Business group asks for fix to Portland’s emergency minimum wage ordinance
Photo / Courtesy, Keep it Local Portland
A petition of over 2,000 signatures was filed in Portland last week in an effort to allow the city to decide when to activate its emergency wage ordinance.
An effort is underway in Portland to allow the city, rather than the state, decide when to activate the local emergency minimum wage ordinance.
The campaign, by a nonprofit business advocacy group called Keep It Local Portland, last week filed more than 2,000 signatures for a proposed amendment to the ordinance. The goal is to include the amendment as a referendum on Portland's November ballot.
Currently, the city's provision for higher wages is triggered by an emergency declaration by the state. That means if Maine declares an emergency for a reason that doesn’t pertain to Portland, small businesses in the city still have to increase their minimum wage to 1.5 times the normal rate.
Portland voters in 2020 approved the time-and-a-half emergency minimum pay, although the provision wasn’t implemented until 2022.
But the rule has applied, for example, during storms that didn’t hit the city — and caused some businesses to close during extended state emergency declarations, according to Keep It Local Portland.
“The impact of this decision where Portland has no input is that many small businesses shut down, and a whole bunch of workers are out of work,” the group said on its website. “Last year, during one of the storm emergencies that caused major damage in other parts of the state, restaurants, day cares and other businesses couldn’t afford to stay open — even though the storm had no impact on Portland.
The amendment would limit the application of the emergency wage provision in the ordinance to periods when the city has declared a state of emergency.
“Our proposal is straightforward: it empowers Portland’s local officials to determine when the conditions necessitate using the emergency wage,” said Tamara Gallagher, owner of a Portland child care center and the campaign’s treasurer.
A state of emergency declared by the governor doesn’t always reflect local hazards, she said.
The amendment, she noted, “does not eliminate the emergency wage; it simply allows for local control over its application.”
The campaign was triggered after storms last September and this past January, when Gov. Janet Mills declared a state of emergency
In Portland, the only municipality with an emergency wage ordinance, businesses had to adjust their pay to 1.5 times the minimum wage.
That included a two-day September declaration for storms Downeast and a weeklong January declaration that extended beyond storm effects in Portland, the organization said.
“The trickle effect of the current ordinance, when it’s triggered while conditions are not hazardous, is genuinely impactful to our customers and operations,” said Gallagher. “We had to make the difficult decision to close for the duration of the emergency, which leaves parents and guardians scrambling to adjust.”
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