Seattle city council approves $15 wage

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On June 2, the Seattle City Council voted unanimous­ ly for a plan to implement a $15 minimum wage for all workers in Seattle, which includes a yearly cost of living increase. This victory was won in the streets. It started in 2013 when SEIU started organizing fast food strikes in the Seattle area around the demand of a $15 an hour minimum wage.

The courageous workers who walked off the job in 2013 and in increasing numbers in 2014 created the impetus for a movement throughout the city. Their testimony and persistence in telling their stories ex­ panded the movement beyond fast-food workers to all workers who were making only minimum wage—and ultimately to the Seattle community as a whole.

The movement grew as Kshama Sawant, the Social­ ist Alternative candidate for city council, picked up the baton and made it the central demand of her suc­ cessful campaign. The city council vote came only six months after the formation of $15 Now—an aggres­ sive organizing campaign that kept the issue visible and created “15 Now” community groups throughout the city.

When the $15 minimum wage is implemented, it will lift the wages of 100,000 workers—two thirds of whom are women. Over the next 10 years, it will also transfer $3 billion from businesses to workers who are at the bottom of the wage scale.

In her victory speech, Sawant said it was clear that this success would inspire people across the nation. She reminded supporters about how it had been won: “15 was not won at the bargaining table as the so-called ‘sensible compromise’ between workers and business. It was not the result of the generosity of cor­ porations or their Democratic Party representatives in government.

“What was voted on in the city council was a re­ flection of what workers won on the street over this last year. In 15 Now, groups of workers and activists ... Wage fight (continued from page 1: “Low-wage workers fight for $15/hr”)

Striking MacDonald’s worker Munira Evans told Socialist Action newspaper that she is struggling to support her two children. “Everything is going up—the price of milk, electricity,” she pointed out. “Why can’t our wages also go up?”

After marching down Broad St., the protesters rallied a second time outside another MacDonald’s near City Hall. Chants included, “MacDonald’s, come off it! You’ve made enough profit!”

Shamira Jones told the rally that she works two jobs in order to try to make ends meet; one is at the airport and the other is at a Popeye’s. Although she has worked at the airport for five years, she still makes only $7.60 an hour. Michael Burrell, 25, is a cabin cleaner at the airport and makes $7.25 an hour with no benefits. Addressing strikers who are fast-food workers, he said, “Why should you guys make food [for cus­ tomers], when you can’t eat properly yourselves?”

Several workers complained that they are forced to put in extra hours of work for which they never receive compensa­ tion. A man named Justin, who works at a MacDonald’s, said that at the end of a week, when he reviews all the hours of work that he put in, the wages that he received “don’t add up.” But when he asks about the missing money, the man­ met weekly, held mass conferences and debates, organized rallies, and engaged thousands of people around the city about the need for a living wage. We won the public debate; in a recent poll 74% of voters now support 15.

“We defeated the arguments of busi­ ness in the corporate media. Let this be our guide. At every stage of the struggle, corporations and their representatives have sought to undermine our efforts.

And future victories will also depend on the organization of working people fight­ ing for our interests.

“This is also why we need an alternative to the two parties representing business.

Despite the Democratic Party’s posing as a progressive alternative to the Repub­ licans, we can see here in Seattle how it was only with the election of a socialist that the establishment was forced to pass real gains for workers. We need many more independent and socialist candidates to turn the tide against corporate politics.

“Our victory is not complete, but we have fought un­ til the last day, the last hour, against all the loopholes demanded by business.”

$15 Now struggled against the compromises that the labor leaders and the business community represen­ tatives on the mayor’s advisory committee brought forth to the city council. This included a long imple­ mentation proposal and giving employers credit for tips that their workers receive. And at the last minute, they added a lower “training” wage, and changed im­ plementation of the first increases from January 2015 to April 2015.

Sawant was able to get support for a multi-lingual application that will be easily accessible for work­ ers to file wage theft claims. This included significant fines for any business not implementing the pay raises agers reprimand him and say that he’s “got an attitude.”

A young woman who works at Subway for $7.50 an hour concluded, “I’m strik­ ing today for $15 and a union because I want my daughter to have a better life.

We’ve fighting for the future. You can’t Tony Savino / Socialist Action as required by the minimum wage legislation. In two to four years there will be an evaluation of the ordi­ nance by the Minimum Wage Commission.

$15 Now has been circulating a ballot measure that would implement $15 in January 2015 for big busi­ nesses, with a three-year phase-in for small business­ es. There would be no tip credit and no training wage. They will decide whether to proceed with the ballot measure later this month.

Meanwhile, Steve Caldeira, president of the Inter­ national Franchise Association, is threatening a legal challenge. He maintains that hundreds of franchise owners should be considered “small businesses” un­ der the implementation plan, since their enterprises are not operated by their brand’s corporate headquar­ ters. Caldeira is threatening to file a legal challenge against Seattle to “overturn the unfair and discrimina­ tory minimum wage plan.” And so, the struggle for a living wage must go on. n be afraid to speak out.”

The global fast-food strike was soon followed by a march on McDonald’s corporate head­ quarters in Illinois by some 2000 workers from around the country. The action forced the corporate bosses to flee their headquarters.

This type of mass action will continue to bolster other ini­ tiatives to raise the minimum wage. SEIU and local coalitions in Richmond and Oakland have also launched minimum-wage campaigns. Although they are working towards $12.50 per hour, it is clear that momentum is gathering behind this new wave of organizing.

With every new action the demands of fast-food workers make President Obama’s recent announcement of a $10.10 in­ crease by 2016 look more like crumbs off the tables of the ruling elite. Clearly, the Democrats and Republicans are feel­ ing the heat from the ignition of what may one day be a greater independent working-class movement. n