LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – The City of Long Beach was within its rights when it ordered grocery stores to pay their employees more during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Federal judge Otis Wright II made that ruling on Aug. 9 in a lawsuit that challenged an ordinance that increased hourly wages by $4. Wright’s ruling rejected arguments from the California Grocers Association that the ordinance was preempted by the federal National Labor Relations Act.
“The ordinance at issue here is a minimum labor standard, not normally subject to preemption,” Wright wrote, later citing a 1985 ruling in Metro. Life Ins. Co. v Massachusetts.
“The ordinance sets a minimum for ‘premium pay,’ requires its payment for 120 days, encourages more generous policies and provides certain protections to ensure that employees receive the minimum benefit and employers do not implement an offset.
“The ordinance ‘affect(s) union and nonunion employees equally, and neither encourage(s) nor discourage(s) the collective-bargaining processes.’”
CGA also claimed the ordinance targeted only large grocery employers without explaining why food stores with less than 15 employees are exempt.
Wright’s decision accepted arguments both from Long Beach and a food workers union that was permitted to intervene. United Food & Commercial Workers Local 324 argued a local wage mandate does not substantially impair an employment contract to pay something inferior.
“If that were the law, the government would have no ability to set minimum wages, overtime, vacation pay or rest breaks, because an employer could simply point to an employment agreement in which it contracted to pay less,” the union’s motion to dismiss says.