Professor Bill Gould weighs in on a new proposal in Los Angeles by labor leaders to exempt unionized workers from the city’s new minimum wage-and what the Supreme Court has said on the issue in the past. 

One of the most divisive issues that Los Angeles City Council members expect to confront when they return this week from a summer recess will be a proposal by labor leaders to exempt unionized workers from the city’s new minimum wage.

The push for the loophole, which began in the final days before the law’s passage, caused a backlash rarely seen in this pro-union city and upended perceptions of labor’s role in the fight to raise pay for the working poor. Union activists were among the most stalwart backers of L.A.’s ordinance raising the wage to $15 by 2020, and argued against special consideration for nonprofits and small businesses.

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Legal experts said the attack that Hicks described would be unlikely to succeed. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that “minimum labor standards” don’t conflict with workers’ right to unionize, said William B. Gould IV, a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. Many lower courts have held that a minimum wage is such a standard.