For years, city government has claimed to pay a living wage. But there’s a big exception that leaves some city workers making far less

Above: Lauren Bacchus, in front of the U.S. Cellular Center box office where she worked. Along with 139 other city employees, Bacchus did not make a living wage, despite the city’s policy. Photo by Max Cooper.

In 2007, the city of Asheville adopted a living wage policy. With low pay even then a growing concern, government leaders asserted they were setting an example of a better way. One of the largest employers in town — the city employs about 1,100 people — would now ensure that all of its workers received at least enough to make a living in the city they served. They updated the ordinance throughout the years, most recently last summer.

“Asheville City Council has adopted a strategic plan that includes a goal to make Asheville affordable to people of all incomes, life stages and abilities,” the 2013 resolution reads. “A living wage is the amount that a worker must earn to afford his or her basic necessities without public or private assistance.”

The local non-profit Just Economics, which calculates the living wage rate used by the city and some businesses, puts that amount — the wage necessary just to get by — at $10.35 an hour if the worker gets health insurance or $11.85 an hour if they don’t.

At first glance, it might seem like the city ensuring that all “full and part-time city employees” receive at least that much covers nearly everyone.

But there was a big exception: a whole category of workers were qualified as “temporary/seasonal” and in most cases, were paid below — sometimes well below — a living wage. And in the years since the adoption of the city’s living wage ordinance, that hasn’t changed.

This category doesn’t just include obviously seasonal jobs like a lifeguard or extra parks and recreation help hired for the summer. It includes custodians, many workers at the city-owned and run U.S. Cellular Center, school crossing guards and more.

In some cases, these “temporary” employees have worked for years or even decades without benefits and often at rates closer to the minimum wage than the living wage.

‘Specialized unskilled work’

In late 2013, Lauren Bacchus started working at the U.S. Cellular Center — still in practice called the Civic Center by many — taking tickets and dealing with patrons.

The center’s a major focus of downtown events and during big ones like Moogfest or the SoCon basketball tournament, Bacchus recalls working “as much as we were needed,” up to 25 hours a week. Most weeks, she worked at least one full day. For this, she was paid $7.81 an hour and did not qualify for benefits.

“It’s definitely not seasonal or temporary because events happen throughout the year,” she said in an interview with the Blade in October. “When I was first hired, I was told it was a seasonal job, but the season is ambiguous. Maybe the season was just summer at one point, but not anymore.”

In addition to working periodically throughout the year regardless of season, Bacchus said that workers like her keep a major facility running, often during chaotic circumstances, and the city’s definition of their role is absurd.

“When you’re working during highly-concentrated events, it’s almost like you need hazard pay,” she said with a chuckle. “’Unskilled specialized labor,’ that cracks me up.”

In September Bacchus mentioned how much she made working at the center to Council when she cautioned them that many people working downtown — herself included — couldn’t afford “workforce” housing they were considering subsidizing.

In this case, Bacchus says, the city is contributing to the desperation many Asheville’s workers face in trying to make ends meet. In her case, she worked other part-time jobs — one of which paid minimum wage — meaning that many weeks she often worked full-time hours for little pay. The exception for a whole class of employees, she believes, flies in the face of the city’s ostensible commitment to a living wage, because “work is work.”

“Just because someone’s working less hours doesn’t mean their work is less valuable,” she told the Blade. “So just because work is ‘seasonal’ or ‘temporary’ means those people deserve to be paid less? That doesn’t make any sense. Those, people, like me, usually need to have other jobs too.”

She noted that employees were usually told to stay under 20 to 25 hours a week, and were told to work less if the end of the year was approaching and they were nearing 1,000 hours total for the year.

“If city HR is consciously keeping people under 25 hours a week so that they are able to avoid this ordinance and pay them under the living wage then they are consciously avoiding their own ordinance,” Bacchus asserted. “So why does it exist in the first place?”

“To consciously keep people from achieving part-time status so that they can legitimize paying this inappropriate wage is not transparent and I don’t think it should happen,” she added. “Whether someone’s working five hour or 40 hours they’re still doing work, and we’re working without healthcare or other benefits.”

“I’m not trying to claim this is a terribly difficult job,” except during major events, she noted. “But it’s not a rate that’s enough to be able to survive and feed one’s self, to clothe one’s self, to provide for any family members that might need providing for.”

In early November, Bacchus found full-time work elsewhere but still works at the civic center occasionally and remains concerned about the lack of a living wage paid to many of her coworkers.

“I’m most disturbed by the city advertising that it pays a living wage,” Bacchus said. “They’re even honored as a living wage employer, and it’s not true.”

A city job and food stamps

Bacchus is far from the only one, nor are Civic Center employees the only group that faces the same lower wages. Other departments use numerous “temporary” workers as well, sometimes for years at a time.

Jenny Bowen, now a member of the city’s Public Arts and Cultural Commission, worked for the city as a Cultural Arts Administrator, from late 2009 until early 2013. A local artist and organizer known for the Faces of Asheville project, among others, Bowen initially looked forward to working with the city and hoped to improve the city’s public art. She was paid $10.45 an hour, without benefits.

In her time there, Bowen played a role in organizing and hosting the 2010 Public Arts 360 conference, dealing with the urban trail and a number of public art projects and helping to create and run the Easel Rider mobile project. The city still touts the latter as an achievement on its website. She usually worked 10 to 15 hours a week, “sometimes more.”

A single mother Bowen was also, the entire time she was employed by the city, on food stamps. If she hadn’t lived in affordable housing and had Medicaid to pay for her daughter’s healthcare, she recalls, the situation would have been considerably more dire.

Several times, Bowen tells the Blade, she brought the issue of low pay up with her supervisor, then-Cultural Arts Director Diane Ruggiero.

“After my first year I brought it up that as a single mother living in Asheville I didn’t want to live off of food stamps,” Bowen says. “I wanted to be able to afford healthcare for myself so I could take care of some issue and I was unable to do so.” Bowen recalls that she was told that she was a part/time seasonal employee “with no upward mobility unless the city opened up another position I could apply for.”

In addition, she says, the city’s bureaucracy made it hard to know who a temporary employee was supposed to turn to to ask for a raise or more work so they could make ends meet.

“You can talk to whoever you want in staff, nobody can help you,” she says. “There’s no promotion possible, there’s no way to go to part or full-time so you can have that upward mobility, so you can pay your bills, so you don’t have to live on government subsidy, so you don’t always have to look for affordable housing. There’s nothing that’s available to you if you’re stuck in a seasonal or temp position.”

While the wages were below a living wage, and not much better than some part-time retail jobs around, Bowen said that on-top of that, working for the city had extra limitations on behavior and political activity.

“You’re also required to uphold city standards, you are meant to be looked upon as a pillar of your community,” she says. “You’re a representative of the city, moreso than if I was working at Wal-Mart for the same amount of money; what I do with my free time is my business. They don’t care. At the city they do.”

Aside from the hardship the lower wages for temporary/seasonal workers inflicts on people, Bowen observed another major issue as well.

From her experience, she believes departments use these workers to get their needs met, rather than requesting needed part or full-time positions in tight budget cycles. This leaves many smart, ambitious younger people in Asheville reluctant to work with the city and looking for opportunities elsewhere.

“I spent three years dedicated to giving my all to this position,” she says. “As I got the professional development to really want to invest in this field, I was never allowed to move up. With no upward mobility that causes, in the end, a distrust of the organization you work for and a backlash in commitment.”

“There are many people employed by the city in this seasonal/temp capacity, especially by the parks and rec department,” she continues. “I’ve always been concerned by it because it seems like a loophole to the living wage ordinance that Council’s already passed.”

In her observation, that exception allows departments to cut corners and save on labor costs. It allows “things to get done that need to be done within the city but paying people at a much lower rate than anyone with an official position — even part-time people — who get a real living wage.”

“There’s no reliability, no security,” she adds. “There’s no real chance for a raise, which is really demeaning for anyone who cares about the position.”

‘A ripple effect’

While this exception to the city’s living wage policy has existed for seven years at this point, the concerns Bacchus and Bowen express haven’t been a huge topic of debate among the public or on Asheville City Council. However, a records request for emails from the last year discussing the matter only turned up one exchange from earlier this year on the topic.

On April 12, Council member Gordon Smith emailed center manager Chris Corl, asking if employees there fell under the city’s living wage policy:

I’m writing today looking to clear up what I think is misinformation being disseminated on social media about wages for USCC workers. Do these workers fall under the city’s Living Wage policy? What are the wage standards for USCC?

On April 28 City manager Gary Jackson replied:

Did I already respond to this question….

Temporary and seasonal employees (like a concession runner or a life guard in parks) make temp seasonal wages. Full and part time employees are all paid at or above the living wage.

Later that day, Smith shoots back:

We hadn’t discussed it yet, Gary. Thanks for the information. I worry that we’re sending the wrong message by valuing these employees at a minimum wage level, Minimum wage is a poverty wage that I think we’d prefer not to promulgate.

Jackson replied:

Ok. We can always supply analysis, pros and cons, legal and fiscal impact if another look at living wage policy is desired by Council.

Smith answered:

I’m certainly interested in exploring it. It’s my understanding that Councilman Bothwell has similar sentiments. As to the rest of Council, I haven’t asked around. What’s your sense?

But in his reply to that query, the final email of the exchange, Jackson defended the lower wages for temp/seasonal employees and worried that if the city raised them, it could cause a “ripple effect” that might lead to other city employees wanting higher pay as well:

I’ve not heard any concerns about what we pay temp seasonal labor. My impression is that the distinction between lifeguards and our full time or permanent part time employees was made clear during the living wage policy review. Might be a faulty assumption on my part and reality is that what we pay temp seasonal totally escaped Council attention.

Policy call. Management issue may come in equity of paying a lifeguard what we pay a full time employee. Could be a costly upward ripple effect if you know what I mean. Just imagining cause I never would have anticipated these jobs would fall into a career series [or] qualify as sustainable employment.

Since that exchange, there were no further emails about the issue. The city is currently conducting a $200,000 review of its compensation, benefits and pay for all employees, and staff expect to bring any changes from that study forward early next year as they craft their next budget.

Magic numbers

As of Oct. 16, there were 187 people working for the city that its HR department designates as “temporary or seasonal,” not including full or part-time city employees that might also have a temp/seasonal job on the side. Of those, according to information provided by the city, 140 made below living wage, a category not just including the workers at the Civic Center, but also some park rangers, data entry workers, laborers and custodians.

Most of the workers are either under 30 or over 45 years of age. None, at that point in the year, were lifeguards.

Such employees aren’t supposed to work more than 1,000 hours a year, which averages to about 20 hours a week. According to the city’s personnel policy, temporary and seasonal employees are also defined as “an employee who has been hired with the understanding that the employment will continue only for a specified period of time, not to exceed twelve (12) continuous months.”

But some of these “temporary workers” have been in their jobs for several years or even decades. Some park rangers and crossing guards have worked for less than living wage since the early 2000s. Some event staffers have worked with the city since the ’90s or even the ’80s. While Bacchus’ employment, for example, lasted for a year, it ended because she left for another job, not because the “temporary” position had any expiration date. Bowen’s job had her working for the city for several years straight.

One event staffer was hired by the city in 1977 — when the Civic Center was still a new facility — and as of this October was paid $7.66 an hour.

On the radar

Just Economics, the nonprofit that oversees and certifies living wage in Asheville, is aware of the situation. According to its head, the organization is concerned.

Executive Director Vicki Meath notes that, especially over the past year, the organization has received inquiries about the issue from concerned city workers who are paid as temporary or seasonal employment.

“It certainly is concerning and it’s something we’re currently looking into,” she tells the Blade. “It’s mostly been this year. It’s been on our radar screen in terms of revisiting this, so it’s in line with what we were intending to get back to. It’s just been a matter of capacity.”

While the city isn’t living wage certified by the group, they did play a role in helping to craft its living wage policy and setting the rate that policy uses. Meath, who wasn’t with the organization when they initially approached the city about adopting a living wage in 2006, adds that while the city’s ordinance was a major step forward, the policy isn’t as strong as more recent ones the organization has crafted, which leave far less exemptions.

“At that time it was significant but maybe not as strong as it could be and now we’re looking at strengthening that,” Meath says. “At that time we didn’t have the value of experience we do now. We were basing our policy off of other policies — there’s upwards of 140 cities and counties across the country that have living wage policies — so we looked at those and tried to model after those. Now, we’re a lot more established and have a deeper understanding and we’re providing the model.”

For example, she says that the living wage policy for Buncombe County, adopted in 2012, only has “a few minor exceptions, we reviewed all the classifications of employees at the county. The county’s policy doesn’t live the same room for exception as the city’s.”

In her opinion, city government has generally been willing to strengthen its living wage rules when possible and “supportive of living wages.”

“Now, we’re re-looking at this other piece,” she adds. “I don’t think it was a deliberate intention to leave out workers. We were building a policy that was modeled on other policies and now we have to value of experience to say ‘this could be a little stronger.’”

Currently, she says, while there’s no official change to the policy ready to roll, the matter has been brought up and discussions with city officials are ongoing.

But while she’s found Council and staff “generally receptive” to improving their living wage policy, she doesn’t think this issue “has been at the top of their radar screen in the past. That’s the role of advocates: to bring things to their attention and discuss it.” Given previous experience with the city, “we are hopeful.”

Few answers

Many questions about this issue remain, unfortunately, unanswered. Just to pick a few: why are employees who’ve worked for the city for so long still considered “temporary?” Aside from the April discussion, have city staff considered changing this policy before? Have staff calculated how much it would take to pay these employees a living wage?

Personnel matters are notoriously complicated, especially when they involve local government rules, and after receiving and analyzing the records, I requested multiple times over the course of more than a week to speak directly with an HR manager or city official knowledgeable about this matter to get some more information on the issue and get their side of the story. I also wanted to ask any relevant follow-up questions and address some of the concerns raised about the rate of pay.

During that time, I was informed — twice — that HR staff were too busy to talk about this issue directly, even briefly over the phone, though a spokesperson did offer this afternoon to pass some questions on via email.

Just obtaining the basic records used in this piece — how many temporary employees the city had on a given date, how much they’re paid and how long they’ve worked for the city — took over a month and several follow-up requests. Receiving the relevant emails — in this case the exchange between Smith and Jackson — took over two months, with the city finally releasing them only yesterday.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we’ll receive firm answers to those questions and a city staffer willing to sit down and talk about this important issue. In the meantime, the next time city officials assert that they pay a living wage, it’s worth remembering that there are about 140 exceptions.

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