Posted July 19, 2024
On Tuesday, July 16, the Tompkins County Legislature had placed on its agenda consideration of a committee-endorsed Resolution: “Implementation of Higher County-Wide Minimum Wage with Local Law Establishment.”
Its title somewhat misleading, the measure would not have immediately established a higher local Minimum Wage, but rather have directed County staff and “community stakeholders” to collaborate and “develop an effective and sustainable minimum wage policy.” County staff would then “draft a local law outlining the specifics of the policy.” Ithaca legislator Veronica Pillar authored the Resolution.
Judging from comments voiced at a committee session the prior week, this Councilperson had expected a strong turnout of labor and “Living Wage” advocates to speak in support of such a go-it-alone Minimum Wage initiative. They never showed. But I did. I spoke from the heart. Here’s what I said:
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Good Evening. Robert Lynch, Councilperson, Town of Enfield. I’m here representing myself tonight. I think I’m also here representing a forgotten man and woman in a debate that you’re going to be having tonight. And that forgotten person is the person who writes the paycheck.
As I drive down from Enfield to go to the City of Ithaca in the middle of the day, I drive down West State Street. I’m always looking to the right of me to make sure that those gates at Cayuga Lumber aren’t locked forever. It’s tough, I’m sure, a small business like that making payroll with the minimum wage as it is. I go a little farther, to Ithaca Agway, a small business. I betcha’ they have a hard time competing against ‘Big Box Billy’ down the road. If they had to pay a $24, $28, maybe $30 Tompkins County Minimum Wage, I’m sure they would go under.
Just coming down from Enfield, I drive along Bostwick Road. There’s Alfred Eddy’s farm. He raises produce. If he had to pay $24, $28, or $30 an hour to his people, I bet you his produce stand would close.
I buy pizzas at Little Venice in Trumansburg. I buy Friday fish fry at the Royal Court on Meadow Street, small businesses. They’re going to struggle. They struggle already. And they’d struggle more with a higher Minimum Wage.
I know what people have said: that this is only a start; that the Resolution you have tonight does not establish a minimum wage, it does not call for a Local Law, it just studies it. But if you’re starting there, where do you end? And you end probably with something that snowballs into something that would kill small business in this town.
Big business, they can absorb it. They probably look at Ithaca like Congressman Tom Reed once did; oh, “Extreme Ithaca Liberals.” We’ll just use other stores to subsidize the labor expense at our stores in Ithaca. Or, they may close, and we’ll all have to go… drive to Big Flats like we used to have to do before the Fairgrounds projects were built.
It’s a bad thing to think about going it alone. It’s probably not legal under state law to start with. So you’re wasting taxpayer money on legal expenses. I know our County Attorney worried about the cost of that. But you’re also sending a signal, a bad signal to the small businesses of this community that you really do not matter that much to us.
I want to see those businesses; those Cayuga Lumber’s, those Agway’s, those Little Venice’s, survive. And I think it’s best we just lay that proposal on the table, forget about it, and move on with our other County business….
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To this Councilperson’s surprise, legislator Greg Mezey, Chair of the Housing and Economic Development Committee, minutes later pulled his committee’s Local Minimum Wage Resolution from the July 16 Agenda. It will return to the floor on August 6th. Mezey requested postponing its consideration for three weeks “so that we can have additional experts here to speak on the topic,” he said.
Mezey explained some of those who’d wanted to speak had “scheduling conflicts” that night. Later news reports indicated there’d been a union rally on the Cornell campus that day. Cornell leaders of its United Auto Workers union local were among the most prominent advocates of a local Minimum Wage at the committee’s meeting July 8th.
Also of note: During a municipal leader’s speaking privilege that night, Ithaca Common Council member Patrick Kuehl, apparently misinformed, had implied that Ithaca Agway was not a small business, but rather was owned by the Ace Hardware chain. He is incorrect. A spokesperson at Ithaca Agway informs this writer that although Ithaca Agway is affiliated with Ace Hardware as a franchisee, the firm remains independently owned. / RL
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