Portland chamber appeals Superior Court decision on city's hazard wage

File photo/ Kevin Steeves The Portland Region Chamber of Commerce has sued the city over its new emergency minimum wage, approved by voters Nov. 3.

Write a Comment

By Maureen Milliken

The Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce is appealing the Cumberland County Superior Court ruling that determines the city's emergency wage doesn't take effect until 2022, something the chamber agrees on, but still upholds the wage itself.

The ruling, handed down Monday, came after the chamber and five business owners filed suit against the city Dec. 1, charging that the $18 an hour wage would decimate the city's small businesses and hurt the low-wage earners it aims to support.

Quincy Hentzel, CEO of the Portland chamber, said that while the organization is pleased with the court's decision on the effective date, the wage is not constitutional. The chamber and five other plaintiffs are appealing the Superior Court decision to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

"We still take issue with the constitutionality of allowing the voters, as opposed to the elected city council, to set a sharply escalated emergency minimum wage," Hentzel said in a news release. "That was our belief when we filed the original complaint, and it remains our belief now."

The hazard minimum wage requires time-and-a-half paid during a state of emergency declared by the city or state. The city’s minimum wage when the suit was filed was $12 an hour, and it's now $12.15. A time-and-a-half wage during the pandemic-related state of emergency would have mean an $18 hazard wage last year, or $18.23 now. The ordinance also increases the wage by $1 an hour, beginning next year, something the suit is not arguing against.

City officials, after meeting with legal counsel Nov. 10, said that the emergency wage won't take effect until the new wage does.

Other plaintiffs in the suit are the Alliance for Addiction & Mental Health Services, Play It Again Sports, Nosh Kitchen Bar, Slab Sicilian Street Food and Gritty McDuff’s Brew Pub.

Sixty percent of Portland voters approved the city minimum wage hike on Nov. 3. Besides the emergency wage, it increases the city's minimum wage to $13 on Jan. 1, 2022, and it rises every year, to $15 an hour by 2024.

People First Portland, the political action group that brought the new wage to referendum, said the hike must take place 30 days after vote's certification, which was on Nov. 6.

The group said in December that the current wage for many of the city's workers is "not enough to feed a family. Not enough to pay the hospital bills should they get sick. Not enough to build up savings if they need time off to quarantine. And the opposition's only answer to these workers is to make sure they never get hazard pay."

Hentzel said businesses that would have to immediately start paying $18 an hour would suffer "debilitating financial strain," but if they wait they could be subject to private lawsuits and high legal fees.

She also said the wage hike will hurt lower-wage workers. “However well-meaning, the unfortunate irony of the emergency wage provision is that the people it was meant to help, the essential workers who can’t work from home, who are showing up during this pandemic, will be the ones hurt the most as businesses struggle under its financial burden,” she said.