"Hopefully we'll encourage or shame other people into doing the same."

A couple of months ago, city officials heaped praise on a local banker who announced he was going to start paying all his employees a "living wage."

Whether they knew it or not then, council members had just keyed in on a salient point many of the city's own workers hope to make in the coming months.

On Friday, the union that represents about 1,200 blue- and white-collar St. Petersburg workers met with city labor officials for the year's first contract negotiating session.

At the top of the union's agenda? A proposal to raise the base pay for city workers to $15 an hour.

Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.