By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati City Council passed a "living wage" ordinance Wednesday along party lines, requiring the city and its contractors to pay workers at least $8.70 an hour.

The 7-2 vote means that Mayor Charlie Luken, who had misgivings about the ordinance, can't veto it.

All six Democrats and Charterite Jim Tarbell voted for it. Republicans Pat DeWine and Chris Monzel voted no.

"This is a partisan issue. It's at the core of what Democrats believe, and that is working families," said Vice Mayor Alicia Reece, a co-sponsor of the ordinance. "That's why there's a `D' behind my name and Mr. DeWine has an `R' behind his name."

But Mr. DeWine said the ordinance was misguided, and would hurt low-income workers by forcing companies to eliminate low-skilled jobs.

"This certainly sounds compassionate, but I don't think it is, and I don't think it helps working families," he said. "It just makes it more difficult for people trying to transition into work to find work."

The ordinance takes effect Feb. 1, and applies to all city contracts signed after that date. It applies to both full- and part-time employees of city contractors, but part-time city employees - like some City Council aides - are exempt.

The law requires covered employees to be paid $8.70 an hour with benefits, or $10.20 an hour without. Those numbers translate to the $18,100 federal poverty level for a family of four.

For at least four years, activists have been pushing for the living wage as part of a national movement to bring the poverty debate from Congress to City Halls. Cities can't set wage rates for private employers, but can dictate what they pay their own employees, and insist contractors do the same.

The city's labor unions lobbied for the ordinance, and the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, a group pushing a boycott of the city, has made it one of its two dozen demands.

But Democrats didn't introduce the proposal until two weeks ago, in anticipation of a debate over "managed competition" - a process that could result in privatizing hundreds of city jobs.

"If we're going to be contracting out jobs ...the city has to make sure these jobs have a livable wage," Ms. Reece said.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com