Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh vetoed a bill on Friday that would raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, despite having supported the measure during her mayoral campaign.
The campaign for the $15 minimum wage, part of a nationwide movement, culminated with the City Council passing the bill on March 20 by 11 votes to three.
Pugh argued that several unanticipated expenses, like the public school system’s rising deficit and increased overtime for police officers, led her to veto the bill.
City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, who represents the 14th district, which includes Charles Village and the surrounding area, was the bill’s lead sponsor.
Several local businesses and labor unions are critical of Pugh’s decision and are advocating for the Council to consider overriding the veto. Twelve of the 15 City Council members must agree to override the veto.
Tracy Lingo is the staff director of Unite Here Local 7, a statewide labor union which also represents Bon Appétit dining workers at Homewood. She called for supporters of the bill to protest Pugh’s decision.
“I think that it’s really disappointing that Catherine Pugh promised our union and a lot of other unions that she would back this,” Lingo said. “I’m happy, as I understand it, that the Council is contemplating an override vote, and I’m happy that people are mobilizing to support that and not let Catherine Pugh’s veto be the final word.”
Lingo explained that several major cities like Seattle have enacted similar minimum wage bills, which she said provide an economic boost by shifting more spending power to workers.
“A year out, what’s been proven is that there’s more job creation and more money stimulating the local economy [of Seattle], not less,” she said. “[Baltimore] has not developed by putting in acting policies that favor business owners on the idea that money is going to trickle down. I think it’s time that we tried something else.”
Junior John Hughes argued that the bill would not harm small businesses.
“It’s utterly preposterous to say that businesses cannot afford a $15 minimum wage,” Hughes wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “For decades, wages have failed to keep pace with inflation, while the costs of essentials like housing and healthcare have outpaced inflation. The difference has translated into skyrocketing profits for business owners and lowering quality of life for workers.”
Senior economics major Guilherme Hubner wrote in an email to The News-Letter that Pugh’s veto reflects her concern for the current and future financial welfare of the city.
“The municipality would experience increase in costs of $116 million, which would widen the current budget deficit of $20 million,” he wrote. “This cost increase would also make it more difficult to solve structural deficiencies in priority areas such as education.”
Senior Corey Payne criticized the reasons behind Pugh’s position change.
“To me, this is representative of a broader trend among Democrats nation-wide who are attempting to ride a rising tide of progressivism by simply rebranding their disastrous neoliberalism and continuing to govern as representatives of capitalist interests,” Payne wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
He also criticized of the initial proposal for being too conservative but wrote that Pugh’s failure to approve the bill was a violation of a moral imperative.
“Many progressives, myself included, had serious problems with this bill — the amount of time it would take to implement the increase, the lack of a provision for further increases linked to inflation and the fact that there was an age restriction on the increase to name a few,” he wrote.
While Hubner shared Payne’s concern for vulnerable groups in the city, he believed that an increase in minimum wage would ultimately be detrimental. Hubner argued that the increase called for in the bill would hurt the most vulnerable like low-skilled workers, the youth and ex-offenders.
“This population would likely face layoffs as business owners adjusted to the new requirements, adding on to the already existing 76,000 unemployed people in the city.” Hubner wrote. “Mayor Pugh’s decision to veto the bill takes into account the harsh economic realities and needs faced by the city of Baltimore and its citizens.”
Payne, who is part of the Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC), has been pushing for $15 minimum wage for University contract workers. Although the veto is discouraging, he writes that SLAC will continue to fight.
“We start our negotiations with the administration this Friday, and we aren’t going to fade quietly away because the bill failed at the City level,” he wrote. “Hopefully, when we are successful in achieving a $15 minimum wage policy at Hopkins, it will persuade Mayor Pugh in the right direction—if the City’s largest employer can do it, everyone can.”
Lingo said that she wants to see Hopkins lead the fight for the wage increase and set an example for other Baltimore employers.
“My understanding is Hopkins is the largest employer in the city,” she said. “Since the uprising, Hopkins has really tried to portray itself as a leader in the city of creating jobs for Baltimore residents and of combatting inequality, and this is just a chance for them to really make good on that promise.”
Hughes wrote that Hopkins has been resisting demands for wage increases for years.
“Hopkins has no leg to stand on in discussions of income equality while it continues to ignore demands from its own workers for livable wages, job security and nondiscrimination in its housing benefits,” Hughes wrote. “Hopkins is the perfect example of an institution that can afford a $15 minimum wage, and I think that it’s sad that it will take a minimum wage law to get them to do so.”
Hughes also wrote that a higher minimum wage will work to bring racial justice for blacks and Hispanics.
“A higher minimum wage means city residents will gain increased access to housing and transportation, reducing the state’s ability to use racist policies to maintain modern segregation” Hughes wrote.
Lingo said that Unite Here Local 7 is not only fighting economic inequality but also racial inequality in Baltimore.
“Baltimore is a majority-black city, and if you look at workers who are stuck in lower-wage jobs, unfortunately because of the systematic racism in our society, the majority of those workers in Baltimore city are African-American workers,” she said. “Our union certainly believes that the most important thing that we can do to end the racial inequality is to end the economic inequality by making sure that all jobs have dignified wages.”
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