An Advocate for Working People

• Co-author in 2003 of San Francisco's minimum wage initiative, improving wages for 54,000 people.
• Co-chair, S.F. Living Wage Coalition (1999 and 2000). Passed legislation that increased wages and provided health care for 20,000 workers.
• Past president of one of the largest neighborhood merchant associations in San Francisco.
• Chair of the board of a non-profit housing corporation which provides low income housing in S.F.
• Former co-chair, S.F. Local Homeless Coordinating Board.
• Member, California Universal Health Care Organizing Project
• Former small business owner in S.F. employing more than 3,000 workers during 25 years of operations.

2006 Best Of The Bay:

A Vision Of The Future

Local Heroes

Barry Hermanson

By Sarah Phelan

Guardian Photo by Saul Bromberger and Sandra
Hoover Photography, Mural by Mona Caron

Barry Hermanson doesn't just talk about doing the right thing. He's spent his career as a temp agency owner trying to increase pay for temps, and as a small-business person trying to raise the minimum wage.

When Hermanson opened his employment business in 1980, his primary goal was to share the wealth.

"I was doing temp work in 1979 and '80, and while I was paid only about $4 for clerical work, like filing, the temp agency was billing at $6.80," Hermanson recalls. He turned around and opened Hermanson's Employment Services, where he managed to keep billing rates competitive while paying 20 to 30 percent more than other agencies.

Hermanson's temp agency grew rapidly through the 1980s, mostly through word of mouth. By the 1990s, he was making good money - and giving a lot of it away to the local community. Among other things, he funded a computer training center in the Tenderloin for a nonprofit housing group.

He also became active in local politics, particularly in the campaign to mandate a living wage for San Francisco workers.

"As I became increasingly involved in community work in the '90s, I began to see that legislative work had a far greater capacity to improve people's lives than my individual efforts," he says.

Hermanson donated more than $100,000 of his own money in 2003 to the living-wage initiative, which required San Francisco businesses to pay considerably more than the state minimum wage and helped 54,000 local workers get raises. "It was the best investment I ever made," says Hermanson, whose donation translated into an estimated $100 million being transferred into the pockets of low-wage workers. "You can't get a better return."

These days Hermanson is a big supporter of Sup. Tom Ammiano's health care legislation. He points out that many of the business arguments against the law, which would require employers to pay for health insurance, are similar to charges he heard against the minimum-wage increase.

Hermanson says he'd be happy to pay a 50-cent surcharge on his lunch tab, if it meant the people serving him could have health care.

"I think we need to put it in those terms," he says. "Providing health care is also a commitment in terms of consumers and which businesses they decide to patronize."