Generally speaking, a living wage ordinance requires private businesses that benefit from public money to pay their workers a sustainable wage. In Buffalo, the wage rate is set so that a family of three can live just above the federal poverty level, which comes to $9.03/hour if the employer provides health insurance and $10.15/hour if not. One of the major goals of a living wage is to lessen dependency on public assistance and to raise the standard of living of all workers.

City Efforts
With many years of organizing, CEJ was proud to report in 2003 that we had won passage of new and improved living wage legislation in the City of Buffalo. The new legislation established a one-of-a-kind all-volunteer Citizen's Living Wage Commission to implement the law.

The Commission began meeting in November 2003 and picked up steam with each passing month. By March 2004 CEJ and the Living Wage Commission proudly stood with the Mayor at a press conference to announce our initial successes including securing a permanent field placement opportunity for 2 UB law students each semester to support the work of the Commission and entering into positive dialogue with covered employers seeking to establish a Voluntary Compliance Agreement.

Expansion and Advocacy
Our county campaign was finally off to a decent start in 2004 as County Legislators indicated that significant progress must be made in the City before they would consider a possible county living wage ordinance. With success in the city well underway, we were able to begin a more serious and deliberate organizing drive.

Our first objective was to identify potential allies and partners. By year's end, we established foursolid partners: the NYS United Teachers, VOICE Buffalo, the Working Families Party, and ACORN.

We also conducted important research about potentially covered workers and broke the campaign into three different stages. 2005 will be an important year for our county efforts as we begin to approach legislators and consider the impact that 2004's grueling county budget fight will have on our efforts.