“We won!” the headline screams in an email from 15Now.org celebrating the passage out of committee of Seattle’s imminent $15 minimum wage ordinance. If this isn’t an unambiguous declaration of victory, I don’t know what is:
Seattle has now become the first major U.S. city to pass a $15 an hour minimum wage. This historic achievement was the result of a powerful grassroots movement built from below. The message is clear: When we organize we can win!
15 Now spearheaded the campaign in Seattle, and now we are building 15 Now nationwide. We spent $150,000 to win in Seattle. To take this fight across the country we need to raise another $150,000. Please donate $15, or more, to help us end poverty wages.
So, does that mean they are dropping their charter amendment to pass an even more worker-friendly $15 minimum wage in Seattle? Not so fast.
“No decision has been made about the Charter Amendment yet,” 15 Now consultant Jeff Upthegrove said on Facebook in response to my earlier prediction that the group would pivot and move on. And despite the celebratory tone in the email above, along with the apparent shift toward a national focus, 15 Now volunteers are still gathering signatures.
I know the cool kids area all cynical about Kshama Sawant’s motives and actions, but she really has tried to help build a democratic organization, and for all her influence, it’s this democratic organization with all its various stakeholders that ultimately has to make the decision to pull the emergency brake on the ballot measure. That can’t happen overnight. Possibly not by Monday. Maybe not until they’re certain of whether there’s an opposing initiative headed to the ballot.
But while this compromise ordinance with its long phase-in and its temporary tip credit certainly doesn’t meet the strict definition of $15 now, don’t think for a minute that most of these activists don’t recognize what a huge political victory this is, and how much better off millions of hard-working Americans would be if the rest of the nation followed our example.
I bet they sang “The Internationale” at the party.
@1 Probably not. But it’s a rousing song.
@1 That’s only at our national conferences, drunken reveille is usually stuff with easier lyrics. I prefer Guthrie’s “All you Fascists are Bound to Lose”.
Or if in a mood for funk, “Papa was a Running Dog Lackey of the Bourgeoise.”
Yippee for Seattle’s new Communist heroine!!!…sad.
I read a book about a sit-in at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. They were going to sing “Solidarity Forever” but nobody knew the words so they sang “Yellow Submarine” instead. I see this as an example of a sensible compromise.
@5 I find it interesting you call a Socialist a Communist. Is that because you are too brain dead to know the difference? Or are you like all the others on your side purposely conflating the two because Socialism is not the evil empire that Communism is?
The odds of this going to ballot are small. This is clean-up work. They’re rightly just being cautious to keep both Council and their opponents honest and ensure everyone honors the compromise that passed committee yesterday. They’ll drop the ballot measure once passage is completely assured. The city’s progressive movement is passionate, but not crazy. Or at least I’d like to think so.
They’ll get a LOT more done if they just take this victory, put it in their back pocket, and take the huge forward momentum they have and refocus it onto a new policy initiative. They’re in diminishing returns territory with the $15 minimum wage.
@7 Communists like Sawant just wear the Socialist title as a mask.
Next on the list can be the Port of Seattle and the 5,000 employees who make less than $15 working at their facilities.
@1, 5 & 9 Our version of capitalism is almost the same as the Soviets version of communism . The elite run & own everything and the proletariat (most of us) get squat.
@11, LOL…no.
@9 Jackasses like you just poop out of their mouths.
This is a great start.
Now on to rent control.
A lot of rentier class members are going to want to sop up that extra money flowing around.
The struggle continues.