WI10: Minimum Wage, Maximum Concern

At the American Booksellers Association members town hall meeting yesterday afternoon during Winter Institute 10 in Asheville, N.C., booksellers took the floor to discuss a range of topics, particularly the rising tide of minimum wage in parts of the country. (Other subjects discussed at the meeting will be reported in future issues of Shelf Awareness.) The event was a first for Winter Institute--typically, town hall meetings have only been held during BookExpo America.

Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., was the first to raise the question of what indies can do to survive increases in the minimum wage. The minimum wage in D.C., he said, is mandated to go up to $10.50 per hour this summer and will reach $11.50 per hour next year, and he noted that in some cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, the hike in minimum wage will be much steeper. "I'm wondering if the board has looked at this issue for all of us as a whole," Graham proposed. "Is there anything we can do to try to address this together?"

The ABA board discusses how to deal with higher minimum wages.  (photo: Kevin Mann)

Steve Bercu, owner of Bookpeople in Austin, Tex., and the president of the ABA, acknowledged that the issue of raising minimum wage has been something that the board has been looking at for "a couple of years now," but hasn't reached a national answer. The majority of bookstore owners, he pointed out, were in the tricky position of "philosophically being in favor of paying people as much as humanly possible," but as small business owners, have to make payroll work and stay in business. Also, booksellers do not have the luxury of being able to charge more for their goods, as prices are printed on the books themselves. The ABA board has, he continued, talked to publishers about possibly finding ways around that, so but so far little has resulted from the effort.

Robert Sindelar, a board member and managing partner of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park and Ravenna, Wash., suggested that indies in cities that are facing large increases in the minimum wage share any information or best practices they discover. Small businesses in Seattle, he said, were able to reach something of a compromise with the city government that allows them to defer some costs associated with the minimum wage increase.

Jonathon Welch, co-founder of Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo, N.Y., pointed out that those seeking to increase the minimum wage in New York are trying to have it tied more closely to the cost of living to make it a "more regularized cost for you to plan for than a big bump every couple of years." If booksellers around the country can agitate for that, he said, it might make the process a little smoother and a little less difficult.

"Educating local government and the public about the issue, so they don't have a knee-jerk response is really the first step," suggested Betsy Burton, board member and co-owner of the King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. The key was to make sure that others in the community understood what cost increases like that mean for small businesses and, especially, indie bookstores.

Michael Tucker, co-owner and CEO of Books Inc., which has a dozen stores in the Bay Area in California, compared San Francisco's  incremental increases to the minimum wage with "boiling frogs." The minimum wage in the city will rise to $12.25 per hour in May, and will then increase by a dollar each year until it hits $15 per hour; after that, it'll increase by a percentage of the cost of living. "It does present some real issues," Tucker said. "The biggest issue is the ripple effect of what it raises for everybody else. If you have minimum wage at $18, what about supervisors and managers?"

"When you pay people more money, they can afford to live and shop in your community," said David Sandberg, owner of Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass., who made the point that the shopping local movement and the movement to increase the minimum wage are fundamentally linked. If the minimum wage goes up, he said, more money will stay in town. Although it was an "imposition" on a small business, it could also be positioned as something that is "fundamentally an issue of locality."

Tracy Taylor, general manager of Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, wanted to offer some words of advice for indies who might experience the same thing. One thing that did not happen during the discussions to raise minimum wage in Seattle, she said, was that there was not a single small business person on the task force that worked with the city's mayor. "It's important to get your voice out there early," Taylor urged. Meeting face-to-face with the city council and explaining the reality of being an independent bookstore completely "changed the conversation."

And something that took her completely by surprise, she added, was suddenly "being the bad guy in the room." The very loud, very vocal group of workers who supported the increase in minimum wage--most of them fast food workers--"didn't care if it put us out of business," said Taylor. "We're not usually on that side of the room." --Alex Mutter

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