implementation of portland s minimum wage ordinance need for a community based organization approach

bs_bs_banner IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE: NEED FOR A COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATION APPROACH? Michael Havlin There is a gap between what the city government of Portland Maine perceives and defines as successful minimum wage enforcement and what is actually occurring in workplaces The city is taking an onerously complaint-driven approach to enforcement that disregards the potential for a disconnect between violations occurring and violations being reported Workplaces are fraught with institutional barriers like confusion, intimidation, and misinformation that prevent workers from knowing or exercising their rights Outreach conducted collaboratively with the Southern Maine Workers Center has shown that these barriers have caused a number of violations of Portland’s minimum wage ordinance that are going unreported Introduction Amidst a wave of local wage activity across the nation, Portland, Maine, has become one of the most recent cities to implement a city minimum wage Passed by the city council after two years of deliberations, Portland has settled on a phased in $10.68, which started at 10.10 on January 1, 2016 Although councilors have heralded the policy as a success, some in the community have voiced concerns over implementation and enforcement mechanisms Applying the analytical frameworks of the National Employment Law Project [NELP], Professor Stephanie Luce, and other local labor law researchers, this paper uses ethnographic research and other qualitative methods to identify how Portland, Maine is implementing its minimum wage ordinance and where policy failures may be occurring By conducting media analysis, interviews with city officials, interviews with Portland workers, and participatory action outreach with the Southern Maine Workers Center, this analysis will attempt to answer the following question and sub-questions:  Is there a gap between the city’s perception and definition of enforcement success and what is actually occurring in workplaces within the city of Portland, Maine; is there a role for the Southern Maine Workers Center to bridge that gap? WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society · 1089-7011 · Volume 19 · December 2016 · pp 533–551 C 2016 The Author WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society published by Immanuel Ness and Wiley Periodicals, Inc V This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited 534 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY  How did Portland’s minimum wage ordinance come to fruition?  How is the minimum wage being implemented? Are there elements of an effective policy that are missing?  Are businesses adhering to the minimum wage ordinance?  Are violations being reported to the City Manager?  How employers treat and respond to employees who voice their concerns about violations and how employees respond? As the analysis will show, the city’s overly onerous complaint-driven system has led to a disconnect between the complaints it is receiving and the actual violations occurring in workplaces A city government that is too focused on complaints and unwilling to proactive outreach with the community is missing the actual violations that are occurring on the ground Outreach with the Southern Maine Workers Center revealed that the low wage workplaces in Portland can be fraught with institutional barriers that cause violations of the ordinance and prevent workers from exercising their rights Literature Review A significant determinant of local labor law success is the strength of local enforcement mechanisms (Dietz, Levitt, and Love 2014; Luce 2004; Luce 2005) Analyses on Santa Fe and San Francisco, where enforcement mechanisms are strong, have shown that local minimum wages1 are effective at increasing wages without affecting employment; however, in Washington DC the ordinance (until recent reforms) was so toothless that the “share of workers earning below the new minimum wage actually increased after the law went into effect (Schmitt and Rosnick 2011, 9).” And in the case of Albuquerque, where enforcement provisions are weak, there are numerous news reports of workers complaining of wage theft with no recourse (Jamieson 2013; Sandlin 2015) Political conflicts over enforcement standards have created a wide range of minimum wage implementation levels in cities San Francisco, for example, after a decade of tireless advocacy by community organizations, would eventually progress to become the gold standard of enforcement (Dietz, Levitt, and Love 2014) In San Francisco the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement [OLSE] employs dozens of staff and a large budget to enforce ordinances aggressively Unfortunately, San Francisco is an exception; the majority of cities with local wage laws failed to implement them sufficiently (Luce 2004) In response to the patchwork of inconsistent local ordinances and varied local labor law success, the National Employment Law Project has begun formulating a series of best-practices that echo and consolidate what previous researchers have found (Dietz, Levitt, and Love 2014; Ichikawa and Smith 2014; Koonse et al 2015; Luce 2004, 2005; National Employment Law Project 2015a-c; Weil and Pyles 2005) Because of other existing literature, and HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 535 indications from initial data collection, this paper will be most oriented towards two features of NELP’s framework: (1) dedicated municipal resources, and (3) community outreach As seminal research from Stephanie Luce on prevailing wage2ordinances has shown, proactive outreach that engages the community becomes crucial in enforcing local labor laws because of the inherent flaws in a complaint driven system (Luce 2004, 2005; Weil and Pyles 2005) For a number of reasons, like intimidation in the workplace, confusion regarding one’s rights, subversion on the part of employers, and unenforced whistleblower protection, complaint driven systems are far less effective than proactive investigatory ones Stephanie Luce, a sociologist at the City University of New York, has documented extensively how local labor laws are typically only effective when there is a proactive, community-engaged, approach This paper is distinguished from Luce’s work by focusing exhaustively on one city, which allowed for detailed examination of how violations manifest themselves in the workplace, specific policy failures, and the specific dynamics of a minimum wage As stated succinctly by enforcement researcher David Weil (2010, p 57): “networks matter!” Luce (2004), Dietz, Levitt and Love (2014), and Ichikawa and Smith (2014) have shown that unions and non-governmental organizations are instrumental in connecting wronged workers to city enforcers and attorneys Unions and community based organizations are able to use informal networks, friendships, trust, and customs to bridge the gap between formal enforcement mechanisms and the internal culture and network of the work place Unfortunately, unions, which historically served the role as the informal network between federal labor enforcers and workers, are experiencing all-time lows in membership (Weil 2010) In the absence of unions, or in compliment to unions, Fine (2006) documents how Workers Centers have been instrumental in providing voice for low wage workers and filling the information gap between federal and state policies and workers In Worker Centers: Organizing Workers at the Edge of the Dream, Fine (2006) shows how Workers Centers are intersectional workers advocates that are able to organize workers to fight for policy change, and network around policy enforcement and attorney assistance (Fine 2006) Interestingly, in addition to the empirical work on contemporary policies, Seltzer’s (1995) theoretical bounded-rationality model on minimum wage policy formulation provides a role for labor organizations Applying a multi-equilibria model that he developed using data on pre-FLSA (pre-1937) minimum wages, Seltzer shows that under normal conditions there is no equilibrium tendency for policy makers to create strong implementation and enforcement policies or plans The rational, vote-maximizing, elected official can be influenced by voters to pass a law; however, due to information barriers only special interest groups can affect the implementation of the law The result is, without substantial lobbying by labor advocates, a policy equilibrium that has an ineffective minimum wage law Luce also found, in the local living wage context, that the contentiousness of a minimum wage campaign can influence implementation success 536 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY Synthesizing the above perspectives, one can conclude that there is a role for workers centers to influence the enforcement and implementation of local minimum wage ordinances; however, there has been little to no research on this specific arrangement Fine (2006) shows the powerful potential for workers centers to uniquely influence policy and provide resources generically Luce (2004) shows that unions and other labor organizations, not workers centers, can influence living wage enforcement And all of the perspectives show the importance for lobbying, organizing, and monitoring by labor advocates for successful policy Some researchers, like Weil (2010) and NELP (2010), suggest and recommend that workers centers have the potential to effectively collaborate with enforcers and attorneys, and Ichikawa and Smith (2014) mention that San Francisco has experimented with worker centers, but there is little evidence on how these relationships could unfold Due to the lack of union membership in most of the country, and the on-the-ground nature of workers centers, they could prove instrumental to the enforcement of municipal minimum wages Using the analytical frameworks laid out by Stephanie Luce, the National Employment Law Project, and in passing David Weil, Seltzer, and Fine, this analysis will conduct participatory action ethnography and other qualitative methods to critically assess current implementation of Portland, Maine’s minimum wage ordinance The analysis will look to assess the quality of the city’s statutory construal, current enforcement, and the role that the Southern Maine Workers Center has played, and can play, in the ordinance’s enforcement Methodology Document Analysis The Portland Press Herald database on Proquest was searched for text containing the terms “minimum,” or “wage,” between the dates of January 1, 2014 through October 2015 and then the results of the search were selectively reduced to accumulate only those articles that focused, or significantly remarked, on local minimum wage issues in Portland In total the final search and filter resulted in 121 (N 121) articles, op-eds, columns, and letters to the editor on local minimum wage issues The media documents supplement the analysis of the city’s approach, but also serve to shed light on the dynamics of the campaign to increase the minimum wage As Luce and others have shown, the contentiousness of a campaign can be indicative of future enforcement quality The topics of articles covering the local minimum wage were also examined For documents concerning city policy, the city’s website was perused for council minutes, ordinance drafts, budgets, and FAQ’s regarding the minimum wage Interviews with Officials In total seven (N 7) policy leaders or experts participated in phone, personal, or email interviews Two city councilors (n 2) and former Mayor HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 537 Table Summary of Methods Method Who/What Document Analysis The city ordinance and related city documents Various publications in the Portland Press Herald Interviews City officials Low wage workers Labor lawyers Labor activists Interactions between labor activists and workers Processes for filing complaints Activities of businesses who are violating ordinance Participant Observation How Why Utilizing all that is publicly available through cooperative means, and if necessary with the use of FOAA requests A combination of outreach and snowballing from respondent recommendations This will be collected throughout the outreach process, and at Southern Maine Workers Center events To identify the gaps within the interpretive communities to answer the research questions by synthesizing the perspectives Michael Brennan (n 1) participated in phone or email interviews The City Manager Jon Jennings (n 1) participated in a phone interview and referred me to one another staff member, Mike Murray (n 1) who participated in email and personal interviews The State Department of Labor FOAA administrator Julie Rabinowitz (n 1) also participated in phone and email interviews Finally, Andy Schmidt (n 1), a Portland attorney specializing in wage and hour law consulted my work and provided me with data Worker Center Participant Observation and Worker Interviews Outreach was conducted from early January 2016 through March of 2016 Outreach was conducted with the low wage community by going to bus stops, soup kitchens, libraries, idle places of work, and labor events to meet new low wage workers and survey them about issues happening in their workplace Short structured interviews were used to screen participants for full length semistructured interviews In total, thirty hours of outreach were conducted and fifteen hours of other participant observation was conducted In total, thirty-two individuals were solicited for structured interviews, twenty-two (N 22) of those solicited completed full interviews, and four (n 4) of those twenty-two were interviewed for additional semi-structured questioning based on their initial responses (See Table for summary of methods) Results and Analysis The analysis examines the enforcement of Portland’s minimum wage ordinance using three main indicators: (A) the local campaign surrounding the minimum wage, (B) the policies and positions of policy makers, and (C) the actual conditions and experiences of Portland workers The first two indicators, the campaign (A) and the city’s policies (B), will serve as a signal to the potential for 538 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY Table Article Topic and Sentiment (January 2014 through October 2015) Sentiment/topic Positive Neutral Negative Conflicting Total City’s Proposal Ballot Initiative Mayoral Race Both Proposals Total 23 11 23 66 4 21 17 2 23 2 11 45 19 20 37 121 enforcement issues, while the experiences of workers (C) will serve to show whether or not that potential for inefficacy has become an actual reality As the analysis will show, a contentious minimum wage campaign and moderate implementation by the city led to a disconnect between what the City of Portland measured as successful implementation and what was actually occurring in workplaces (A) The Campaign Establishing a municipal minimum wage in Portland was an idea initially proposed by Mayor Michael Brennan in his State of the City speech in January of 2014 Brennan, who would eventually propose a phased in minimum of $10.68, championed and shepherded the ordinance’s formulation from its inception to its implementation over a twenty-four-month process The process would be delayed by strong business opposition, complicated conversations about the interaction of state and city law, the issue of tipping, competing measures by the Green Party, and electoral politics Review of media reports and editorials from January of 2014, when the Mayor’s efforts were announced, through October of 20143 reveal that the proposal to increase the minimum Graph Examination of Topics (January 2014 to March 2016) HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 539 wage was highly contentious, and conflated with other issues, and so the public may not have had an opportunity to fully vet the details of enforcement policies, and workers may not have fully understood the rights each proposal allowed them Over the course of 18 months, from January 2014 through October 2014, there were N 121 articles, op-eds, and letters to the editor in the Press Herald that were about, or touched on significantly, Portland’s local minimum wage proposals Activity around the proposals increased during key events like public forums, committee meetings, council meetings, and voting periods The spread of sentiment regarding the proposals, and the conflation of the council’s minimum wage ordinance with the mayoral race and the alternate proposals, shows that the various initiatives were highly contentious and conflated with larger issues (see Table 2) The lengthy, iterative, and contentious nature of the council’s deliberations, and the high volume of media coverage from a wide range of perspectives suggest that the ordinance had strong opposition but was eventually pushed through the council Proponents of the ordinance offered ideas of economic justice, the demand side benefits, and the rising cost of living While opponents, the largest of which were Greg Dugal of the Maine Restaurant and Innkeepers Association and Chris O’Neil of the Chamber of Commerce, painted a picture of fire and brimstone repercussion Despite this lengthy process, only four (n 4) media articles significantly mentioned enforcement provisions Analysis of news articles also reveals that the Portland ordinance became conflated with other wage-related issues in the city and across the state (see Graph 1).4 (B) The Policy: Statutory Construal and the City’s Approach Before applying Luce’s grading framework, it is important to lay out what the city’s approach to enforcement is from a nuanced perspective Although the ordinance does not specify the obligations of the city, the enacted procedures of the city and the city’s interpretation of the ordinance shows that the minimum wage will be enforced through a purely complaint-driven system that puts the burden of compliance on employers and employees, and will be evaluated by the city on the reception and processing of complaints As the analysis will show, there is a high potential for implementation issues due to three interacting themes: a shifting burden of enforcement, the city’s “wait and see” approach, and the city’s mistaken conceptualization of enforcement “success.” The burden of enforcement was shifted onto employers and employees, and the city has focused too much on waiting for complaints rather than finding violations Shifting burden of enforcement Examining the actual text of the ordinance, one can immediately see where the burden, responsibility and trust of enforcement lies: businesses and their employees Although the ordinance broadly authorizes the City Manager to a number of things, like fines, investigations, and payroll review, it does not explicitly obligate the City Manager to anything beyond 540 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY “enforce the ordinance,” and does not provide funding for anything it authorizes (City of Portland City Council 2015a, 7) Conversely, businesses are required and expected to be the entity that informs workers of their rights, keep records of pay, and comply with city requests One can see this in the ordinance by observing the uses of “shall” and “may” within the text; employers “shall maintain payroll records” while “the city may investigate” a complaint (City of Portland City Council 2015a, 7-8) The underlying assumption seems to be that if employers and employees are informed, then they will act to rectify any problems by informing the city If the City Manager does not exercise his/her/their authority to actively enforce the ordinance, then enforcement is left to employees and their employers Interviews with city officials reveal that the city administration will not be exercising any authority to take an active role in enforcement, and so indeed enforcement of the ordinance relies on employees and their employers When asked about outreach and investigations Mike Murray, the city official designated by the City Manager to process complaints, explained in an email that the ordinance “clearly states it is a complaint driven system” and “outreach with workers is the responsibility of employers.” In a phone interview Mike went on to indicate it will be incumbent upon the employee to show that they were wronged and that they must so by filing a written complaint In phone interviews and emails, the city manager and Murray indicated that the city would not be taking proactive steps to monitor payroll information at businesses City staff also indicated that workers would be encouraged to consult with private lawyers to pursue private action The burden of enforcement being put on workers is, of course, consistent with complaint driven systems; however, Portland’s ordinance places greater burdens on employees then had been in place under state law Email exchanges and phone interviews with Julie Rabinowitz, the Freedom of Act (FOAA) Administrator at the Maine Department of Labor, revealed that Portland workers may become lost in a regulatory limbo Rabinowitz stated that the Maine DOL will no longer process complaints filed from workers in Portland, even those complaints reporting violation of the state’s 7.50 minimum wage, because the city is now, in her eyes, no longer the DOL’s proper jurisdiction for enforcement This further burdens workers because, previously, under DOL regulations anyone could prompt a DOL lead investigation through an anonymous phone call or tip about an employer even if they gave no indication of who they were or if they worked there; however, now, according to city administrators and the ordinance, employees must provide written statements and documentation to the city which may or may not lead to an investigation by the city staff When prompted in a phone interview, Rabinowitz expressed concern that the complaints she receives from Portland workers will get lost in the shuffle between the anonymous phone call to her and the written complaint to the city government Rabinowitz was actually not even aware of who was processing complaints at the city, expressing frustration about lack of communication between the city and her HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 541 Planning to ‘wait and see,’ waiting and seeing as planning Councilors and city administrators have expressed a desire for an enforceable ordinance to succeed; however, largely due to budgetary and political concerns, both sides of city governance have decided to “wait and see” if enforcement is a problem before the city funds and exercises its broad authorizations Both city councilors and city staff used the “wait and see” approach during both the planning phase and as the barometer with which to monitor their performance Although the Finance Committee deliberated enforcement implications as early as December of 2014 and the city’s own corporation counsel recommended at least $50,000 be set aside for enforcement, when the entire council passed the ordinance in July of 2015 it did not approve funding, stating that until the minimum wage was implemented it would be “impossible to estimate how violations would affect City regulatory expenditures” (City of Portland City Council 2015b, 8; West-Chuta 2014) Immediately after the ordinance was passed, city spokeswoman Jessica Grondin indicated it was too early to criticize the city’s enforcement procedures, stating that city officials could exercise their authority later “if they wanted to set something up more official (Anderson 2015, B2).” Spokeswoman Grondin went on to indicate, as worded by the Press Herald, “if the new minimum-wage requirement does generate a significant number of complaints there is the possibility the city would add a designated staff person (Anderson 2015, B2).” As the ordinance evolved from its initial incarnation, councilors continued to take the “wait and see” approach to planning around enforcement In September of 2015, when amending the ordinance was being considered, the Press Herald reported that Mayor Brennan indicated that “the city has no immediate plans to hire someone to enforce the ordinance (Billings 2015, A.1).” When contacted for clarification, Brennan, now the former Mayor, stated “well we were taking the wait and see approach” that if there were complaints the city would hire staff When asked about her thoughts on outreach as an enforcement idea in March of 2016, City Councilor Belinda Ray stated “I guess I would be inclined to give this some time to play out and see if any complaints are registered rather than engage in a vast outreach at this time.” In addition to the council, the city staff also took the “wait and see” approach of planning In September of 2015, after the City Council revised the tipped wage portion of the ordinance, the City Manager said that “if we’re receiving a significant number of complaints in the first quarter of [2016], we would move immediately to bring someone on board (Billings 2015, A.1).” In a phone interview in October of 2015, the City Manager confirmed that the city was continuing to take a wait and see approach; that they were developing plans for administration and they would be asking the council for some funds to send out a poster that employers would be required to post, and then wait to see if complaints arrived in the new year The New Year revealed, though, that the mailing of posters would not occur, and that plans around the ordinance would continue to equate to waiting and seeing Interviews with city staff show that what had initially been planned, 542 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY providing posters to employers, devolved, due to budgetary concerns, into mailing a document that directed employers to a website where the poster could be printed out As 2016 progressed, the city administration continued to operate under the presumption that the workers had been sufficiently notified, and that if there are any enforcement issues then they would reveal themselves as complaints In the city’s eyes, while they “waited,” if there were no complaints to “see” then the ordinance was implemented successfully The city’s definition of enforcement success Although the “wait and see” approach initially sounds reasonable, one has to ask what exactly the city is expecting to “see?” A minimum wage ordinance should not be judged on the number of complaints it generates, but instead the number of violations it generates The statements and interviews surrounding enforcement success quickly reveal that Portland’s policy leaders are judging the need for enforcement funding on the number of complaints that are being reported, not the number of violations Upon asking city officials about any issues regarding enforcement, the first response they have is to reference the absence of complaints and not being aware of compliance issues The litany of policy leaders who deferred to “wait and see” if there are complaints before committing resources reveals a “no news is good news approach.” When these policy leaders are pressed about the potential disconnect between complaints and violations, they rely on the presumption that employers and employees are well informed and so therefore any violations would result in complaints The dominant view of the policy leaders in Portland is that no news is good news; a lack of complaints must mean a lack of violations However, when one considers the increased burden of enforcement onto employees and employers, the interest level of the city to engage with the community proactively, and the lack of committed resources, one cannot help wonder if there is a chicken and the egg problem; violations may only become complaints if there is proactive enforcement, but the city will not proactively enforce the ordinance unless there are complaints Luce’s grading scheme Application of Luce’s grading scheme is important because it serves as checklist of best practices to gauge a city’s performance; however, in the context of a minimum wage ordinance (as opposed to a prevailing or living wage) certain parts of the framework become more important than others Because most workers covered by the ordinance are not contingently employed by the city, as the case with prevailing wage ordinances, aspects that are more proactive in nature become more important To account for this, some augmentations to the scheme were made, and the narrative below discusses certain nuances One new criteria, “complaints are easy to file,” was added to Luce’s framework in the monitoring section Additionally, the use of half points was applied to some of Portland’s criteria because of certain nuances Below is a table and narrative addressing the portions most relevant to Portland (Table 3) HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 543 Table Luce’s Grading Scheme Category: Administration Ordinance language in RFP for contracts Employers required to post notice Rules and regulations are established by city City assigns implementation to a particular department and staff person Training provided for city departments who use contractors Easy to get information about the ordinance Monitoring Employers file payroll records on request Employers file payroll records on regular basis Contracts regularly reviewed by city staff Worksites regularly monitored Complaints easy to file Enforcement Waivers from ordnance difficult to obtain City applies penalties to those in noncompliance Evaluation City staff writes evaluation reports City attempts to close loopholes in ordinance Final Score: Score Possible: Score: 0.5 1 0 0 1 0 15 Administration The city posted information extensively on its website and, in a mailing that it sent to 5,000 employers with Portland ties, it directed employers to inform employees of the new minimum wage and told them where to find information online; however, the city stopped short of developing any regulations or information that go beyond just the text of the ordinance, did not include ordinance language in RFP’s, did not provide training to contracting departments, and stopped shy of making physical posters available to employers As outreach with the Workers Center will show, this failure to send out the physical posters may have prevented workers from being informed about their rights The city failed to designate someone to administer the ordinance full time and has not appropriated funding; although the ordinance designates the City Manager to enforce the ordinance, and the City Manager worked with the corporate counsel and delegated responsibilities to Mike Murray, neither staff members have a significant amount of time to dedicate towards enforcement Monitoring Since the ordinance applies to all Portland workers, and not just those who are regularly connected to the city (like with prevailing wages), monitoring becomes very important There is virtually no proactive monitoring occurring; although employers are required to make payroll available to the city, the city has indicated that it will not be proactively requesting payroll and has no regulations established to facilitate a request Employers are required, by ordinance, to keep payroll records and allow the city access to them, but the city is not required to request them, but may so if a complaint occurs Due to the writing requirement, a complaint is not easy to file So, the only monitoring that 544 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY may occur will be sparked by a complaint process that experts, like DOL FOAA administrator Julie Rabinowitz, think is overly onerous (c) Participant Observation and Interview Findings As the analysis of the city’s ordinance and policies shows, because an exclusively complaint-driven system is being implemented the city will never know if there’s a disconnect between the complaints being filed and the actual violations occurring To explore whether or not there is evidence to show a disconnect between complaints and violations, and why that disconnect may be happening, outreach has been, and is being, conducted by the Southern Maine Workers Center Overview of Southern Maine workers center The Southern Maine Workers Center is an intersectional justice organization dedicated towards building a coalition of labor rights activists through community engagement and organizing The Southern Maine Workers Center was founded by the Southern Maine Labor Council in 2006 so that the labor activists could engage with low wage workers who were not represented by a union The Workers Center shares its office with Portland Outright, which is an organization that conducts outreach with LGBTQQ1 youth and at risk youth The SMWC works with Portland Outright, Preble Street Resource Center (for homeless individuals), other community groups and a loose coalition of volunteers to build a network of workers who are oppressed due to their class, race, nationality, gender, sexuality, mental health, and other identities One of the chief organizing strategies used by the Southern Maine Workers Center is outreach Outreach is conducted by the SWMC for two purposes: one, to build a network of workers who not have a voice, and two, to collect data on how the low wage community feels about certain issues As the Workers Center conducts outreach it collects data and builds its network, but also remains vigilant for workers who need immediate assistance When the Workers Center finds a worker who needs immediate assistance because their rights are being violated, the Center works with them to refer them to one of the attorneys that they work with Overview of violations In total, there were five outreach sessions (average length six hours) conducted using the typical tactics of the SMWC and five other distinct sessions of participant observation (average length three hours) for a total time of forty-five hours of participatory action observation The outreach sessions resulted in thirty-two solicitations for interviews, of which there were twenty-two structured interviews of employed Portland workers (one incomplete, four refusals, and five not employed) Of the twenty-two fully completed structured interviews, four participants indicated signs of egregious violations of the ordinance and so were interviewed additionally in a semi-structured format Tables and provide summary data on participants In total sixteen unique individuals reported some kind of violation, with some reporting multiple types of violations for a total of twenty-six violations HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 545 Table Unique Individuals Reporting Violation Total participants Number who reported increased pay Unique individuals indicating violation of ordinance Number of violations identified 3 22 1 2 16 10 2 26 Food Service Alcohol Service Retail Day Labor Other Total identified The violations range from minor violations like the posting requirement, to more serious ones like withholding of pay stubs, employee misclassification, tip-misappropriation, and explicit wage theft As indicated in the literature and underscored by an interview with wage and hour attorney Andy Schmidt, wage theft often does not occur explicitly but instead manifests itself within a system of confusion and intimidation that is exacerbated by one’s employer and the nature of low wage work As Andy Schmidt put it: “wage theft and labor violations are pervasive in the low wage industry .They don’t get reported because workers are scared and don’t know their rights.” Among workers who reported both simple violations, like posting requirements, and more egregious violations of the ordinance, like pay stub improprieties and explicit wage theft, confusion, intimidation, and neglect were pervasive elements in their work environments Often, because the employer failed to fully inform them of their wages and hours, workers who were not getting proper pay stub information were confused about their pay, but were not able to rectify the confusion because of fear of termination Or, with tipped workers, employers were taking advantage of confusions regarding the tipped credit to take possession of tips, or pay workers the tipped-wage when they were not tipped workers Analysis of violations The posting requirement As Tables and summarize, over half of the workers interviewed indicated that the new sign for the ordinance had not been posted in their workplace Six workers did not know about the increase, thought it was not happening yet, were unaware of who it applied to, or were unsure what they could if they were not being paid properly It also raises concerns about how Portland’s Table Total Number of Violations Food Service Alcohol Service Retail Day Labor Other Total Total Number of violations Posting of ordinance Paystub improprieties Tipping improprieties Employee misclassification Explicit wage theft 10 2 26 2 15 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 546 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY fluctuating labor market will learn about the new minimum wage; existing workers had the benefit of hearing about the wage increase on the news, but Portland’s seasonal summer workforce may enter the labor market without that knowledge All of these issues could be resolved, of course, if businesses were posting the ordinance as required Two workers reported blatant misinformation being provided by their employer Alexa (all names used below are pseudonyms), who works at an animal service facility, describes how misinformation lead to wage theft: So there was some confusion over the starting date [My co-workers and I] thought that it was supposed to be January 1st [The owners] said February 1st We thought it was January but we were nervous about whether we should say something or not I think my supervisor must have said something to [the owners] It wasn’t until February 1st that I started getting paid the [new] minimum wage I think they were just hoping that no one noticed Confused about how they could not have heard about the wage increase, Alexa was asked about minimum wage posting She started laughing and stated “yeah they don’t have any of those labor posters No there’s nothing hanging on the walls like there is supposed to be.” She also stated that her employer had not given her any letter or other indication of the new minimum wage Angela, Alexa’s coworker, also explained confusion and wage theft emanating from lack of information When asked whether she knew about the minimum wage increase and if there were new labor posters, Angela said: I thought I heard that on the news – but [the co-owner] didn’t make it clear She never told us, and never said anything about it .There are no labor signs – there used to be federal ones but she took them down and now there are none My co-workers have been asking when the new pay increase is going into effect Everyone is really confused, and we don’t really know if we are getting paid the right amount To clarify how Angela could not know about her wage amount, she was asked what her paystubs said To which she responded, “We don’t get pay stubs! We only get pay stubs once every few months!” Paystub improprieties As Table summarizes four workers reported issues regarding their pay stubs and payroll Although the lack of payroll records is itself only a minor violation, as wage and hour attorney Andy Schmidt suggested, they lead to more serious violations like wage theft through confusion and intimidation Four workers that were interviewed were not receiving pay stubs for their work, three of which indicated they wanted paystubs and suspected that they were not being paid in full As the case with other ordinance violations, lack of pay stubs are used with confusion and intimidation to steal wages Angela, quoted above, said, “we just get personal checks usually.” She continued, We enter our hours into a computer but it gets wiped every month We get a personal check every two weeks I try to keep track of my hours and I have felt shorted before It’s hard to tell, though, because sometimes the check HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 547 seems high and sometimes it seems low If you ask for a pay stub they get really pissed off at you Some of my co-workers have quit because of this, but I just wait for my paycheck and hope for the best When asked if she is earning the minimum wage, Angela said, “I don’t know None of us know because we can’t track our hours The pay stub from January says $10.10 but who knows about the other weeks.” Alexa also thought wages were being stolen because her pay stubs were being withheld, saying So [the co-owner] will email [your paystub] to you if he feels like it but he usually doesn’t and so you have to pester him about it Usually I have to tell him that I’m going to call someone unless he emails me the pay stub .If you ask for [a pay stub] they will accusingly ask ‘well what you need your pay stub for?’ And I’m like ‘are you serious it’s my right to get a pay stub and you’re not supposed to refuse me one.’ They shouldn’t accuse me of anything just because I ask for a pay stub And then sometimes when people get pay stubs it says they’re getting paid less than they’re supposed to and so now we always want to try and get our pay stubs but we never Jane, a server and sales associate at a store that sells alcohol, explains that she also doesn’t know how much she is getting paid because her employer won’t provide a pay stub Jane’s situation is compounded by the fact that she is a tippedemployee Jane has also requested to receive pay stubs, but her employer, although is not intimidating, neglects her requests: Well I don’t know [my wage] because we just get direct deposit and there is no like we don’t get pay stubs It’s all so informal We have asked for pay stubs but we have never gotten them They are nice about it but still nothing It’s really hard I just kind of write [my hours] down and try to match them up with the amount deposited into the bank But it’s really hard because sometimes it seems inconsistent, and it’s hard to adjust for the tips that we receive it’s nonsense I have no idea if I’m getting paid the right amount Tipping misappropriation As Federal and State law have indicated, and the Portland ordinance reiterates, tips are the property of employees and employees may only be considered tipped workers when doing work that regularly causes them to collect at least 30 dollars in tips per month When a worker is doing work where they not collect tips, they cannot be paid the tipped minimum wage And when an employee receives a tip, their employer cannot claim the tip as their own Alexa explained that her employers pocket her tips, saying “when we tell [the owners] that we receive the tip they take the money and don’t give it back to us They don’t put it back into the register or anything they just put it in their pocket.” Jane, the alcohol server, explained that she was being paid the tipped-wage when she was entitled to the full wage: I am confused about the tips, because sometimes I things that I could never get tips for but they still pay me the tipped wage even though there is 548 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY no way I could get paid tips for that work Sometimes I will kitchen work for 10 or 20 hours, and they pay me the tipped-wage .they say that it’s okay as long as it all equals out at the end of the week Explicit wage theft One worker interviewed, who actually was not even aware of the new minimum wage, explained that his wages were explicitly being taken At a local labor event where the Workers Center had a strong presence, John, a pizza delivery driver, expressed to the Workers Center that he needed some assistance with issues happening at his place of work He explains how he didn’t know about the wage increase, there is no posting in his place of work, and how wage theft was happening at his place of work: Wage theft has been a continuous thing The head manager guy like every week or two he would have hours removed from our paychecks My co-workers brought this to one of the supervisors and they refused to anything about My co-worker was missing ten hours one week it’s hard to say how often this happens They will regularly ask you off the clock to stuff Later in the interview John revealed that he was not even aware of what he was entitled to: I was confused because of all the disagreement on the city council I thought the council voted it down and the voters voted against the 15 proposal Did not realize that it was 10.10 until you told me They count me as a tipped worker, for the most part I average over 10.10, but there have been plenty of times where I haven’t and they make no effort to make sure that I get it Portland Wage Theft and the Workers Center’s Role As suspected, wage theft is not something that manifests itself clearly and explicitly, nor does it have a clear and rational response from the worker Wage theft is happening in a shroud of confusion and misinformation that is exacerbated by the power relations in the low wage economy Workers often, sometimes due to genuine confusion and sometimes due to blatant subversion of information by the employer, not know what they are entitled to and, even when they do, don’t have the power to claim what is theirs As the Workers Center has encountered these workers who have had wages, tips, or hours stolen it has worked to provide them resources Connecting workers to legal and social resources takes time, as workers often fear for their jobs or feel a paternalistic connection to their employer The Center maintains close connections with these workers by inviting them to events at the Center, like labor art shows, Know Your Rights workshops, and banner making sessions When workers are ready, the Center refers them to a lawyer and helps each party develop a relationship that will allow the legal system to fully assist the worker HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 549 Conclusion There is clearly a gap between what the city perceives is successful implementation, and what is actually occurring in workplaces within the city Since the city is clearly defining success as a lack of complaints and the city’s ability to process complaints, it cannot possibly perceive a problem that emphasizes violations While the city operates under the assumption that employers and employees have been informed, and so therefore any violations would manifest themselves as complaints, examination of the actual working conditions of low wage employees in Portland reveals that lack of complaints does not mean lack of violations Additionally, even if violations become complaints, the city does not currently have the capacity to properly process and adjudicate them The actual workplaces of Portland employees are fraught with institutional barriers that prevent them from exercising their rights By taking advantage of information barriers through the use of confusion and intimidation Portland employers have the ability to implicitly pay a sub-minimum wage through implicit wage theft Some workers are not even sure of their rights because, contrary to the city’s assumption, not all employers are properly informing their employees of their rights With the current power relations of low wage work, the informal nature of some service jobs, poor posting and notification, and the onerous process of filing a complaint workers cannot be expected to fend entirely for themselves The Southern Maine Worker Center’s ability to find workers who are having their rights violated indicates that there is a high potential for collaborative outreach by community based organizations Workers Centers exist in a unique, intersectional, space that is embedded within the low wage community, which allows them to utilize networks for enforcement advantages In the future, Cities like Portland, and minimum wage researchers, should attempt to foster collaboration with non-profits like workers centers Additionally, cities like Portland should collaborate with outside organizations to formulate and amend enforcement provisions that include things like paid staff, preemptive payroll review, outreach coordination, and stringent punishments of violating businesses Michael Havlin has recently finished his M.A in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (affiliated institution for research), and currently works for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC Email: michael.havlin@maine.edu Notes For purposes of this analysis, minimum wages are wages specified by the government that apply to all workers in a geographic region Prevailing wages are wages specified by the government that apply to government workers or contractors Living wage and local labor law refer to both of these wages generically In Stephanie Luce’s research on over one-hundred living wage ordinances she includes minimum wage ordinances, but less than half a dozen local minimum wages existed at the time So, effectively her research 550 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY was virtually entirely on prevailing wage ordinances Prevailing wage ordinances are ordinances that address the wage rate of city workers or city contractors January 2014 through October 2015 was used for the sentiment analysis because January was when the campaigns over the proposals started, and November is effectively when they ended because the competing ballot initiative by the Green Party was defeated on that day For analysis of subject matter, the analysis was extended to March 2016 to examine if topics shifted after the campaigns had finished References Anderson, C 2015 How will Portland enforce the new wage? Portland Press Herald http://www.pressherald com/2015/07/14/how-will-portland-enforce-new-minimum-wage (accessed March 23, 2016) Billings, R 2015 Mayor Brennan Touts minimum wage as historic step forward Portland Press Herald http://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/10/mayor-brennan-touts-minimum-wage-as-historic-significantstep-forward/ (accessed March 23, 2016) City of Portland City Council 2015a Amendment to Portland City Code Chapter 33 (Minimum Wage) http:// www.portlandmaine.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/9390 (accessed March 30, 2016) ——— 2015b Agenda Regular City Council Meeting (pp 1–491) City Government of Portland Portland, Maine http://me-portland.civicplus.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/2275?fileID=8820 (accessed March 30, 2016) Dietz, M., D Levitt, and E Love 2014 Enforcement of labor standards In When Mandates Work, ed R Michael, J Ken, and D Miranda, 229–55 Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, USA: University of California Press Fine, J 2006 Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the edge of the dream Ithaca, NY, USA: Cornell University Press Ichikawa, D R., and R S Smith 2014 Delivering $15: Community-centered wage and hour enforcement in Seattle National Employment Law Project http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/01/Delivering-15Community-Centered-Wage-and-Hour-Enforcement-Seattle.pdf (accessed October 2015) Jamieson, D 2013 Workers shorted on pay under New Albuquerque Minimum Wage law told to find private attorneys Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/albuquerque-minimum-wagelaw_n_3756171.html Koonse, T., M Dietz, and A Bernhardt 2015 Enforcing city minimum wage laws in California: Best practices and city-state partnerships Berkeley, CA, USA: UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education & UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education Luce, S 2004 Fighting for a living wage Ithaca, NY, USA: Institute of Labor Relations Press, Cornell University Press ——— 2005 The role of community involvement in implementing living wage ordinances Industrial Relations Vol 44No (1): National Employment Law Project 2010 Just pay: improving wage and hour enforcement at the United States Department of Labor The Just Pay Working Group New York, NY, USA: National Employment Law Project http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/JustPayReport2010.pdf ——— 2015a Minimum wage basics City minimum wage laws: Recent trends and economic evidence National Employment Law Project New York, NY, USA: National Employment Law Project http://www.nelp.org/ content/uploads/City-Minimum-Wage-Laws-Recent-Trends-Economic-Evidence.pdf ——— 2015b Local minimum wage laws and current campaigns Raise the Minimum Wage New York, NY, USA: National Employment Law Project http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/local-minimumwage ——— 2015c The top enforcement tools for local minimum wage laws National Employment Law Project http://www.nelp.org/publication/the-top-5-enforcement-tools-for-local-minimum-wage-laws/ (accessed October 2015) Sandlin, S 2015 Minimum Wage Lawsuit heads to Trial Albuquerque Journal https://www.abqjournal.com/ 599388/minimum-wage-suit-heads-to-trial.html (accessed November 12, 2016) Schmitt, J., and D Rosnick 2011 The wage and employment impact of minimum-wage laws in three cities Center for Economic Policy and Research http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2011-03 pdf HAVLIN: IMPLEMENTATION OF PORTLAND’S MINIMUM WAGE ORDINANCE 551 Seltzer, A J 1995 Causes and consequences of American minimum wage legislation, 1911–1947 University Microfilms International Weil, D 2010 Improving workplace conditions through strategic enforcement A report to the wage and hour division United States Department of Labor http://www.dol.gov/whd/resources/strategicenforcement.pdf Weil, D., and A Pyles 2005 Why Complain? Complaints, Compliance, and the Problem of Enforcement in the U.S Workplace Comprehensive Labor Law and Policy Journal 27: 59 West-Chuta, D 2014 City of Portland Memorandum Portland City Government http://www.portlandmaine.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/1260?fileID55154 ... interviewed for additional semi-structured questioning based on their initial responses (See Table for summary of methods) Results and Analysis The analysis examines the enforcement of Portland? ? ?s minimum. .. stubs it says they’re getting paid less than they’re supposed to and so now we always want to try and get our pay stubs but we never Jane, a server and sales associate at a store that sells alcohol,... Prevailing wage ordinances are ordinances that address the wage rate of city workers or city contractors January 2014 through October 2015 was used for the sentiment analysis because January was