By Nate Rau, nrau@nashvillecitypaper.com
Nashville City Paper, 3/8/08
At-large Councilman Jerry Maynard is using the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts to organize sanitation workers in Memphis to begin a movement aimed at raising the wages of workers across the city, including Metro employees.
Maynard plans to address a gathering at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Southside Community Church, where he is a pastor, on the issue of improving the living wage of Nashville workers.
The Metro councilmember acknowledged that it was too late in this budget cycle — and too big an issue for the new Council and new mayor — to tackle right now. But he said he is “committed to being a voice for those in Nashville without political representation,” and that he plans on pushing for raising the wages of Metro employees in the future.
“For me, the most important step is to recognize what Dr. King did,” he said. “He didn’t just give an, ‘I have a dream,’ speech. He went to Memphis to fight for the sanitation workers’ rights.”
In a budget season when virtually every department was asked to propose 5- 10- and 15-percent cuts, raising worker’s wages this fiscal year won’t be possible, Maynard said.
Mayor Karl Dean said Metro should follow the processes laid out in its charter when it looks into raising wages of its employees. He did applaud Maynard’s efforts to honor the work of Dr. King.
“I think it’s great that Councilman Maynard is honoring Dr. King,” Dean said. “I agree with what Dr. King said in his speech to the sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, ‘Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth.’”
Vanderbilt Divinity professor Dr. Melissa Snarr is releasing a study in conjunction with Sunday’s gathering. She hopes her study will serve as a reference point for the need to address Nashville’s living wage concerns.
Snarr said her study finds that the living wage in Nashville should be $10.35.
“Sunday is the jumping off point for raising awareness that so many people in Nashville are working in poverty,” Snarr said. “My hope is that this [study] serves as a baseline so we can calculate just how many people are below the living wage.”
A living wage differs from a minimum wage, in that it is a term used to describe the minimum hourly wage necessary for a person to achieve some specific standard of living — generally work a 40-hour week and be able to afford food, housing, utilities, health care and transportation.
Tennessee doesn’t have its own minimum wage law. The Federal minimum wage is currently at $5.85 and increases to $6.55 on July 24. Currently, 31 states have set minimum wages higher than the federal rate, according to the U.S. Labor Law Center.
Still, in many cases, minimum wage fails to meet the requirements of a living wage.
The gathering Sunday won’t only be to advocate for Metro employees, but also for workers throughout Nashville who aren’t earning a living wage.
Delelgn Ambaw, the interim president of the Metro Nashville Taxi Drivers Alliance, also will speak at Sunday’s gathering. He said his group is looking for Metro to intercede in its dispute with area cab companies, who he says currently charge a weekly fee to drivers for the right to be contracted by their company.
Ambaw said he pays a non-negotiable fee of $175 per week and wants his group to have bargaining power with the companies.
“What we want is for the city to regulate the companies so they can’t raise our fee whenever they want,” Ambaw said.
Maynard said raising wages is a conversation that needs to happen soon.
“I’ve always been an advocate of economic development,” Maynard said. “Part of that is being committed to providing high-paying jobs and jobs where people can work 40 hours a week, do all the right things and be able to provide for their families.”
Copyright 2008 Nashville City Paper