PAGE 10 | April 1 , 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Fight for $15: The Right Wage for a Working America
From Page 4
once. Anywhere. We took seri-
ously every potential critique. Is
it going to increase youth or mi-
nority unemployment, or unem-
ployment for people with low
skills and less than a high school
education? Is it going to disad-
vantage minority businesses? Is
it going to cause businesses of
any sort to go out of business?
Is it going to make people relo-
cate their business to a lower-
wage jurisdiction across a mu-
nicipal border? And we looked
at every credible study we could
find — not projections, not neo-
classical economic modeling,
but actual studies based on ac-
tual data where it had already
happened. So when Santa Fe
raised their minimum wage over
60 percent above the surround-
ing counties, they actually expe-
rienced a growth in employ-
ment. When San Francisco
raised theirs above the surround-
ing California counties, they ex-
perienced greater growth in em-
ployment during periods of
economic growth and they lost
jobs more slowly during reces-
sions. We looked at border
towns like Spokane, Washing-
ton, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho:
What happened when Washing-
ton increased their wages and
Idaho didn’t? Guess what hap-
pened? Businesses didn’t go to
Idaho. Workers came to Wash-
ington. To apply for jobs. We
looked at the classic study from
the early ‘90s between Trenton
and Philadelphia, when New
Jersey’s wage went up and
Pennsylvania’s stayed the same.
And then we looked at every
federal minimum wage increase
since 1937 when we first passed
a federal minimum-wage. In 82
percent of the cases, a minimum
wage increase correlated with
growth in employment. In 18
percent of the cases, it correlated
with no meaningful change in
employment. And in 0 percent
of the cases did it correlate with
the loss of employment. Zero.
So this is a lie perpetrated by the
organized right — because they
are ideologically opposed to
government interfering in the
private sector, and because they
simply are greedy and they want
more money for themselves.
I assume you’re familiar with
what just happened in Ore-
gon. What do you think of
Oregon’s three-tiered raise
that was just passed by the
legislature? Listen, every juris-
diction has kind of got to figure
this out for itself. I am for the
most progressive policy that you
can count votes for in any juris-
diction around the country. Do I
think that $12.50 for 10 percent
of Oregon workers is good pol-
icy? Not really. But in practice,
by the time it gets phased in, no
one’s really going to be at
$12.50. Because those 10 per-
cent of workers are going to
have labor market options out-
side of that geography. So em-
ployers in whatever counties of
the state have the $12.50 rate are
going to end up having to pay
$13.50 just to compete for
workers, if they don’t want them
to drive into the next county and
find a job for a dollar an hour
more. So it was a question of
what was politically possible in
the legislature. And I have to re-
spect that, because you have to
count the votes. But I think in
reality, by the time it’s all phased
in, no one is going to be earning
less than $13.50 in Oregon.
How do you think other cities
and states can pull off what
happened in Seattle? It’s just
about organizing. It’s harder in
some places because of state
laws that preempt local deci-
sions, like you had in Oregon.
But it didn’t make it impossible
in Oregon; it just meant that it
was a state fight and not a city
fight. This is not that hard. It’s
about workers going on strike,
marching, demonstrating, show-
ing up at City Hall, electing the
right people. It’s hard in that
some of those things are hard to
pull off, but it’s not hard to un-
derstand. Americans want
higher wages. It’s actually only
controversial along elites. Rank-
and-file Republicans think there
ought to be higher wages. Inde-
pendents, Democrats, black,
white, brown, born in America,
immigrants, refugees … you
cannot find a demographic ex-
cept for rich white men that is
opposed to a higher minimum-
wage, and even they are rela-
tively split on the matter.
Do you see a larger lesson for
unions about winning through
political means what collec-
tive-bargaining no longer
seems to be able to deliver?
America’s enterprise-based col-
lective-bargaining system was a
weak model to begin with.
Think about what enterprise-
based bargaining entails. It’s one
union bargaining with one com-
pany. So companies are highly
incentivized to remain
nonunion, or to bust the unions
if they’ve got them, or to mini-
mize their bargaining demands
because of the perception that
they will be put at a competitive
disadvantage on price or flexi-
bility with their competition.
And trade associations are in-
centivized to prevent the expan-
sion of or reform of labor laws.
What does it mean to have a
right that’s optional? I don’t
have to vote to establish the
right of free speech. My neigh-
bors and I don’t have to come
together all at once and agree
that we want the right to petition
the government for the redress
of grievances. I don’t have to
campaign to be allowed to own
a rifle. Those are rights that are
guaranteed. But collective bar-
gaining is a right that you have
to opt into by a majority vote on
a workplace by workplace basis.
So only a minority of workers
will ever benefit from it, which
means by definition it will never
have the political support for its
own expansion. Labor law re-
form has failed continually for
five decades. We need a better
model, and one such model is
something that looks like re-
gional or sectoral bargaining
mediated through state or local
political institutions. That’s es-
sentially what we did in Seattle.
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