The ballot measure passed in a landslide anyway. According to research by Reynolds and other academics, the results for nonprofits have been mixed. Most weathered the change just fine. But about a third had significant new expenses. Reynolds recommended a remedy much like the New York proposal: that the city cover the additional cost for those nonprofits that couldn't afford the wage hikes. He calculated that it would amount to less than a third of one percent of the city budget. The Detroit City Council is currently considering such a proposal, but it has stalled, perhaps indefinitely.
Getting "pass-through" money for nonprofits in New York will be difficult, but precedents suggest that the right kind of pressure can make it happen. In a development that Deitch calls "revolutionary," New York's Administration for Children's Services is for the first time telling organizations that provide preventive services to families exactly how much to pay their staff--rates substantially higher than before--and putting enough money in their contracts to do it. The reason? A high-profile lawsuit whose settlement specifically demanded higher salaries and lower turnover for caseworkers. "It takes a crisis, or a tragedy--children dying," sighs Edith Holzer of the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, the trade group for the organizations that won the contracts. "Everybody knows that's the best way to get the people who make budgets to pay attention."
Coalition members are hoping to accomplish that by direct action this time. But their efforts rest on a fragile alliance. By ambitiously including both companies with city contracts and those receiving city subsidies, Lewis is getting both sides to pull for each other. Nonprofits get a wage hike at the city's expense, and the unions' muscle in helping them get it. And unions get broad backing for their campaigns, already well underway around the city, to get better pay for workers at companies that benefit from city subsidies.
But the two factions could just as easily pull apart. Already, frets Lewis, some nonprofits are worried that "this is, like, too 'labor.'" And there are also some signs that unions are getting restless: In late January, the union that represents janitors, SEIU Local 32B-J, got City Councilmember Guillermo Linares to introduce its own wage bill requiring city-subsidized businesses to pay workers in their buildings the prevailing wage. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that as far as 32B-J is concerned, its agenda comes first.
Keeping nonprofits from getting restless will be even more of a challenge, but ACORN insists it can be done. Sure, social services have been trying to get that money for years, says national ACORN coordinator Jen Kern. "But they haven't had a huge campaign, with major unions, religious leaders standing behind a living wage banner, with public sentiment building behind them. That's a whole different ballgame--we hope."
