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Nashville business leaders are busy
putting their money behind city council candidates who will vote
against paying city employees a living wage. Former Metro Councilman
Charles Fentress is leading the Nashville Business Coalition which
lists HCA, Gaylord Entertainment, SunTrust Bank and businessmen
Lee Beaman and Ray Danner among its largest contributors. The group
plans to contribute approximately $75,000 to candidates who correctly
answer the coalition's questionnaire in favor of pro-business economic
development incentives and against efforts to pay workers a living
wage.
In other words if you are for corporate
welfare and against paying workers a fair and living wage you are
the kind of councilman this group wants to support. Now lets take
a look at this wrongheaded thinking.
Why are these large corporations and
wealthy business leaders against paying city workers a living wage?
They are afraid it may raise the salary level throughout the local
labor market.
When businesses donıt pay workers a
living wage they are asking their workers and you, the taxpayer,
to subsidize their business profits. They know workers making minimum
wage or even six, seven and eight dollars an hour canıt survive
on these kind of wages without government assistance for healthcare,
childcare, food and housing. You are being asked to help improve
Gaylord Entertainmentıs bottom line because they arenıt willing
to pay all of their employees a living wage. This is corporate welfare
at the cost of human welfare.
Governors and legislators wring their
hands every year over the growing costs of TennCare yet ironically
if all workers in the state made a living wage almost no one except
the disabled and unemployed would qualify for assistance. But some
local, state and national business leaders continue to fight against
legislation that would raise the minimum wage or support a living
wage.
The thinking of these business leaders
is very shortsighted. If every worker in middle-Tennessee made a
living wage how many more cars would Lee Beaman be able to sell
every month? How many more meals would be sold by Shoneyıs where
Ray Danner made his fortune? And how many millions could HCA save
by not having to write off medical bills that go unpaid by the region's
indigent workers?
It is possible to run a profitable
business and still pay workers a living wage. Until recently I was
a partner in a small Nashville business with 23 employees. Our lowest
paid worker earned $10.50 an hour plus benefits. Our company grew
and prospered even though we paid above market salaries for nearly
every position. The company is still being run profitably today
despite paying all workers a living wage.
I would challenge any one of the leaders
who oppose the living wage to sit down and put together a monthly
budget on less than a living wage. It canıt be done. Do you live
in your car? Do you choose between gas or food? Do you pay your
heating bill or go without needed medication? These are the choices
we ask workers to make on a daily basis when we lobby against a
living wage
How can any business leader hold their
head up and be proud of the great profits they have earned by shortchanging
their workers, by asking them to subsidize corporate profits and
huge executive salaries by going hungry and living in substandard
housing?
How can we expect to have a cohesive
society, a strong local community and a great nation when we continue
to legislate for greater social inequity? If the Nashville Business
Coalition and the Tennessee Business Roundtable would like to demonstrate
true leadership, they would be looking for ways to raise state and
local wages, not keep them down.
So as you go to the polls August 7th
and cast your votes for city council members think first about fairness.
Think then about the kind of community you want to live in. Finally
think about whether or not you want to continue to provide corporate
welfare to businesses that expect you to pick up the slack with
your tax dollars when they arenıt willing to pay their workers a
living wage.
Dale Harris is a former television
news executive and a member of the media committee of Tennessee
Alliance for Progress, a public advocacy organization promoting
a new vision for the state of Tennessee.
Metro council
candidate Carolyn M. Clark's response to this op-ed. [response]
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