One other local county has a living wage, and four other cities in the region have minimum-wage ordinances that differ from the state’s.

For decades, “we underfunded public services in California,” Rhee tells me. “It comes down to these very individual cases, but I think it ties into this larger issue of how we recruit, retain and compensate public employees.”

Recently, aggressive anti-union tactics have been employed by liberal-facing companies like REI and Starbucks, said Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, author and senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley.