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eridani
(51,907 posts)Do you want to bring a livable wage to Seattle? There is a great opportunity coming up for you to be part of the discussion.
Since the successful fight to raise the minimum wage in SeaTac, there has been a debate on whether to bring a $15 minimum wage to Seattle.
To help answer this question, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has formed an Income Inequality Advisory Committee. They are sponsoring a FREE one-day conference that will give you the chance to dig deep into the facts and figures on income inequality.
Leading thinkers in the field will discuss the latest data and information about wages, the economy, and inequality. They will also unveil new research commissioned by the Mayor’s office on how a $15 minimum wage would affect workers and our local economy here in Seattle.
WHAT: Mayor Murray’s Income Inequality Symposium
WHEN: March 27th
WHERE: Seattle University
COST: Free - Lunch may be purchased as part of your registration for $5.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
The symposium will feature leading local and national thinkers on income inequality, including:
•Mayor Ed Murray
•Dorian Warren, Columbia University
•Saru Jayaraman, Restaurant Opportunities Center
•Michael Reich and Ken Jacobs, UC Berkeley
•Lori Pfingst, Budget and Policy Center
•Marieka Klawitter and Bob Plotnik, University of Washington
•Paul Sonn, National Employment Law Project
•Local elected officials from San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia
This free and public event is an incredible opportunity to hear from leading experts about income inequality and the $15 minimum wage. Don't miss out — Mark your calendars and register today.
https://shworldwide.cvent.com/events/income-inequality-symposium/registration-0b927771fce24f0fa677cd4bf6f84fa2.aspx
pscot
(21,024 posts)for Seattle and Western Washington.
eridani
(51,907 posts)http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/how-a-15-minimum-wage-would-make-everyone-richer/Content?oid=19138455
As members of the advisory committee that will be offering recommendations to the mayor next month, we know there'll be policy options aplenty. We're hearing from all sides about the trade-offs and consequences.
But we want to be very clear: $15 isn't just about $15. It's about recognizing what actually makes this city so special—and making a conscious effort to nurture it.
Though there are cities in America bigger than Seattle, no city can match our combination of economic dynamism and civic engagement. While we have plenty of successful capitalists in Seattle, this isn't a town like Dallas or New York that worships the super-wealthy and believes in trickle-down economics.
People here recognize that prosperity and community emerge from the middle out, not the top down. That we're connected in an ecosystem. That we're all better off when we're all better off. It's why so many companies here treat their workers better than the market says they have to. Compare Costco to Walmart. Or Starbucks to McDonald's. Or Tom Douglas restaurants to Olive Garden.
This "Cascadian" form of capitalism works—for everyone, not just for capitalists. And we believe that raising Seattle's minimum wage to $15 in a speedy, simplified, and practical way will make our city more competitive and bring giant benefits, both economic and civic.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nicole Vallestero Keenan
nicole@pugetsoundsage.org
New Study: $15 Minimum Wage - Single Best Option to Reduce Seattle's Gender and Race Pay Gap
Seattle - A new study by Puget Sound Sage concludes that a $15 minimum wage would create large scale benefits for women and people of color in Seattle, and effectively narrow our city's gender and race pay gaps. In a policy brief released today, Puget Sound Sage examines the potential outcomes of a $15 minimum wage on the local economy, assesses outcomes by industry sector, and demonstrates that a $15 minimum wage (with a phase-in only approach) is the single best option to reduce Seattle's gender and race pay gap.
Key findings from the policy brief include:
•$526 million dollars will be added to the paychecks of Seattle’s lowest wage workers: a wage increase that is significant for low-income families trying to make ends meet, but represents only 1.7% of Seattle employers’ total payroll costs.
•This infusion of new earnings will result in worker spending and re-spending, creating a total ripple effect of $625 million dollars to the regional economy.
• Women or and people of color living in Seattle currently earn between 44% and 71% of what white men earn.
•The over-representation of women and people of color in low-wage industries, such as food services, likely explains much of this pay gap.
•Raising the minimum wage is the fastest and most targeted policy option to narrow the gender and race pay gap.
The brief concludes that well-crafted, phased-in increase in the minimum wage can support a thriving economy.
You can find the full report on our website www.pugetsoundsage.org.
http://www.pugetsoundsage.org/downloads/Economic%20and%20Equity%20Outcomes%20of%20a%20$15%20Minimum%20Wage%20in%20Seattle_1.pdf
eridani
(51,907 posts)Oddly enough, no coverage of the 15 Now! mentioned that a socialist city councio member was attacked from the left. Some wanted no phase in whatsover, and to bar usnions from agreeing to a lower wage in return for higher health care benefits. Lots of useful information at the conference. David Cay Johnson suggested that we not say that we are raising the minimum wage, but that we are restoring it.
Only in Seattle!
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023469140_wageinitiativexml.html
Signature drive to start for $15-wage vote
An organization urging adoption of a $15-per-hour minimum wage voted Saturday to begin gathering signatures to get a Seattle City Charter amendment on the November ballot, a move it hopes will provide leverage with city officials.
The group, 15 Now, held its first national conference at Franklin High School, with more than 250 people voting on what direction the movement should take.
Members voted to begin gathering a target of 50,000 signatures in support of amending the city’s charter so it would require: big corporations to pay a $15 minimum wage effective Jan. 1, 2015, with no reduction in pay to compensate for tips or benefits; a three-year phase-in for small businesses and nonprofits; and a yearly raise tied to cost-of-living increases.
About 30,000 valid signatures would be needed to get the amendment on the ballot.
The organization plans to file the signatures — thus, triggering a vote — only if city officials fail to pass their own measure that meets with the organization’s approval. The decision of whether to file the signatures will be made at a conference in June.
15 Now's National Conference Is Today
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/04/26/15-nows-national-conference-is-today
But activists are moving ahead on their own schedule. All day today at Franklin High School, 15 Now is hosting their first national conference, with people assembling from all over the US to rally and discuss strategies on raising the minimum wage to $15, here and elsewhere. Tonight at 7:30, at a closing rally, Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant will speak to conference attendees. The crowd is reportedly a few hundred strong so far.
If you wanted to follow along on Twitter, you can check out 15 Now or find some of the action at the hashtags #15now and #a26.
Why we are holding this conference
https://www.15now.org/april-26/
Seattle is poised to be the first major city to win a $15 minimum wage and a win in Seattle will be a victory everywhere for our growing movement which aims to lift millions out of poverty across the country.
Building on the momentum in Seattle and the fast food workers strikes last year, 15 Now actions were held in 21 cities across the country during the March 8th – 15th Week of Action.
But big business is gearing up for a counter-offensive to the movement for $15 and will fight tooth and nail to protect their massive profits made from paying their workers poverty wages. What will it take to beat this counter-offensive, win in Seattle and grow the movement nationally?
We cannot rely on the political establishment. Even in Seattle, where the Mayor has set up an Advisory Committee to discuss a $15/hr minimum wage, there are no guarantees, especially with big corporations campaigning to stop us. Big Business wants to defeat $15 or undermine a real $15/hr minimum wage by including tip credit and “total compensation” where tips and benefits would be counted towards wages.
We can only rely on our own strength and need to build even more grassroots pressure from below. In Seattle, we will weigh up whether or not to launch a signature gathering campaign to put a robust $15 minimum wage initiative on the November ballot to let the people of Seattle decide.
eridani
(51,907 posts)ou'd think unions would accept the enthusiastic public support for a $15 minimum wage as a gift-wrapped campaign sent from the heavens.
If unions organized campaigns for $15 nationwide, they’d win the support and admiration of hundreds of thousands, who would then be ripe for joining. A labor movement on life support would receive a massive injection of oxygen.
And if all workers made $15, the leverage of unions at the bargaining table would increase exponentially. But in most cities, unions have not yet followed up with the serious community organizing that would be necessary to make $15 a reality.
Seattle has proven it’s possible. Unions there are wisely going all in: a Service Employees-led coalition called Working Washington is mobilizing its members and the community for $15. The mayor and city council are working on a plan to introduce the new minimum.
Working people in Seattle can see that labor unions are fighting for them—making them more likely to rally to labor’s defense in the future.
I’m pleased to report we’re now seeing the first steps to mobilize for a $15 minimum in a few other cities: San Francisco, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, where I live.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Initial Council Review of
Mayor's Minimum Wage proposal
Monday, May 5, 2:30 p.m.
City Council Chambers
Arrive early, and sign up to give testimony for a strong 15!
On Thursday, Mayor Murray announced a proposal to bring Seattle workers to $15hr. As council member Sawant said in her press conference, "the proposal that has been announced is a result of the pressure from this movement. Unfortunately, it also reflects the attempt of business to water down what the working people of Seattle want. While business has lost the public battle on 15, they were given a seat at the table to pursue their wish list, while low-wage workers were left out.”
Murray’s proposal includes serious loopholes for big business:
a 4-year phase-in for big business
an 11 year delay, until all workers reach the same minimum wage
tip penalty and health care deductions
This is why our work is far from done. The movement demands the council discuss Sawant's proposal, 15 now not just in name, because worker’s deserve more.
The city council’s first discussion on Mayor Murray’s proposal is Monday, May 5th and it’s critical to mobilize supporters, to provide the council with public testimony, and make clear the pressure of the signature collection campaign to take the charter amendment for a real $15 to the ballot.
eridani
(51,907 posts)I’d been meaning to comment on this Jonathan Martin post for quite some time, but got distracted by my non-Seattle-Times-bashing pursuits. Writing on the paper’s editorial board blog, Martin echoes a trope that has grown quite popular with minimum wage concern-trolls these days: that a $15 minimum wage would ironically hurt poor people, by making it too expensive to provide vital human services!
As Martin correctly points out, human services are largely provided by low-wage workers—some of them college educated social workers who make only $12 to $13 an hour themselves. A $15 minimum wage would indeed cost Seattle’s not-for-profit human services agencies millions of dollars a year in additional labor costs. So Martin defends these “abysmal” low wages as “just the financial reality of holding together the human services safety net.”
Responding on Facebook, millionaire minimum wage advocate Nick Hanauer aptly describes Martin’s reasoning as “silly”:
If the argument made by Martin is correct, that raising the minimum wage is bad for the city because then we will be able to pay for less human services, then by definition he must also believe that if the minimum wage went down it would be good for the city because then we would be able to pay for more human services.
eridani
(51,907 posts)We have to turn up the heat - continue building the movement to pressure city council to deliver $15 faster, and to prevent big business from smuggling in even more loopholes.
Already big business has won a 3-4 year phase-in. Why should workers have to live in poverty any longer; to subsidize the profits of Amazon, Starbucks and McDonalds?
Businesses under 500 employees get 4-7 years to phase-in $15; this could be significantly reduced, to 3 years, without harming small business. Workers at businesses with less than 500 employees who receive healthcare or tips will be paid a lower minimum wage than other workers for 10 years under Mayor Murray's plan. But, healthcare doesn't pay the rent, and workers cannot rely on tips to make up the difference.
It's clear that our pressure has a real impact. So, we need to fight for $15 at every stage! Please mark your calendars and attend all public events on $15 when and where possible.
The only public hearing on $15 in the evening is next Tuesday, May 13th:
Rainier Beach High School
8815 Seward Park Avenue South, Seattle
eridani
(51,907 posts)ttp://www.thepierceprogressive.org/tacoma15now?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thepierceprogressive%2FaZqY+%28The+Pierce+Progressive%29
The growing demand for a $15 per hour minimum wage has the potential to help rebuild the workers movement in the United States. Beyond the obvious purpose of raising income in our own home town, that is my main objective in working on the 15 Now Tacoma campaign. If we are going to counteract the political and economic power of Big Business, we workers seriously need our own political voice. It is the absence of such a movement that has enabled Big Business to claw back the hard-won gains achieved by workers movements during the 19th and 20th centuries. Those achievements included the eight-hour work-day, child labor laws, the original minimum wage - even the free public schools so many of us now take for granted. Here are some facts about the minimum wage.
That said, let me introduce myself. A shop steward with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 and a member of the 15 Now Tacoma organizing committee, I have been a healthcare worker for 20 years. I have witnessed firsthand the brutal consequences of low wages and income inequality on people’s health - this in the wealthiest nation on the planet. That's why I am so committed to this struggle.
Even if we win a $15 minimum wage in Tacoma, we'll need a vibrant rank-and-file social movement like 15 Now to make sure it's enforced. The continuing struggle for a $15 minimum wage in the city of Sea-Tac is a case in point: $15 won at the ballot box but got mired in the courts. Some employers not only refuse to pay it, they're also firing workers who report their bosses' defiance of the law. True, there have been some public events organized around the enforcement of $15 and pushing for Sea-Tac Airport to be included in the law, and that is great. There is a also a class action law suit on behalf of Sea-Tac workers whose employers have not been paying them $15. But if there were a vibrant rank-and-file movement like 15 Now Sea-Tac to push for the enforcement of the minimum wage law, they could picket the businesses that refuse to pay their workers the now-mandatory $15 per hour. They could also hold regular public meetings about it, and do public outreach to workers to try to agitate and organize collective action. They could fight for other social justice demands too - affordable housing for example.
eridani
(51,907 posts)http://www.thepierceprogressive.org/15nowtacomacitycouncilforumoct2014?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thepierceprogressive%2FaZqY+%28The+Pierce+Progressive%29
With the demand for a $15 per hour minimum wage sweeping the nation, the Tacoma City Council will have the chance to join the movement of cities taking meaningful action to address growing inequality on Tuesday, October 14th. Tacoma 15 Now – a chapter of a grassroots national movement with campaigns in more than 20 cities – will be delivering more than 1,000 signatures to the City Council’s monthly Citizen Forum. They are petitioning that Tacoma adopt a $15 minimum wage ordinance. Tacoma 15 Now spokesperson Katelyn Driskill says, "After months of talking to people in the streets and in public meetings, it’s clear that Tacomans overwhelmingly support a $15 per hour minimum wage."
