Seattle’s push for $15/hour minimum wage takes shape

Supporters marched for the $15 minimum in December (Image: CHS)

Here’s how the push for a $15 minimum wage in Seattle will take shape. Newly elected City Council member Kshama Sawant this week announced the 15now.org site was operational and ready to ” strengthen the grassroots movement for a $15/hour minimum wage” where “people can donate $15/month, add your name to a list of endorsers, and sign up to volunteer” —

Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant along with her Socialist Alternative supporters and union allies launched the 15now.org website yesterday to strengthen the grassroots movement for a $15/hour minimum wage.

The movement for $15/hour has been growing in Seattle and nationally, spearheaded by fast food worker strikes, a successful ballot initiative in Seatac, and the Kshama Sawant campaign for city council.

In spite of opposition from big business, Seattle is poised to raise its minimum wage to $15/hour in 2014. Even the new Mayor Ed Murray has declared his support for $15.

A $15 minimum wage in Seattle will set an example that working people and unions across the country would likely be inspired to follow.

In order to counter the resistance from corporate America, 15now.org appeals to people to get involved and join the fight. At 15now.org, people can donate $15/month, add your name to a list of endorsers, and sign up to volunteer.

Meanwhile, Mayor Ed Murray, newly elected himself, announced his intention to raise the city’s minimum wage and has formed an “Income Inequality” task force to address “Seattle’s growing income divide.”

“Our city is becoming an unaffordable city for too many middle-class families, artists, students, young people, service-industry workers, immigrants new to the country,” Murray said.

The full roster of the task force is below. You’ll recognized Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce director Michael Wells and Lost Lake owner David Meinert as Hill locals on the roster. CHS reported here on how Meinert and other Hill food and drink business owners would like to see a $15 minimum wage in Seattle implemented.

Sawant made a $15 minimum a focal point of her campaign from its earliest days. Those struggling with soaring rents may hope another Sawant focal point — rent control — also makes it onto the city’s main stage.

Meanwhile, Murray on Friday announced a plan to push the minimum wage for City of Seattle employees to $15/hour. The move will boost the hourly rate for about 600 city employees.

Murray’s “Income Inequality” task force

Name	Title	Affiliation
David Rolf	President	SEIU 775NW
David Freiboth	Executive Secretary	MLK Labor Council
Sarah Cherin	Dir. Gov. Relations	UFCW 21
Diane Sosne	President	SEIU 1199NW
Nick Hanauer	Partner	Second Ave Partners
Pramila Jayapal	Co-Chair	We Belong Together
Eric Liu	Founder	Citizen University
Bob Donegan	President/CEO	Ivar’s Restaurant
Joe Fugere	Owner	Tutta Bella
Dave Meinert	Owner	Onto Entertainment
Craig Dawson	President	Retail Lockbox
Craig Shafer	Owner	Hotel Andra
H.S. Wright III	Founder and CEO	Seattle Hospitality Group
Janet Ali	Human Resources Supervisor	Nucor Steel
Ronald Wilkowski	Executive	Financial Services
Genevieve Aguilar	Port Campaigns Director	Puget Sound Sage
Maud Daudon	President/CEO	Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
Michael Wells	Executive Director	Cap Hill Chamber of Commerce
Pamela Banks	President/CEO	Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle
David Watkins	President	Seattle Hotel Association
Bruce Harrell	Councilmember
Nick Licata	Councilmember
Kshama Sawant	Councilmember-elect

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RealityCheck

10 years ago

Here’s why Sawant is off – rents in Seattle are actually falling – http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022578166_apartmentrentsxml.html#.Usbgg-AGojw.twitter while Seattle is the 2nd best market in the country for mid to high wage job growth – http://www.forbes.com/sites/emsi/2013/11/14/the-cities-creating-the-most-high-paid-jobs-and-why-theyre-good-for-low-wage-workers-too/

And of course Washington state already has the highest statewide minimum wage in the US.

ASG

Reply to RealityCheck

I love how “After steep increases in 2013, rents should stay level or even decline” becomes “rents in Seattle are actually falling” in your mind.

calhoun

Sawant may think that there is momentum for a $15 minimum wage, but I’m not so sure. There will be a lot of opposition, and not necessarily just from conservative types. There are reasonable arguments against this, such as job loss because some employers will not be able to pay the 60% increase in wages and at the same time maintain their current number of employees.

I think that a $15 wage is a nice goal, but that it should be done incrementally. Yes, Ed Murray is supportive in principal, but I doubt he will take the position it should be done all at once.

Pod

Reply to calhoun

I 100% agree with you that the wage increase should be done incrementally. Jumping from $9.xx to $15 all at once is a huge increase in cost to employers.

I understand that Ed Murray supports it with an exception for small businesses with less than x amount of workers. (I don’t remember where I read that, so shoot me if I’m wrong). I wonder if that would work out – would someone want to work at a mom and pop for $10 an hour when they can work at Subway for $15?

Phil Mocek

If hiring someone to help with your money-making venture doesn’t pencil out unless you pay slave wages, then maybe you have a flawed business plan.

The libertarian in me has always thought the idea of forcing a minimum wage on two consenting adults who wish to trade money for labor was unfortunate. But the deck has been stacked for far too long, and a $15 minimum wage seems like a reasonable first step at leveling the field.

Jim98122x

Reply to Phil Mocek

That all sounds fine, until a small business cuts back from 3 people on-duty to 2. Or when a bigger company reduces everybody’s hours from 35 or more to under 30. Or when the prices go up and nobody wants to pay it. It all depends on where that cutoff is for # of people employed at a given business. For a lot of small businesses, this could easily kill them.

Reply to Jim98122x

So Jim, you’re saying that you agree that a business plan requiring slave wages in order to pencil out is probably a bad one, and you will continue to agree with that assertion until one of the conditions you describe is observed, at which point the requiring-wage-slave-labor business plan may seem to you like a good one?

SAMCDOWELL

This is a catch 22 at it’s finest and most complicated. There are so many things I think Ed Murray isn’t thinking about. I agree that this will actually make unemployment worse. I also think rents and cost of living will increase as the idealogy changes; people make more – they can afford more. I really want to be positive about this, because so many people are living paycheck to paycheck, but think about the negative externalities and I think that list has more things on it than the positive ones.

Robert Boxer

I recently wrote an article about how an increase in the minimum wage rate increases unemployment. You can read it here: http://wp.me/p3N9zD-4e

Lala

Reply to Robert Boxer

While I agree that the increase in the minimum wage is a bad idea, at least to this rate, you lost me with your anti-democrat, anti-liberal, anti-anti-anti morality rant and therefore you are irrelevant and your blog is not something I would ever read again. But nice effort.

Daveon

Your insistence on something that the data has shown robe false, at least up to 60ish % of mean income levels is to be commended.

Timmy73

So you have unskilled workers making $15/hr. What about the skilled workers who were already making $15/hr. Will they start demanding $20/hr? Then those making $20/hr start demanding $25/hr? Where does it end? Not saying that the minimum shouldn’t be raised, but this drastic lift may have other consequences which we’re not prepared for.