As activists notch victories in a growing nationwide campaign to raise pay for the poorest workers, the only city in Orange County that requires contractors to pay more than the state’s minimum is poised to cut the paychecks of some local workers.

Irvine’s City Council is to vote Tuesday on a proposal to repeal its living wage ordinance, one week after the nation’s second-largest city, Los Angeles, tentatively approved raising minimum pay to $15 over the next five years.

A vote against Irvine’s living wage would undo a policy established in 2007, led by then-Mayor Beth Krom, who is now the council’s solitary Democrat.

“The idea was, if we’re going to outsource some work, we want to know that the people who are contracting with us, who are bidding on contracts to provide service, that each of their employees meets our own Irvine living wage standards,” said Larry Agran, then mayor pro tem, who left office in 2014 after serving for 28 of the 43 years Irvine has been in existence.

Now, at least three Irvine lawmakers on the five-person council believe local taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay extra to bolster workers’ pay.

Since the first living wage law was passed in Baltimore in 1994, dozens of cities have passed similar requirements. The idea is to pay private employees working for city contractors enough to keep them out of poverty.

Irvine pegs its wage at $10.82 an hour, which rises to $13.34 if the contractor doesn’t have health and time-off benefits that are equal to those the city gives its employees.

San Diego last year broadened the reach of its living wage by removing the $25,000 floor at which contracts become bound by the requirements. Irvine’s threshold is $100,000.

In California, 23 cities have living wage laws. In Southern California, Irvine is one of nine.

MINIMUM WAGES RISE

Los Angeles’ move to a $15 minimum wage follows similar decisions by other major U.S. cities. In 2014, Chicago aldermen approved a plan requiring $13 by 2019. A similar incremental plan is underway in Seattle to get to $15 over seven years.

California’s minimum wage was raised last year from $8 to $9 hourly; it’s set to hit $10 on Jan. 1.

The labor movement’s drive for a $15-an-hour minimum wage has gained momentum as the economy climbed out of recession but wages stagnated, and discussion heated up about income inequality. This year, employers such as McDonald’s, Walmart, Starbucks and others have responded to a tighter labor market by hiking pay for some low-wage workers by a dollar or two per hour.

Advocates maintain that paying workers a living wage will save taxpayers money in the long run, as workers will rely less on public benefits such as Medi-Cal, food stamps and other assistance programs. Next year, under a new law, California will publish the names of employers with more than 100 workers who get public health care and how much that costs the state.

In that broader context, Irvine’s reversal is “a bit out of the ordinary,” says Nicholas Centino, a researcher with the UC Irvine Community Labor Project, a branch of the UCLA Labor Center. The center advocates for workers’ rights.

At the moment “you see a lot of energy behind living wage ordinances and minimum wage increases,” he said. If anything, other cities are updating their living-wage policies to ensure the pay rates are high enough, Centino said.

Irvine was ahead of the game with its 2007 ordinance. And it made sense for the city, which “has always had the image of being less conservative than other parts of Orange County,” Centino said, perhaps because it’s home to one of the University of California campuses, generally viewed as liberal bastions.

COMING UP SHORT

Even the top-end $13.34 living wage isn’t enough to make ends meet, though.

According to a tool created by an MIT professor to estimate the living wage, one Orange County adult working full-time needs to earn at least $13.96 hourly to cover basic living expenses. A single mother caring for one child would need to make $27.38. Two adults could make ends meet if they each had jobs that paid at least $1 over the state’s $9 minimum wage.

A household would need 3.4 minimum-wage workers, each at 40 hours a week, to pay the rent on a typical two-bedroom apartment, according to a new report issued this month by the Irvine-based National Low-Income Housing Coalition and the Kennedy Commission, a low-income housing advocacy group. Those figures assume 30 percent of income went to rent.

But Irvine’s move isn’t based solely in economics. It’s part of a larger ideological shift away from the progressive efforts of the Agran era.

Agran vocally promoted environmental and social justice causes before he was ousted in 1990. After an eight-year hiatus, he was voted back into office and resumed similar efforts. The living-wage vote was split; Steven Choi, the current mayor, and Councilwoman Christina Shea opposed it.

Now, as part of the council’s new Republican super-majority, those officials are unraveling some progressive policies.

Most recently, that included taking apart the ambitious plans to redevelop the former El Toro Marine base, now the Orange County Great Park. Before Agran was voted out in 2014, Shea began an investigation into the work done so far. Reports from an auditor hired by the city issued this spring revealed potential overspending, mismanagement and conflicts of interest at the park.

Krom has been a vociferous critic of the Great Park investigation, which she views as politically motivated. She says the plan to repeal Irvine’s living wage is cut from the same cloth.

“I don’t think this is really about whether we are facing some onerous burden as a city,” she said. “This is about planting flags, and saying, you know what? The city of Irvine is no longer progressive. We’re no longer visionary. We no longer want to do the things that make us a leader in Orange County.”

COMPANY COMPLAINS

As proof that the living-wage policy burdens employers and taxpayers alike, opponents cite the complaints of Priority Building Services, a company interested in Irvine’s expiring janitorial contract. The Brea-based company said it didn’t know the policy would require it to pay employees throughout Orange County more than the $9 state minimum wage.

Back in 2010, however, 13 companies competed for that same custodial services contract, worth nearly $1 million annually.

Data provided by the city show Irvine received an average of four bids for the 15 contracts affected by the ordinance, with a total annual value of about $18.6 million.

Over the years, at least four companies have challenged the portion of Irvine’s ordinance that requires employers to pay the higher wage rate to all their workers who do most jobs in Orange County – even if it’s not in Irvine.

“These contractors come in, and they pump up the contracts to make up for the cost that they have to provide the living wage for all the employees working in all these other cities,” Shea said. “That’s what’s wrong with this living wage ordinance. It went way beyond what’s even normal or reasonable.”

Contractors contacted for this story declined to comment on the potential policy shift or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Irvine has allowed one exception. In 2010, when negotiating to renew a contract with the company that handles custody services for the Irvine Police Department, the private security firm then called Wackenhut, today GS4 Secure Solutions, said it couldn’t afford to comply. When no other companies bid for the contract, the council agreed to require the higher rate for the firm’s Irvine employees only.

That contract is one of three to expire next month. That trio will be the first that go out to bid without a living wage requirement if the policy is repealed Tuesday.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or sdecrescenzo@ocregister.com