...Up with the minimum wage: A Movement on the Rise
(From Page 9))
can). It needs 218 signatures to force a
vote, which would show the public
where members of Congress stand.
On April 30, 2014, supporters in the
U.S. Senate tried to move forward with
companion bill, S 2223. It got 54 votes
— a majority, but not enough to break
the Senate’s filibuster rule, which in
practice requires 60 votes to move any
bill to a final vote. [Senator Bob Corker
of Tennessee was the only Republican
to vote in favor.]
The Republican obstruction comes
at a time of particularly strong public
support for an increase: In a November
2013 Gallup poll, 76 percent of Ameri-
cans favored raising the federal mini-
mum wage to at least $9, and 69 per-
cent favored indexing it to inflation.
Even among Republicans, 58 percent
favored the increase to $9. In separate
polls of small business owners, 57 per-
cent said they support increasing the
federal minimum, and 47 percent fa-
vored an increase to $9.50.
In February 2013, President Barack
Obama called for the minimum wage to
increase to $9. By February 2014, that
sounded too paltry, and he proposed
$10.10, the figure in Rep. Miller’s bill.
But minimum wage campaigners don’t
see HR 1010 as likely to pass in the cur-
rent Congress. With the bill blocked in
both chambers, Obama acted on his
own, issuing an executive order requir-
ing certain federal contractors to pay
$10.10 an hour starting January 2015.
In 1968, when the federal minimum
wage was at its buying-power peak,
only one state — Alaska — had a
higher minimum wage. By 1998, six
states did. By 2008, 22 states were
above the federal minimum. Today over
half of Americans — 54 percent — live
in the 22 states that have a minimum
wage higher than the federal minimum.
And 10 of those states, starting with
Washington in 2001, increase the mini-
mum annually based on inflation. [Ore-
gon voters did that in 2002, passing Bal-
lot Measure 25.]
With minimum wage bills blocked
in Washington, D.C., the battle has
shifted from Congress to the states, and
from the states to the cities. And per-
haps nowhere has the battle raged more
intensely than the Seattle area.
around the nation
SeaTac’s $15-an-hour ballot meas-
ure didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was
the final solution to a decade-long union
fight that started when airlines, particu-
larly Alaska Airlines, ended airport
work as a source of middle class wages.
Ramp workers, jet fuelers and cabin
cleaners found their work outsourced to
private contractors, accompanied by
savage wage cuts. Unions tried repeat-
edly to unionize the new employers, but
faced insurmountable legal obstacles
under the National Railway Labor Act.
At length, a union coalition known
as the SeaTac Good Jobs Committee
appealed to the Port of Seattle, the
elected body in charge of the airport, to
use its power to set a decent minimum
wage. Port commissioners shrugged
their shoulders, saying they wished they
could help, but that they lacked legal au-
thority to do so. In 2009, the union
coalition ran an independent campaign
to elect a more sympathetic Port Com-
mission, and won two of three targeted
races despite major campaign spending
$15: The shot heard
(Turn to Page 25)
Southwest
Washington
CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL
“A Voice for Working Families”
For all your hard work
and dedication,
Happy Labor Day to All!
President SHANNON A. WALKER • IAM/W 536
Vice President JUDY KUSCHEL • WFSE 313
Secretary/Treasurer ROY JENNINGS • ATU 757
Trustees
MARK RAUCHENSTEIN • PTE 17
JOHN MURPHY • BCTGM 364
MATT DEVORE • OPEIU 11
Executive Board
JENNY GRAY • BCTGM 114
SHANNON STULL • LIUNA 335
Sergeant-at-Arms ED FRAZIER • IAM 63
Meetings are held the first Wednesday every month
starting at 6 p.m. at the LIUNA/Teamsters Hall,
2212 NE Andresen Rd. Vancouver, Washington.
www.swwclc.org
AUGUST 15, 2014
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 17