June 30--Nonprofits that hire and train disadvantaged and out-of-work clients to rejoin the workforce won't have to pay them Los Angeles' new minimum wage for the first year and a half of their employment, Los Angeles City Council members agreed Tuesday.
The council action, which directs city attorneys to draft those rules, marks an important step toward approval of the first major exemption to a recently adopted plan to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.
Nonprofits such as Homeboy Industries, which helps train former inmates; Chrysalis, which works with the homeless and other disadvantaged clients; and the Los Angeles Conservation Corps warned that, without the exemption, increased labor costs would require them to slash the number of people they serve.
Earlier this year, Councilman Curren Price questioned why people who had faced challenges in their lives, including incarceration, should be paid less than other L.A. workers. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which championed the minimum wage plan, also opposed the idea.
But Price ultimately backed the proposed exemption. He said he was moved by the pleas of workers being assisted by Homeboy and other nonprofits. Business groups such as the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce also backed the proposal.
City lawyers will present the language of the proposed exemption to lawmakers later this year.
L.A.'s minimum wage will increase to $10.50 in July 2016 and continue to increase gradually until it reaches $15 an hour in 2020. Small businesses and some nonprofits will get extra time to phase in the wage hikes. Future increases will be tied to the consumer price index.
