through the City’s Planning and Community Development Office, the investigative and enforcement agency for minimum wage and wage theft violations.

“The City felt it was important to engage low-wage workers and members of the immigrant community in understanding how the minimum wage ordinance applies to them, and how it applies to businesses,” said Pollard of the arrangement between NDLON, the Pasadena Chamber, and the city.

“The objective is to assist low wage workers and immigrants in applying the law, as well as being cognizant of how this will affect our business community,” Pollard added.

The City has also set up complaint desks at the Jackie Robinson Center and Villa Parke Community Center where the public can get more information about the ordinance and register complaints about employer non-compliance when necessary.

Anonymous complaints will be accepted but specific documentation will be required to proceed with any complaint, officials said.
The Pasadena ordinance specifies wage increases every July 1 through 2018. For employers with 26 or more employees, the minimum wage increases again on July 1, 2017 to $12.00, and then to $13.25 on July 1, 2018. For Pasadena businesses with 25 or fewer employees, the first raise is to $10.50 on July 1, 2017 and then next to $12.00 on July 1, 2018.

The impact of the ordinance on the local economy is expected to be reviewed by the City Council in February 2019, before continuing on upward to its eventual goal of $15 an hour in 2020.

Future raises beyond 2020 would be indexed to annual cost of living adjustments.

Nonprofit corporations with 26 or more employees may qualify for a deferral rate schedule as long as they can show proof that they fulfill certain conditions that will be clarified in a set of procedures which will be prepared by the City Manager’s office.

The ordinance was passed by a unanimous vote of the Pasadena City Council.