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August 7, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
(International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X)
Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la-
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Union-led coalition seeks $13.50 minimum wage
Union-backed Raise the Wage
Oregon also would restore cities’
right to go higher
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
A new coalition of more than
two dozen groups will cam-
paign to raise Oregon’s mini-
mum wage to $13.50 statewide
— and restore the right of local
communities to pass higher lo-
cal minimum wages. The Raise
the Wage Oregon campaign will
push for legislation in the Feb-
ruary 2016 session of the Ore-
gon Legislature, but if lawmak-
ers fail to act, coalition leaders
say they will work to take a bal-
lot measure to voters in Novem-
ber 2016.
Labor groups in the coalition
include the Oregon AFL-CIO,
Oregon Education Association,
United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 555, AFSCME
Council 75, the Oregon Nurses
Association, and Service Em-
ployees International Union.
Other groups include Causa,
Family Forward Oregon, Ecu-
menical Ministries of Oregon,
Basic Rights Oregon, Oregon
Bus Project, Urban League of
Portland, and Planned Parent-
hood Advocates of Oregon.
“No one who works full time
“Raising the minimum wage and restoring local control will help build an economy that works for everyone,
not just the richest among us,” said Andrea Miller (at the mic), executive director of the Latino civil rights group
Causa. Miller was one of several speakers at a July 22 launch of a new coalition, Raise the Wage Oregon.
should live in poverty,” said
Oregon AFL-CIO President
Tom Chamberlain at the coali-
tion’s July 22 campaign launch.
The event took place at Fire-
fighters Memorial Park in Port-
land — across the street from
the McDonalds restaurant at
West Burnside and 18th Av-
enue. “We want to raise the
wage to $13.50 for all Oregoni-
ans, and restore cities’ power to
pass a higher minimum wage,
so cities like Portland, Salem,
and Eugene can follow the lead
of Seattle, San Francisco and
Los Angeles,” Chamberlain
said. All three of the latter cities
have approved local ordinances
to raise the minimum wage over
time to $15 an hour, but Ore-
gon’s legislature passed a law in
2001 barring local jurisdictions
from passing higher local mini-
mum wages. Oregon’s mini-
mum is currently $9.25 an hour.
Raise the Wage Oregon takes
up where a substantially similar
coalition, Fair Shot Oregon, left
off. Raising the minimum wage
was one of five proposals Fair
Shot Oregon took to the Oregon
Legislature in the session that
ran from February to early July
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