Bert Saltzman, the owner of Dave’s Supermarkets, and I share the same birthday; we also share a deep and abiding love for Cleveland. Since I’m the grocery shopper for my family, I’m in and out of Dave’s flagship store on 35th and Payne two, oftentimes three, visits a week. Granted I drive the 20 miles out to Costco on Saturdays for the larger purchases, but it’s a dry experience. However, I quite simply love going into Dave’s, where I’ve made friends with so many of the employees over the years.
Dave’s (allegedly) would be one of the first causalities of the proposed $15-an-hour minimum wage increase. The management team there has stated in no uncertain terms that if the increase takes place all at once they’ll have to shutter their Cleveland stores — and I’d really hate to see that happen since Dave’s has been an anchor business in the black community for well over half a century.
That’s why I’m advocating for a gradual increase to $15-an-hour minimum wage. I certainly don’t want to see any of Dave’s Cleveland stores shuttered. But, on the other hand, I certainly don’t want to be on the wrong side of history. A minimum wage increase to $15 an hour is coming, just as sure as god made little green apples, and it’s long overdue.
Because plutocrats have managed to keep the minimum wage suppressed in America for so many decades while the rich have grown richer doesn’t make it right or fair. The reason this fight is so difficult now is because it’s been delayed for so long. Political realities have prevented this push for equality for many years, but now the timing is right and we have to seize it.
The big question is, why aren’t the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Cleveland City Council meeting to hammer out an agreement that provides a pathway to a decent minimum wage that will not be destructive to businesses operating in the City of Cleveland?
Instead, both sides are digging their heels in for a fight that doesn’t have to happen. The SEIU proposed taking the minimum wage to $15 an hour; city officials should have made a counter proposal, rather than just responding with a flat-out “NO!”
Other cities, where sanity reigns, deals are hammered out. But in Cleveland scare tactics are engaged in instead.
Or illogical proposals are put forth by administration officials such as, “We’re all for raising the minimum wage, as long as it’s done statewide.” They know that will never happen here in Ohio, which happens to be a southern state that’s geographically situated in the north. That idea is D.O.A.
“Businesses will be driven out of Cleveland!” is the next thing fear mongers proclaim. Really? Do these bogeymen have any idea how expensive it is to uproot and move a business? Which businesses? Name them (besides Dave’s).
And if Dave’s were to shutter their supermarkets what would happen? People would die of starvation, right? They would panic in the streets. Wrong.
Other grocers would quickly move in to fill the void, probably utilizing the buildings that Dave’s moved out of. The only thing is, I wouldn’t know any of the new employees of Save-A-Lot or Aldi’s or any of the other faceless purveyors of foods of questionable quality. And I probably wouldn’t care to get to know them.
But it still might mean bye, bye Burt, if sanity doesn’t prevail.
There’s a sane solution to this impasse: Gradually raise wages in Cleveland over the next five years, but not to $15 an hour, but $16. See how easy this is? We Americans are always great at one thing: Kicking the can down the road.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Bye Bye Bert”
mike selmon
you’re always light-years ahead of the rest Uncle!!
eric
The problem with raising the minimum wage in only Cleveland is that the city is so much smaller – in terms of both population and economy – than the metropolitan area. Gone are the days when “everybody” shopped in downtown Cleveland.
If minumum wage were substantially higher in Cleveland than in the suburbs, any store in the City of Cleveland within a mile or two of a suburb would be at a tremendous competitive disadvantage, and those businesses, when forced to raise their prices, because of their higher operating costs, would lose the business of anyone who can walk, drive or take a bus to the nearest suburb. A law to raise the minimum wage in Cleveland, but not the suburbs, might have made sense in 1950, when 66% of Cuyahoga County’s population lived in Cleveland, meaning there was much less competition in the suburbs. But in 2015, when only 31% of Cuyahoga County’s population lives in Cleveland, such an increase would severely hamper businesses in Cleveland.