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Local business owners have released a flurry of mixed reactions regarding the Bernalillo County commissioners’ narrow decision to increase the county’s minimum wage.
On Tuesday night, county commissioners voted to approve a countywide minimum wage increase from $7.50 to $8.50 per hour. The ordinance passed 3-2 by a strict party-line vote, with Democrats in favor of and Republicans against the wage increase.
The increase will take place in two installments, rising to $8 on July 1 and rising to $8.50 on January 1, 2014. The ordinance also says that any future minimum wage increases need to be tied in to inflation figures. The county states that it cannot get legally involved in lawsuits unless employers comply. The minimum wage of tipped workers will not increase, staying at $2.13 an hour plus tips.
Sandy Timmerman, owner of Winning Coffee, said she supports the increase and has already been paying her employees $8.50 an hour.
She said paying her employees more than the minimum makes it easier for her business to run smoothly.
“I think about this place more as kind of a community so I’ve always paid my employees above minimum wage, plus they get tips, plus they get to eat for free, plus they get free coffee,” she said. “The plus side for me, as the owner, is that I have very little turnover. I have people who have worked here seven to eight years. Hardly anybody quits.”
Timmerman said she advocates for workers’ rights, and that business owners should deal with inflation in a way that does not hurt employees.
“Inflation is inflation and if you try to deal with inflation by not paying your employees, you’re not really dealing with it,” she said. “If people want to deal with it, then they should deal with inflation and not take it out on the backs of the workers.”
But Andrew Szeman, the son of Eric Szeman, owner of the Route 66 Malt Shop, said he opposes the hike. He said businesses would have to raise their prices to pay employees the new minimum wage, and this in turn would result in a higher cost of living in the city.
“I think it negatively affects business,” he said. “When you raise minimum wage, it affects the inflation rate. Inflation rate goes up, cost of living goes up and then people have less money to spend.”
In February, Eric’s business sparked controversy after KRQE reported that the malt shop’s employees were being paid below minimum wage in violation of Albuquerque’s minimum wage increase which took effect January 1. But Eric said his employees signed a written agreement acknowledging they would be paid lower than the new minimum wage. He said the restaurant would go bankrupt if they raised wages abruptly.
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Andrew said the wage increase will encourage people to stop striving to better themselves.
“Minimum wage was never designed to be a wage that you could live off of,” Andrew said. “If you keep increasing minimum wage, what’s the point of working hard, applying yourself, going to school, to get better than minimum wage? If minimum wage is this wage that you can support a family off of, what’s the point?”
Bernalillo County Commissioner Art De La Cruz, who sponsored the ordinance to raise the minimum wage, said the hike would help people who are currently trying to live on low wages.
“Fifty-seven percent of the population on minimum wage are adults,” he said. “Opposition argues that it’s just kids and students, but it’s not. The hope is that this will ease the burden a little bit.”
De La Cruz also said the minimum wage increase will help make the job market easier for seekers to break into.
“There is this argument that the workers must improve themselves to make themselves more marketable,” he said. “But business needs to do the same thing.”
De La Cruz said the increase would improve the lives of the workers in Bernalillo County.
“I live in the South Valley and I am proud to say that I live in the heart of the barrio,” he said. “The neighbors who surround me are working people. It’s painful to see these people struggling to survive. This is something that is personal to me.”
