By Winnie Hu

New York Times

NEW YORK >> Whether or not New York state’s minimum wage is raised to $15, Steven Alvarado will still see that increase in his paycheck.

His employer, Nebraskaland, a meat distribution company in the Bronx, has been voluntarily phasing in the higher wage floor. Alvarado, a shipping receiver, went from earning $12.50 to $14 an hour last summer. This July his salary will increase again, to $15.

“It really makes a big difference,” said Alvarado, 29, who plans to use the money to buy clothes for his 11-year-old son. “I think everybody needs that extra money.”

As Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushes for a $15 minimum wage in Albany budget negotiations, the experience of one business in the Bronx illustrates the impact that such an increase could have on many companies. When Nebraskaland decided last year to begin raising its minimum wage to $15 from $10 an hour, more than half of its 234 employees benefited (the rest were already making more). As a result, the company expects to spend an additional $350,000 annually on salaries.

Richard Romanoff, the owner of Nebraskaland, says he could afford the wage increases and believes it is the right thing to do for his employees. He also hoped that it would increase employee morale and help tamp down the turnover among the company’s truck drivers and nighttime “selectors,” men who wear insulated suits to protect against the cold working conditions and spend hours on their feet lifting boxes to put together orders.

“I’d like us to have an environment here where people like to come to work,” Romanoff said. “How are you going to sugarcoat working in a freezer at night?”

If approved by state lawmakers, Cuomo’s proposal to increase the statewide minimum wage to $15, from $9, could benefit an estimated 2.3 million workers, according to state data. The figure is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Cuomo, a Democrat, has made it a centerpiece of his agenda and has been touring the state promoting the plan, which would make New York, along with California, the only states in the country poised to make a $15-an-hour minimum wage mandatory.

The proposal would extend to private sector workers the higher wage already given to government and State University of New York employees through executive actions by the governor in the past year. A state administrative board appointed by Cuomo also set a $15 hourly wage for fast-food workers last summer.

“Raising the minimum wage empowers workers with a fair salary, helps them support their families with dignity, and grows the economy for all,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The staff at Nebraskaland joins fast-food workers as well as state and SUNY employees who experience the transformative impact of a living wage, and I commend the company for leading by example.”

Supporters of the increase, including leaders in the Democratically controlled Assembly and labor unions, say that it would benefit workers and local economies. Opponents, including many in the Republican-controlled Senate, counter that it would harm many businesses, particularly in struggling communities in upstate New York, and could force them to lay off workers, reduce hours and benefits, raise the prices of their goods and services, and even relocate to another state, or close altogether.

“There’s a big difference between being able to do it because the revenues are there and having it mandated by the state,” said Heather Briccetti, president and chief executive of the Business Council of New York State, a trade association that represents 2,600 employers, including many small businesses with fewer than 100 workers.

She said many employers around the state already paid their employees significantly more than the minimum wage because market forces dictated higher compensation.

Briccetti, citing economic studies, said that raising the minimum wage could result in more than 200,000 lost jobs statewide. Instead of an across-the-board wage increase, her group has called on state leaders to focus their efforts on developing a trained workforce for fields that involve science, technology, engineering and math, where the demand for better-paying jobs is strong.

In response to such criticisms, the governor’s aides counter that almost every time the state has raised the minimum wage in recent years, there has been a net gain in jobs. For instance, they said, when the minimum wage was raised to $8.75 from $8 an hour in December 2014, there was an overall gain of 115,900 private sector jobs in the state from December 2014 to December 2015.

The debate over a $15 minimum wage has reached Nebraskaland, where workers have argued for and against it on their lunch breaks. When the company announced that it was introducing the higher wage floor, many new employees were elated, but many veterans were not.

“I was a little bit upset because I think they should have worked a little bit more time like I did,” said Luis Quiles, 40, who started at $10 an hour as a forklift driver in 2001. Today, he earns $19 an hour, as a shipping receiver. He added, “I opened the doors for them.”

Still, Quiles, who has two teenage sons, said he had come to support the $15 minimum wage for both his company and the rest of the state because it would give his sons a better start than he had. “If it benefits them; it benefits me because they’re going to be helping me with the bills,” he said.

Romanoff said that because of resistance from some employees, the company had decided to phase in the wage increase. Workers who already earned $15 an hour or more received their regular annual raises, but did not receive any additional bonuses.

Romanoff said he had no regrets about raising the minimum wage at his company, but stopped short of saying there should be an increase statewide.

“For me it’s good, but I’m in no position to judge other companies,” he said. “I know people who are happy to have a job for $10 an hour.”

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