Here’s one for the books: A New York judge opted for the strict terms of the law over his personal political judgment.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Wright has thrown out the City Council’s prevailing-wage bill. Under this bill, private-property owners who receive $1 million or more in government subsidies would have had to pay their workers union-level wages. Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the measure on the grounds that it was both anti-worker and anti-business.
The law, said the judge, is clear: The council overreached. That’s because the power to set wages is governed by the state minimum-wage law. So the council had no right to pass this legislation.
Yet even as he threw out the bill, Judge Wright made a private pitch for its merits. “The court believes that the Prevailing Wage Law could benefit the people of New York,” he wrote, “and does not see wisdom in the Mayor’s zeal for the possibility of welcoming to New York City a business that would pay its building-service employees less than the prevailing wage.”
We believe Bloomberg has the better of the argument as well as the law. As he noted in his veto message, the bill would have meant “higher wages for some workers . . . at the cost of job-creation.” It would also threaten economic-development projects — as a similar restriction did the 2009 plans for a $300 million mall at the Bronx’s Kingsbridge Armory. In April, the city announced it is now planning an ice complex complete with “living wages” — and 1,000 fewer jobs.
So two cheers for a judge who rules by the law despite his policy preferences to the contrary. We reserve the full three cheers for a judge who will rule on the law and keep his private feelings to himself.