For Hillsborough contractors and workers, the realities of working below "living wage" don't change.
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published June 17, 2004
TAMPA - The arguing and sniping among county commissioners would come hours later, but in the hushed streets of downtown just after midnight Wednesday, Lewis O'Neal went about his work.
He quietly pushed cigarette butts and scraps into his dust bin in a side lot of the John F. Germany Public Library. Oh, yes, the "living wage." He'd heard about it.
"Would be a real good idea," he said, not stopping long to talk. "It's too good to be true."
Twelve hours later, from his home in South Tampa, he walked 45 minutes to work under a blazing sun to the Hillsborough County Courthouse Annex, where he vacuums. Later, he would empty trash at the county courthouse before heading back to the library.
A "living wage" ordinance would have bumped his pay from $6.50 to $9.97 an hour.
O'Neal, who works for Have Broom Will Travel Inc., a contractor with the county, holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He once knew a half dozen languages. Now he pushes a broom around for a living.
"I don't have a car, I don't have a phone, I don't buy clothes," he said.
No money to work overseas with his talents and unwilling to teach, O'Neal said he was rejected from a number of jobs he wanted in his 20s and 30s. He took jobs cooking and cleaning. He needed to care for his ailing mother. At 57, a higher wage would help him afford a new pair of pants and a shirt. Maybe some bus fare, though he likes the exercise.
His boss, Linda Richards VanAllen, owner of Have Broom Will Travel, also liked the idea of higher wages for her employees, provided the county absorbed the extra cost by boosting the amount of her contract. Better pay would help her retain workers and help her workers make ends meet.
"We have a high turnover rate, and it makes a dent into the quality of our services," she said.
Florida Simpson, 23, works for both VanAllen and a partner janitorial company - working almost 11 hours a day at $6.50 an hour in county buildings, sometimes seven days a week.
She sees her four children - ages 1 to 6 - only a few hours a day. She pays her mom $300 a month to care for them. Higher wages would have given her some breathing room for clothes for the kids, maybe for rent in a better part of town.
But the "living wage" failed.
And neither Simpson's nor O'Neal's circumstances will change for the time being.
Told of the commission's decision later Wednesday, O'Neal wasn't surprised.
Too good to be true, he said.
- Times photographer Chris Zuppa contributed to this report.
