By Timothy Kudo
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The state minimum wage will increase by $1 an hour over the next
two years.
The Industrial Welfare Commission made the change in a 5-0 vote
Monday. The first 50-cent increase will take effect starting in
2001, and the next one in 2002.
Currently, the state minimum wage is $5.75 an hour, and the
federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.
“The lowest-paid working Californians have helped produce
this prosperity,” said Gov. Gray Davis in a statement.
“It is only fair they share it.”
It’s still uncertain what effect the increase will have at
UCLA, said Steven Olsen, vice chancellor of budget and finance.
Union organizers lauded the increase but also said more needs to
be done to increase wages.
“It’s exciting but it’s not enough,”
said Kimberley Carter, an organizer for the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees union. “It can help
some people out to live a little bit better and that’s a
start.”
According to organizers at AFSCME and the Coalition of
University Employees union, the increase will probably not affect
any of the workers they represent, most of whom make more than $1
above minimum wage.
The increase might help increase wages in general by raising the
bottom line, according to CUE organizer Leticia Vergara.
But business leaders said a higher minimum wage would make it
difficult to compete with companies in other states and asked
commissioners to hold off until the federal government considered
an increase in the federal minimum wage.
Some students, many of whom have worked minimum wage jobs in
high school if not in college, supported the increase as well.
“Originally, in my first summer job, I had no experience.
It was very hard for me to get anything over minimum wage,”
said Paul Mendoza, a first-year undeclared student. “So all
the better, especially for all the young people who are just
starting out.”
California unions are pushing to increase the minimum wage to at
least $8 an hour to account for the state’s high cost of
living.
Many student jobs offered by the Associated Students of UCLA
start at $6 an hour, according to ASUCLA’s job board in
Ackerman Union.
The increase will affect 1 million workers making minimum wage
and 2 million making less than $6.75, according to the California
Labor Federation.
The IWC made exceptions to the minimum wage increase to several
groups of workers such as health care assistants, actors and
carnival workers.
The last time the minimum wage was increased was in March
1998.
With reports from Marjorie Hernandez, Daily Bruin Contributor
and The Associated Press.