It Only Took Ten Months

My impression of Carnac The Magnificent:

Carnac holds an envelope to his forehead.

"It will be repealed in a five to four party line vote."

Carnac rips the envelope, blows in it, extracts a piece of paper and reads it.

"What will happen to the Living Wage Ordinance when it comes before the Manchester Board of Directors?"

Ed McMahon: "You are correct sir. Hey-oooooooo!"

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I'm surprised that the Living Wage Ordinance has lasted this long with the new GOP majority. Maybe I'm seeing more than that's there, but the vote in April with the LWO exception for Vision Technical Molding and Advance Mold is looking like the set-up and this next BOD meeting will be the knock-out punch for the LWO.

Director Peak, I can agree that it may be "an inefficient policy," as you were quoted in the Journal Inquirer, some government policy is inefficient or ineffective at best. I have one question, how do you expect people to afford to live in this state? If someone needs to make at least $18 per hour to afford a modest, two bedroom apartment in our area, how is someone going to even afford slumlord's apartment on a minimum wage of $7.65 per hour? I guess we will have to ask the Supportive Housing chairman, David Blackwell, to start planning for more low-income and supportive apartments around town.

Mayor Spadaccini thinks that this ordinance isn't fair to companies like Cigna, a company who made net profits of $1.12 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2006. (Figures from Google Finance) Mr. Mayor, how fair is it going to be to have people this winter who are going to have a hard time paying their rent, keeping their family warm with out of control energy cost, and feed their family with food prices going up at their current rate? This almost sounds like a twisted GIECO commercial: "Hey, were sticking it to the working class, but at least were saving a bunch of money on our town insurance."

Instead of repealing the ordinance, why not get both parties together and fix the so-called inefficiencies in the ordinance. The LWO isn't a magic bullet to solve the problems of the working class; however, it is a statement by the citizens Manchester that if you want to do business with us, you have to be a fair company and pay your employees enough to just barely survive in the state of Connecticut.

Director Beckman is always stating, sometimes very passionately, about the importance of his conscience when it comes to issues in town. I have a question for you Director Beckman to weight in your conscience. What is more important: repealing on ordinance that will primarily benefit the profits of a large corporation, or having a person being able to support their family with a decent wage?

The Way Business Is Done

If you create more jobs in Manchester, you can extort the taxpayers and by-pass the living wage ordinance. I have to give credit to the owners of Vision Technical Molding and Advance Mold, they have taken advantage of a perfect storm to come out ahead. That storm is made up of a U.S. recession, Republicans in the majority, and Mohawk Cable (Belden, Inc.) closing its doors in Manchester and sending jobs to Mexico. I also have to give credit to the Manchester GOP. This is the first chance they’ve had to poke a hole in the Living Wage Ordinance that they voted against when it was enacted by the Democrats.

“Less than two weeks after local officials learned that the Mohawk Cable plant on Progress Drive was closing, town directors approved a tax abatement for two companies that suggested they, too, might close and move their operations out of the country.” (1)

According to the Hartford Courant article, this “suggestion” was made two days after the announcement of the closing of the Mohawk plant in a letter to the General Manager from one of the partners of the company. Is it just me, or does this sound something like this: give my company a tax abatement and let my company bypass the living wage ordinance or I will move my plant and lay-off 160 people. I’m asking myself, how is this not extortion?

Extort: to wrest or wring (money, information, etc.) from a person by violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority; obtain by force, torture, threat, or the like. (2)

In the business world, it isn’t called extortion, it’s called “leveraging your position.” I have no issue with businesses making money. It’s what they do. What I have a problem with is how this deal went down. It was introduced in an executive session of the April 1st BOD meeting. It was then added to the agenda for the second meeting of the month with no public announcement that the BOD agenda was revised. Now, when I was a teenager, and I tried slipping something under my parent’s nose, it was called, “pulling a fast one.” How is this open and accountable government?

In the end, the upside is that Vision Technical Molding and Advance Mold are creating fifteen new jobs now and fifteen more over the next year. Hopefully those jobs can go to people being laid-off at the Mohawk Cable plant. Those being laid-off should take advantage of the retraining being offered to get the skills they would need to work in an injection molding plant. Also, in seven years, Manchester will be able to add this company’s addition into the grand list.

The downside is that Manchester's taxpayers are footing the bill for $85,000 over the next seven years, and nineteen people at those plants will not be making the Manchester living wage of $11.40 per hour. Incidentally, a recently published study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition stated that a person would need to earn $18.64 per hour to have a modest two bedroom apartment in the Hartford area. (3) So those nineteen people will need to get a second job, or if they have a partner or spouse, they will have to work full time as well.

I’ve been laid off before. It’s very scary. I ask you this: Should businesses and town governments use that fear to their advantage? In this taxpayer’s opinion, it’s extortion, but that’s the way business has always been done.

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References:

(1) Uhlinger, Nick “Manchester Approves Tax Break For Two Companies” Hartford Courant 10 April 2008

(2) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extort

(3) National Low Income Housing Coalition “Out of Reach” study. 2008