Dive Brief:
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Two Bronx Democrats on the New York City Council say they’ll introduce legislation to require retail tenants that receive city subsidies to allow union organizing.
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Such a bill would close exemptions in the city’s living wage law, which now exempts companies with annual revenues of less than $5 million and companies receiving less than $1 million in subsidies.
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Not surprisingly, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union President Stuart Applebaum ardently supports the measure. Under the bill, unions would not picket stores or conduct work stoppages.
Dive Insight:
Living wages and the income gap are hot topics right now, and are unlikely to disappear soon, especially in light of the economy’s less-than-stellar ongoing recovery. The move to expand liberal New York City’s newish (2012) living wage law is a way of forcing newly elected New York mayor and progressive hero Bill de Blasio to put his money — or at least his wage policies — where his mouth is.
Retailers like Costco get a lot of good press for generous worker wages and benefits while the reputations of retailers caught in controversies over unsafe or poorly paid working conditions — domestically as well as overseas — have suffered. Meanwhile, retail customers care about this issue, as acknowledged recently by H&M, which is touting its commitment to fair worker policies. In fact, in her book, "The Good Jobs Strategy," MIT Sloan Business School Professor Zeynep Ton argues that low-cost retailers are finding success in part by investing in their workers and paying them well. Retailers have a lot on their minds and margins are tightening, but the issue of living wages for retail workers is no longer just a boardroom or break room one.
