It's no secret that living in paradise can be pretty tough. Many people in Key West work two, even three jobs just to make ends meet. Even those with multiple jobs often find it hard to get by because of our island's high cost of living— especially the astronomical cost of housing— and the relatively low wages paid by many employers. And of course many people simply do without necessities like health insurance.
Last Monday the local Green Party sponsored a well-attended event focusing on this growing problem and the possibility of addressing it through a local "living wage" law. Living wage laws require certain big businesses and those with large government contracts to pay their employees an enhanced minimum wage that takes into account the realities of the local economy. Such measures have already been adopted by New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and more than 60 other municipalities and counties across the United States, and are being considered in about another hundred. The details of the laws vary from city to city, but all recognize that the current federal minimum wage is grossly inadequate, condemning too many American families to poverty.
The first speaker at the Green Party forum was noted author Barbara Ehrenreich, who recounted her experiences working at various minimum wage jobs in three communities— Key West, the Twin Cities, and Portland, Maine— which she chronicled in her recent book "Nickel and Dimed." Her poignant stories reflected a reality that many hard-working Key Westers know all too well— the long hours at multiple jobs, the constant worries about money and the personal pressures that result. She spoke of homeless people who went to extraordinary lengths to hold down a job, single parents who rushed frantically from work to daycare and back to work, and people who lived in terribly overcrowded conditions, with roommates sleeping in the same bed in shifts. These working people were determined to overcome their circumstances, but financial burdens often proved to be too much, especially after catastrophic events like uninsured medical emergencies.
Next, local artist/activist Art Kara made a thought-provoking presentation about living wage ordinances in cities across America. His research on the living wage issue compared the vast disparity between wages and the cost of living in Key West and other tourist destinations. In each case, he demonstrated how the issues of affordable housing and a living wage are inextricably linked, and how these problems share many of the same solutions. He ended by urging those in attendance to work for the adoption of a living wage ordinance in Key West, a call that many in the audience answered.
The task won't be easy. Living wage laws across the nation have sparked intense opposition from big businesses and their political allies. We can expect similar opposition in the Keys, where many large employers embrace dormitories and single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels as the cure for the shortage of affordable worker housing.
Their outlook assumes that service industry employees and other working people shouldn't even think about owning a home in Key West and being a part of the community. These business "leaders" envision a place like Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where wealthy part-time residents and visitors are spared the sight of off-duty service industry workers, many of whom are displaced residents of Hilton Head, and who are carted off by bus to far-off worker housing at the end of the workday.
And working people aren't the only ones paying the price for the bad treatment of service industry workers. When large employers pay their employees too little to live on, taxpayers take up the slack. More and more the financial burden of providing affordable housing is falling to our local government. And our hospital taxes reflect the skyrocketing cost of emergency room visits by uninsured workers who cannot afford coverage on their wages.
The sad truth is that many Key West working families must choose between health care coverage and other essentials like rent and food.
While a living wage law would be a step in right direction, it is just part of the solution. We have to change the big-business mindset of treating service employees like commodities and start treating them like people. And we must stop thinking of a living wage and decent living conditions as privileges; they are something that every hard-working person has a right to expect.