Business Tries to Stop San Diego's Minimum Wage Hike

Labor activists celebrated on Aug. 18, when San Diego’s Democratic-led city council overrode a mayoral veto and raised the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour. The council also guaranteed workers as many as five days of paid sick leave a year. The vote seemed like a decisive victory over Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “The city council is standing up and demonstrating that we value honest work and fair pay,” its president, Todd Gloria, said after the vote.

Yet even before the raise became city law, business groups, including the California Restaurant Association and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, were already mobilizing a campaign to reverse the council’s decision through a referendum. They created the San Diego Small Business Coalition, which is headed by Jason Roe, a political consultant to the mayor. Lobbyists, including one hired by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, have also been involved. The group has 30 days from the council’s vote—until Sept. 17—to collect the almost 34,000 signatures required to put the issue before voters. They may end up spending as much as $500,000 to pay people to canvass door-to-door and outside supermarkets. It’s too late to make the ballot for this year’s congressional midterms, so even if proponents get the necessary support, the referendum likely won’t appear on the ballot until the next general election, in 2016. Until then, the pay raise would be on hold.