Supporters of $15 wage hear Kshama Sawant in Minneapolis

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MINNEAPOLIS—Two hundred and fifty enthusiastic supporters of a $15 an hour minimum wage in this city crowded into the Minneapolis Labor Center on Sunday, Feb. 15, to hear from organizers and support­ ers including socialist Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant.

It was Sawant’s upset election a little over a year ago that really put the 15 Now campaign on the map and led to Seattle’s successful fight for $15 just over a year ago, St. Paul Union Advocate editor Michael Moore re­ ported.

“Minneapolis is one of the cities that is poised to win $15 this year,” Sawant, a member of Socialist Alter­ native, told activists. “Let the fight for $15 in Seattle be your guide, that with only one member of the city council (initially supportive), we were able to get this done.”

“Ultimately, what we are talking about are real peo­ ple,” she said. “These are the people who make this city run. Just imagine if all of them decided not to go to work on one day. The city would shut down.”

Success in Minneapolis, as in Seattle, will depend on 15 Now’s ability to build a broad coalition of support, Sawant said. That means participation by faith groups, community organizations and, of course, labor unions.

Sawant, a delegate to Seattle’s central labor council, said that local unions in her city supported 15 Now out of a shared belief that a rising tide lifts all boats. Most union members in Seattle earn much more than $15 per hour, she pointed out. “They have pensions, they have health care, but they were there in solidar­ ity with their sisters and brothers anyway.”

PORTLAND—Oregon is one of many states with a preemption law that prevents cities from having a higher minimum wage than the state mini­ mum wage. In order to work around this undemocratic law, 15 Now Port­ land has been working to update Portland’s Fair Wage Policy (FWP).

Since the state law does not prevent the Portland city council from rais­ ing wages of city workers or workers contracted by the city, 15 Now decid­ ed to work to update the FWP.

When the FWP was first passed in 1998, city workers and contractors had to be paid at least $7 an hour.

The state minimum wage is currently $9.25 an hour.

15 Now conducted hearings in conjunction with Jobs With Justice and SEIU 49, which represent citycontracted workers. In February, the Portland city council voted unani­ 4 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2015 mously to increase the minimum wage for city workers to $15 an hour. They amended the Fair Wage Policy, which sets a new floor for 173 fulltime city workers and contractors.

The workers covered by the new policy are janitors, parking atten­ dants, and security officers. It will not cover 1800 seasonal and part-time workers, mostly in the Parks Bureau. These workers packed the city coun­ cil chambers, and 30 of them testi­ fied.

15 Now celebrated the victory for those workers who will see an in­ crease and issued the statement: “We still have much more work to do. There are contractors and part-timers who have been left out of the revised Fair Wage Policy that need to be included.

“We need to win $15 for all city workers, for all working people in the City of Portland, and for the whole State of Oregon.” n Ty Moore, a national organizer for 15 Now, pointed to an already-successful 15 Now campaign at Minne­ apolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport—where a worker-led rally briefly shut down traffic on a road­ way to Terminal 1 in December—as helping “boost the credibility” of 15 Now locally.

“The debate is alive, and big campaigns are moving to help raise up working people’s wages and working conditions,” Moore said. “We need (Minneapolis) city leaders to play the kind of role of … Kshama Sawant, to stand steadfastly in the interest of working-class policies.”

A recent report by Seattle Met magazine says that re­ sults of a new poll defy conventional wisdom. “If you thought Socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant was bugging people with her ‘Combat Rock’ rhetoric and is on her way out: Guess again!” The poll shows her popularity at 50%, only 1% behind the “council all-star,” a Democrat. This is at the city level. At the district level, though, Sawant has a 61 percent favorable rating. wealthy. In that sense, Sawant said, 15 Now builds on the message of Occupy Wall Street and the resistance of fast-food and retail strikers, offering a plan of polit­ ical action to combat the growth of income inequality. “We have been on the retreat, on the defensive,” she said. “That’s the beautiful thing about 15 Now—it’s the beginning of an offense. … When we organize col­ lectively around concrete political demands, we can absolutely win.”

Other speakers included CTUL (Centro de Traba­ jadores Unidos en Lucha) leader and fast-food worker Guillermo Lindsay, and MSP airport organizer Kip Hedges, who spoke to the effects of poverty wages on their co-workers and the dramatic impact $15 would have on their lives.

“I want to invite everyone here into a transfor­ mational struggle for $15, like the campaign for the eight-hour day was for workers 100 years ago,” said Kip Hedges, a 26-year baggage handler who will soon file a federal lawsuit against his illegal firing by Delta airlines—a case that sparked outrage and galvanized support for the $15 demand at MSP airport. The com­ pany claims Hedges made a “disparaging” comment about the company when he said in an on-line inter­ view in December that a lot of workers at Delta earn less than $15.

The fight to reinstate Hedges has won broad labor support. The Minnesota AFL-CIO recently presented Hedges with a $5000 contribution to the fight to get his job back. Non-union Delta’s takeover of Minneap­ olis-based Northwest Airlines in 2008 led to a union decertification vote engineered by management. The maneuver stripped former Northwest workers of their collective bargaining rights and reduced them to so-called “at will” employees. Hedges and others, including mechanics and flight attendants, have been working to reorganize the union in collaboration with the International Association of Machinists.

After a spirited fund-raising appeal at the close of the meeting, 15 NOW organizers reported that $10,000 had been raised or pledged for the campaign. n

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$15 wage floor won for some Portland workers