When Tucson’s voters approved a $15 minimum wage through Proposition 206 in November, they also approved the establishment of a city office charged with ensuring employers follow the new law.
In a unanimous vote Tuesday, the City Council authorized setting up that office, called the Labor Standards Unit, within the city’s Business Services Department.
The Tucson Minimum Wage Act calls for the city’s minimum wage to incrementally increase to $15 an hour by January 2025, with the first mandated increase to $13 an hour taking effect April 1.
But the key provisions built into the minimum wage increase are the specific enforcement mechanisms to ensure workers are earning it.
While Proposition 206 calls for the city to create a “Department of Labor Standards” to handle minimum wage complaints, City Manager Michael Ortega said the Business Services Department has the infrastructure in place in its operations — which include issuing business permits, auditing and human resource functions — that could take on the enforcement aspects of the minimum wage act.
Instead of creating a separate city department, Ortega told the City Council, “I want to take advantage of the resources that we have and the expertise that we have.”
Some advocates of the act, however, express concern the unit won’t be able to take on the many provisions Proposition 206 requires of it and that making the enforcement division part of an existing department doesn’t fulfill the ballot language.
“If we had wanted it to be a unit, we would have used the word unit,” said Billy Peard, an attorney who co-authored Proposition 206 “The drafting of it was with careful study of the existing city charter and the existing city ordinances. We were familiar with the different terminologies when we drafted it.”
Capacity, enforcement uncertain
The minimum wage act requires the city to set up a department by April 1 to field complaints from employees alleging they haven’t been paid properly, investigate complaints within 45 days and take enforcement actions under the department director’s guidance.
The office also has to appoint “wage investigators,” the proposition said, to look into suspected violations while periodically conducting studies of low-wage workers throughout the city.
Ortega told the mayor and council in a memo that the Labor Standards Unit will receive support from the city’s Division of Taxpayer Assistance that already practices the auditing and education functions the new unit will require. The unit, Ortega wrote, “will include wage investigation, wage audit and administrative support for complaints, surveys, education and other needs.”
Employees will be able to submit complaints to the Labor Standards Unit on April 1. For now, the city’s engaging in a campaign to inform business owners of their responsibilities under the minimum wage act and hosted three “Employer Education Sessions” this week. According to Ortega, that information campaign will soon be expanded to inform employees of their rights under the act.
But in the long term, it’s unclear if the Labor Standards Unit will be able to take on the many requirements Proposition 206 requires of it. The city was at a 12.2% job vacancy rate as of March 2, and the Business Services Department currently has 35 vacancies, according to the city.
“It’s hard for me to say that (the Business Services Department) has the capacity or doesn’t have capacity,” Ortega said. “What I explained to the council is that we’re going to track for the first quarter, if you will, how many complaints we get, how many comments we get, and then that’ll give me an opportunity to adjust resources needed.”
After seeing how the next few months play out fielding complaints, the city will assess the Labor Standards Department’s efficacy in carrying out the provisions Proposition 206 calls for. Those factors will be folded into the city’s ongoing budget discussions for the next fiscal year.
“If we get overwhelmed with complaints, or we get overwhelmed with questions from employers, then we certainly need to make sure that we have adequate resources allocated, adequate staffing,” Ortega said. “Once I know what that looks like then we’ll allocate resources as necessary to make sure that we have the capacity internally to deal with it.”
But some proponents of the Tucson Fight for $15 initiative, which worked to place Proposition 206 on November’s ballot, are already questioning the Labor Standards Unit’s ability to ensure employees in city limits are paid according to the new law.
“What was supposed to be a department per the initiative that was passed itself, has now been described as a unit,” said Ryan Kelly, the field director for the Pima Area Labor Federation, which advocated for Proposition 206. “I understand you want to be logical, and you have a budget to work with, and all of that, but it feels like not only a cost-cutting mechanism but potentially a purpose or scope cutting mechanism.”
While the Labor Standards Unit is meant to give the minimum wage act teeth, the viability of that enforcement mechanism is also yet to be determined.
The act says the city may initiate an investigation on the behalf of aggrieved employees and bring civil action up to $100 per violation in municipal court. Multiple violations allow the city to revoke or suspend new business licenses for employers.
In his legal analysis of the proposition, City Attorney Mike Rankin said the civil suit provision isn’t legally viable. He says the jurisdiction of the state’s courts is established by state law, and not “local codes.”
Ortega said the city will “iron those (legal concerns) out down the road.”
“On April 1, there’ll be an opportunity for us to dissect what enforcement looks like in terms of the need. The most important thing is providing the environment for education of the employer, education of the employee, a place for complaints to be fielded and addressed,” he said. “And if enforcement is necessary, then we will certainly take that on.”
