When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level

Starting in the 1990s, San Francisco launched a series of bold but relatively unknown public policy experiments to improve wages and benefits for thousands of local workers. Since then, scholars have documented the effects of those policies on compensation, productivity, job creation, and health coverage. Opponents predicted a range of negative impacts, but the evidence tells a decidedly different tale. This book brings together that evidence for the first time, reviews it as a whole, and considers its lessons for local, state, and federal policymakers.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations and Glossary 1. When Do Mandates Work? Ken Jacobs and Michael Reich Part I The Pay Mandates 2. Labor Market Impacts of San Francisco's Minimum Wage Arindrajit Dube, Suresh Naidu, and Michael Reich 3. Liftoff: Raising Wages at San Francisco Airport Peter Hall, Ken Jacobs, and Michael Reich 4. Living Wage and Home Care Workers Candace Howes Part II The Benefit Mandates 5. Health Spending Requirements in San Francisco Carrie Colla, William Dow, and Arindrajit Dube 6. Requiring Equal Benefits for Domestic Partners Christy Mallory and Brad Sears 7. Universal Paid Sick Leave Vicky Lovell Part III Making the Mandates Work 8. Enforcement of Labor Standards Miranda Dietz, Donna Levitt, and Ellen Love 9. Labor Policy and Local Economic Development Miriam J. Wells 10. Community Benefit Agreements and Economic Development at Hunters Point Shipyard Ken Jacobs Afterword Miranda Dietz, Ken Jacobs, and Michael Reich Contributors Index

About the Author :
Michael Reich is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley. His current research focuses on dynamic models of low-wage labor markets and on the economics of living wages and minimum wages. Among his recent co-edited titles are Labor in the Era of Globalization (Cambridge U.P., 2009) and Contemporary Capitalism and Its Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory for the 21st Century (Cambridge U.P., 2010). Ken Jacobs is Chair of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of specialization include health care coverage, the California budget, low-wage work, the retail industry, and public policy. He provided consultation to the City and County of San Francisco on the development of the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance and was a member of the Mayor's Universal Health Care Council. Miranda Dietz is a researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education working on employment and health care issues in California. She has written on temporary and subcontracted work in California as well as the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy from UC Berkeley and Bachelor's Degree in Government from Harvard.

Review :
"By helping other cities to pass such laws, the authors of When Mandates Work have performed a great public service that should pay dividends to workers across the nation in the years ahead." -- Randy Shaw Beyond Chron