Enforcing the $15 wage in Seattle
2015Ann Montague 2015-05Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 2015 5 no sick time or other benefits. When she came down with the flu, ‘They told me to come to work or get someone else to take my shift—or I was fired.’ On Wednesday, Laury was on the back of a pickup truck blocking the main inter section in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis during the evening rush hour, telling her story to a huge crowd during a national day of protest.
“The demonstrators, who had rallied on the University of Minnesota campus before marching to Dinkytown, chanted and carried signs calling for a $15-anhour minimum wage and paid sick leave.”
In my home town of Kansas City, there was an ambitious schedule of action starting at 6 a.m. and ranging well into the night, including strikes at McDon ald’s properties, campus protests, a press conference and a mass rally fol lowed by a march. The 5 p.m. rally in Theis Park was the main unifying event. Steady streams of folks getting off work, or picking up kids from child care, were able to grab donated hamburgers or grilled vegetables as they found a spot on the grass of the giant amphitheater.
I estimate there were 600-700 on hand, with people still arriving even at the end. The majority were Fast Food workers and their families, mostly Af rican American and Latino. But at least in Brooklyn made clear, there are union members doing hard work for highly profitable corporations for as little as $10 an hour.
15 Now came out of successful strug gles in SeaTac and Seattle in 2013-14. It is a coalition of union and community groups as well as many individual activ ists. Socialists have played an important role there, especially after the election of Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alter native party to the Seattle City Council.
The new Seattle minimum means substantial wage increases for 100,000 workers in that city. Since that victory, 15 Now has established 23 state or local chapters around the country. Recently, San Francisco became the third city to pass a 15 minimum. Both the “15 and a Union” message promoted by organized labor and the coalition effort of 15 Now for minimum wage laws deserve our support.
Will history repeat itself?
U.S. unions went through their great est period of membership growth and bargaining breakthroughs during the Great Depression, which was marked by mass unemployment. The union successes under such harsh conditions were only possible because insurgent unions came to be recognized as a broader social movement, advancing A look at Washington State il lustrates that the working-class struggle for the $15 minimum wage requires an ongoing independent movement to make sure it is fully implemented.
The victory of Referendum 1 in the city of SeaTac established a $15 minimum wage. Suddenly, the Se attle- Tacoma Airport said that they are not part of the city of SeaTac be cause they are under the jurisdiction of the Port of Seattle. However, the budget document of the city states, “The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, operated by the Port of Se attle, is located completely within the City’s borders.
On April 1, the first stage of the implementation process for the $15 minimum wage in Seattle is begin ning, and all of a sudden, the Uni versity of Washington in Seattle is claiming exemption from the new law. A spokesperson for the univer sity stated that because they are a state institution, they are excluded from the municipal wage law. They even suggested that the cost of in creasing the wages of their low-wage workers would be put on the students.
Students, workers, and minimumwage activists are fighting back. They organized a march and rally demanding that workers and stu dents be paid a living wage. At the rally they produced a list that was 15 feet long with all the names of administrators who earn over $150,000 a year. The march stopped at a number of low-wage workplac es on campus and informed them of the university’s decision to exclude them from the new minimum wage law.
At the end of the march, socialist Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant, who had championed the passage of the $15 minimum wage, addressed the crowd: “Our victory is incomplete if we don’t take everyone with us!” She praised the coalition of students and workers for bringing attention to the administration’s de cision and encouraged them to keep up the pressure until all UW work ers get the raise they deserve. n