Yesterday city supervisors continued legislation to tighten the screws on any employer who pays below the city minimum wage. Yet, it is the City of San Francisco which may be one of the law’s most flagrant violators. Effective January 1, 2006, the San Francisco minimum wage became $8.82 an hour. Yet, Project 20, the program which permits community service as an alternative for cash for parking tickets, computes their rates at $6.00 an hour or $2.82 an hour below the minimum wage. The new legislation states its purpose is to protect the public health, safety and welfare of city residents and employees. “It is essential,” the ordinance states, “that all persons working in the City earn wages sufficient to pay for nutritious food, habitable living accommodations, medications and basic medical care, clothing public transportation and other basic goods and services to ensure a health life for employees and their dependents.”

Project 20 is an effective way to give a measure of relief for those burdened with parking and traffic citations. In their material they say, “The Project 20 Fine Alternatives program is for people who cannot afford to pay their parking tickets or traffic violations are assigned community service hours in lieu of paying.

They state further, “The number of hours is determined by the amount of the fine assessed and the type of fine incurred. Parking and traffic fines are assessed at different rates.”

Project 20 explains, “For parking fines, community service is performed at the rate of $6 per hour, for example: $120 parking fines would require 20 hours of community service. For traffic fines, community service is performed at a rate of $10 per hour.”

They specifically state, “Please note that Project 20 does not set these rates.”

Regardless of who sets the rates, the fact remains that San Francisco residents who participate in the program do community service that, if paid, would be forced to pay the $8.82 minimum wage for every hour worked. By working off parking tickets through Project 20, they work for $2.82 an hour less, almost one third less than the current minimum wage.

In real terms, the Project 20 participant will work most of a full business day, or seven hours to work off just one $40 ticket for an overdue meter or not moving a car for street sweeping. Said another way, working off just five parking tickets can take most of a full work week.

City law calls for non-profit employees to paid no less than $8.82 an hour. Those in the community service program will find themselves working in the same environment for one third less or $2.82 less an hour.

Though covered by the phrase “community service,” the Project 20 participant is using their time to liquidate a debt. That their rate of compensation is less than $50 for an eight hour work day might be construed as just a few steps from slavery.

The new minimum wage ordinance specifically states it is designed to protect the “public health, safety and welfare” of city residents. Clearly, the new ordinance doesn’t appear to protect those city residents forced to work off parking tickets through donating their time to the city.

Is it fair? Certainly that is a question worthy of consideration by those supervisors who soon cast their vote to adopt or reject this ordinance to enforce the minimum wage.