CSF bookstore will pay living wage.
***image1***For at least one Santa Fe business, the city's controversial living wage law has been a valuable lesson in the law's importance to locals.
College Bookstores of America (CBA), which operates the school bookstore at College of Santa Fe, will immediately begin paying its Santa Fe employees $8.50 in accordance with the city's living wage law, the company's chief executive officer says.
SFR reported last week that an investigation by the City Attorney's office concluded last May that CBA was in violation of the law, implemented June, 2004, because of employee Yahminah McDonald's salary. CBA, which only employes a handful of workers in Santa Fe, operates over 100 bookstores nationwide and is therefore subject to the living wage law [Cover Story, Oct. 19: "
"], according to the city.
CEO Jim Klund says CBA will pay $1,500 in back payments to McDonald, who filed a complaint with the city in February because she was earning only $7.50 an hour.
CBA also will pay a combined total of $1,500 in back payments to three other part-time bookstore employees who also were earning less than the living wage, Klund says.
"We just think this is the right thing to do," Klund says. "Our lawyers told us we were probably already in compliance, but we want do what's right."
In last week's story College of Santa Fe Assistant Vice President of College Relations Marcia Sullivan told SFR that the school was unaware of the situation with CBA.
Former CBA employee Sharon DiLeo and former student Taya Mahony say CSF's administration, in particular college President Mark Lombardi, knew full well CBA was in violation but did little to get the company to comply.
"I had a meeting with Dr. Lombardi in April, and he knew what was going on," Mahony says. "He made it very clear that the school was upset because CBA was not in compliance."
Mahony says she even started a Student Bookstore Committee to look into the situation but was assured by Lombardi that the school was investigating.
DiLeo, who alleges CBA fired her last February for raising the alarm about the company's payment practices, says she too met with Lombardi and other administrators numerous times. (CBA denies DiLeo was axed in retaliation.)
A March 1, 2005 letter from Faculty Council Chairman David Myers, addressed to former Vice President for Finance and Administration Richard Marshall, called for an investigation of DiLeo's firing.
Sullivan clarified to SFR that her statements last week were meant to convey that the college was unaware "the city was doing an investigation of CBA," she says. "I did know that Sharon DiLeo met with Richard Marshall and that he was looking into it."
Sullivan, in an e-mail, also said the college inquired about DiLeo's firing following faculty and student concern and "was satisfied with CBA's explanation that Ms. DiLeo's dismissal was based on poor performance and not retaliatory in nature." The college does not have jurisdiction over contractors' employee decisions, Sullivan says.
CBA's recent decision to abide by the living wage is welcome news to living wage advocates.
"As long as everyone is appropriately covered and the back-pay is paid, I think this is excellent news," Carol Oppenheimer, labor organizer and co-coordinator of the Living Wage Network, says. "We're sorry this took some time for this to happen, but we're absolutely delighted that the bookstore agreed to do what is right."
