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Minimum Wage

Washington Supreme Court Rules For $15 An Hour At SeaTac

August 23, 2015 Andrew Villeneuve, www.nwprogressive.org , ,
By Andrew Villeneuve for the Northwest Progressive - Workers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport must be paid a minimum wage of $15/hour in accordance with the City of SeaTac’s Good Jobs law (Proposition #1, enacted by voters in 2013) the Washington State Supreme Court ruled today. In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Susan Owens, the Court held the airport is not exempt from the law, even though it is administered by the Port of Seattle. The Court’s decision – a remarkable dismissal of all the issues raised by the business groups opposed to the law – is a significant victory for Washington State’s labor movement and will result in many more workers receiving badly needed wage increase and additional protections while on the job. Because the City of SeaTac’s interpretation of the state laws governing ports has prevailed, workers earning the lower minimum wage set by the Port of Seattle will see their pay go up. That’s a victory to be celebrated.

Is Seattle Min. Wage Law Really “Off To A Bad Start” For Restaurants?

August 19, 2015 Sara Jones, www.seattle.eater.com , , ,
By Sara Jones in Seattle Eater - This past Sunday, conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute reported that 1,300 Seattle restaurant jobs were lost between January to June of this year, the largest number lost in that span since the Great Recession of 2009. It uses this "negative effect" to make the bold suggestion that Seattle's new minimum wage law is "getting off to a pretty bad start." Eater dug deeper into the data that AEI used and pulled out some other statistics you may want to consider before coming to a conclusion about the new law. For starters, while reporting the loss of 1,300 jobs from January to June, AEI fails to note that employment actually increased by 800 people from May to June, leaving the overall industry employment just 200 people short of levels when the first wage hike went into effect on April 1.

University Of California Raising Minimum Wage To $15 An Hour

July 26, 2015 Staff, www.AP.org , ,
By Staff for Associated Press - Protests by Workers and Students Pay Off with $15 an hour Victory The movement to raise the minimum wage across the U.S. gained ground Wednesday with the huge University of California system announcing plans to increase base pay for its employees and contract workers to $15 an hour over the next two years. The move follows similar steps by local governments to give employees what activists call a "living wage." Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have all approved phased-in increases that eventually will take their minimum wage to $15 an hour, or about $31,200 for a full-time job. UC President Janet Napolitano said that as California's third-largest employer, the university should be taking the lead in ensuring its lowest-paid workers make decent wages. UC has 10 campuses, including UCLA and Berkeley, nearly 240,000 students and a staff of 195,000.

NY Moves Toward $15 Minimum Wage For Fast Food Workers

July 23, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org , , ,
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance - The raising of the minimum wage in New York for fast food workers is a hard won victory of workers and their allies. As Huffington Post reported: "We did it," Jorel Ware, a member of Fight for $15 and a McDonald's worker from the Bronx, said at a press conference after the hearing. "The Fight for $15 has shown me what's possible when workers stick together." Of the wage board, Ware added, "I want to thank them for understanding what it's like to live in poverty." Under pressure from progressives, Cuomo ordered the state's labor commissioner to convene the wage board earlier this year and asked its members to determine an appropriate statewide wage for the fast-food industry. A press release from the Fight for $15 declared: "When the Board’s three members announced their $15 decision to a packed hearing in Lower Manhattan, workers erupted in cheers, chanting, “We work, we sweat, put $15 in our check.”

LA’s New Minimum Wage Isn’t Worth Anywhere Close To $15

May 23, 2015 Ben Casselman, www.fivethirtyeight.com , , ,
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to nearly $10 an hour. Oh, sure, the headlines in Wednesday’s papers all said the council raised the wage floor to $15 an hour. That’s what the actual ordinance says, too. But $10 is a more accurate reflection of what low-wage Angelenos will actually experience. There are two reasons for this. The first is inflation: Los Angeles’s minimum wage won’t go up to $15 tomorrow. Instead, the hike will be phased in over the next five years. Assuming inflation holds more or less steady, $15 an hour in 2020 will be worth the equivalent of about $13.75 today. But the bigger issue is that $15 doesn’t go as far in Los Angeles as it does in most of the rest of the country. Not even close. According to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, it costs workers about 40 percent more to live in Los Angeles than in the average American community.

Largest Ever Worker Mobilization In US On Tax Day

April 14, 2015 Fight For 15, www.popularresistance.org ,
On Tax Day, fast-food workers from Pittsburgh to Pasadena will walk off the job, while adjunct professors, home care, child care, airport, industrial laundry and Walmart workers will march and rally in what will be the most widespread mobilization ever by U.S. workers seeking higher pay. The two-and-a-half-year-old Fight for $15 will go to college, with protests expected by students from 200 campuses. Activists organizing around #BlackLivesMatter will join in as the ties between the racial and economic justice movements deepen. And the marches and rallies will stretch around the globe, with protests expected in more than 100 cities, in 35 countries, on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo. The first global strikes coordinated with U.S. workers are scheduled for Italy and New Zealand.

Connecticut Bill Would Fine Corporations For Low Wages

April 14, 2015 Nina Liss-Schultz, www.rhrealitycheck.org , ,
Connecticut lawmakers are moving forward with a proposal that could effectively raise the minimum wage of many of the state’s low-wage workers to $15 an hour. The bill, SB 1044, would subject for-profit companies with 500 or more employees to a fine for every employee who is paid less than $15 an hour, essentially forcing those companies to raise wages or pay if they refuse. The bill would be the first of its kind in the country. Connecticut has in the past few years enacted other first-of-its-kind laws to support low-wage workers in the state, among them a 2011 law mandating paid sick leave for the hundreds of thousands of service employees in the state.

Small Percentage Of McDonald’s Workers Get Pay Raise

April 2, 2015 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org , , , ,
McDonald's plans to raise the average pay of about 90,000 of the 750,000 McDonald's US workers to around $10 an hour, but the increase will not benefit workers at the vast majority of the restaurants, because they are operated by franchisees, who make their own wage decisions. The pay increase, for workers at roughly 1,500 company-owned U.S. restaurants, will take effect on July 1. Starting wages at the restaurants will move to $1 above the locally mandated minimum wage. Workers groups said the move by McDonald's, which is also adding benefits such as paid vacations, fell short of their goals. The raise is only at "company-owned restaurants," only about 10% of its 14,350 stores nationwide. The rest are owned by franchisees, who "operate their individual businesses and make their own decisions on pay and benefits for their employees." The National Labor Relations Board general counsel ruled differently on Dec. 19 that the Oak Brook, Ill., company "engages in sufficient control over its franchisees' operations...to make it a putative joint employer with its franchisees, sharing liability for violations of our Act."

‘Seattle Is Getting A Raise’ Victory March

March 29, 2015 Staff, www.popularresistance.org ,
Seattle, WA - More than 150 people gathered in front of Seattle Central College on Saturday, March 28 to celebrate an historic victory. On April 1, the minimum wage for Seattle workers is going up to either $10 r $11 per hour (depending on health benefits and tips), and by 2025 the minimum wage will be $15. Raising the minimum wage required a tremendous amount of organizing efforts and walkouts by workers at fast food residents. It is a feat that deserves celebrating, but passing the law was just the beginning. To make it effective, workers need to know their rights and employers have to follow the new law. So in addition to celebrating, the group marched through central Seattle and stopped at a number of restaurants along the way like Subway, Chipotle, Starbucks and IHOP.

Hundreds March In Atlanta Seeking Boost In Minimum Wage

March 23, 2015 Helena Oliviero, www.ajc.com , ,
Hundreds of people marched from Ebenezer Baptist Church to a McDonald’s restaurant a mile away Saturday afternoon demanding fast-food restaurants and other businesses lift the minimum wage. Carrying signs that said, “People and Planet over Profit,” the crowd of close to 500 flooded the fast-food restaurant. They chanted, “If we don’t get it, shut it down!” Robertson Anderson, 23, who has worked at McDonald’s for about two and a half years in the maintenance department was so moved, he walked off the job. Outside, he seemed visibly shaken, and he said he wasn’t sure whether he would return to his job.

Wal-Mart, Under Pressure, Boosts Wage To $9/hr

February 20, 2015 Sruthi Ramakrishnan and Nathan Layne, www.reuters.com , ,
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) said it would raise entry-level wages to $9 an hour, a 24 percent increase from the U.S. minimum wage that some employees now earn, succumbing to longstanding pressure to pay its workforce more. The world's largest retailer said the increases would cost it $1 billion and impact 500,000 employees, or about 40 percent of its workforce, although the hike falls short of what some labor groups have been agitating for. The move comes amid a growing debate in the U.S. over the widening gulf between the rich and low-income workers. Wal-Mart has been a prime target of critics who say its low-wages and inflexible scheduling are a big part of the problem. The White House praised the move, pointing out that 17 states have already moved to boost their minimum wages above the federal level of $7.25 an hour and renewing its call on the Republican Congress to boost the wage on a national level.

Increasing Wage To Poverty Wage Is Not Enough

January 27, 2015 LeeAnn Hall, www.otherwords.org , ,
On New Year’s Day, 20 states raised their minimum wages. That leaves a lot of states that aren’t increasing the minimum wage — along with the federal government. Even some of those employees who are getting increases don’t have much to celebrate. Workers in Florida might barely notice their 12-cents-an-hour raise. And the extra 15 cents an hour in Montana, Arizona, and Missouri will be wiped out with inflation and climbing costs before the first paycheck is deposited. U.S. legislators have refused since 2009 to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour — not even close to enough for full-time workers to make ends meet.

Newsletter: Breaking The Spell Of The Corporate State

January 10, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The democracy crisis grows deeper. Analysis of the mid-term elections shows voting levels lower than the era of Andrew Jackson, when the requirement of owning property to vote was removed. People are rejecting both political parties as 42% of Americans are registered independents compared to 30% Democrats and 25% Republicans. Nozomi Hayase writes people are breaking the spell of the corporate state, recognizing the elites who govern are not smarter than the rest of us, that they fit the characteristics of psychopaths for their endless war, debt-ponzi schemes and that the ongoing financial crisis exposes their agenda of hoarding wealth for themselves. At the same time Hayase writes: “Civil disobedience against the corporate state demands that we disobey their commands and instead begin listening to our hearts that know what is right and wrong.”

Minimum Wage To Increase By Not Enough In 20 States Today

January 2, 2015 Brendan O'Connor, www.gawker.com , ,
Minimum wage increases go into effect in 20 states today, bringing the total of states that exceed the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour to 29. The increases, of course, are marginal at best. New Jersey's minimum wage, for example, has increased to $8.38/hour from $8.25—a result of automatically adjusting for inflation. A report by the New Jersey Policy Perspective found that a "survival budget" in that state for a single person would require a wage of $13.78/hour. "That's going to be unnoticeable, really," Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, told the New York Times. "If you're talking about an increase of a buck or two bucks, then maybe there's some kind of noticeable effect."

Retailers Targeted In Price Tag Switch For Living Wage

December 28, 2014 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org , ,
Amid the hubbub of the holiday shopping season, activists in the United Kingdom have been surreptitiously calling on the nation's largest retailers to raise their wages and "stop scrooging" their employees. Activists with the campaign, which launched in early December and will continue through the New Years shopping rush, are replacing the price tags at Britain's most profitable chains with fake labels demanding corporate store owners adopt a live wage, which they estimate is £7.85 in the UK or £9.15 in London (which roughly equals $12.21 and $14.23). The national minimum wage in the UK is £6.50, or about $10, an hour. According to one of the campaign organizers, the UK-based group Share Action, retail is responsible for 28 percent of the more than 5 million workers in the UK who are paid less than a living wage.
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