DC Dept of Employment Services Pressed on Living Wage Enforcement

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Local worker advocates are pushing the DC Department of Employment Services to enforce payment of a living wage to employees of direct care providers in the city. When the Living Wage Law was originally passed in 2006 certain employers were exempted, but under new regulations this year, direct care providers are covered.  “In these difficult economic times, we are standing with our workers to make the point that further delay in applying (the Living Wage legislation) is unconscionable” said a local union political director, one of a delegation (above) that included union representatives and DC Jobs with Justice and which met earlier this month with Pamela Banks, Associate Director of the Wage and Hour office.  While Banks contended that developmental disability workers continue to be exempted from the Living Wage Law, the local labor advocates say this interpretation is contrary to the stated intent of the law’s chief sponsor.  “We are not going away,” added one of the labor advocates. “Too many worked too hard to pass this legislation and too many of our workers need and deserve a living wage.”
- Lillian Walker Shelton