AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced today that they would chair a 2016 initiative campaign to raise the minimum wage in America's mega-state to $15 by 2021. Signatures are currently being collected to qualify the measure, which was initiated by SEIU and has been endorsed by more than 100 other organizations, for the November '16 ballot. The measure would raise the statewide minimum to $11 by 2017 and by a dollar a year thereafter until 2021, after which it would be indexed to the annual cost of living increase. A recent survey by the Field Poll (whose track record makes it perhaps the nation's most accurate) found 68 percent support among California voters for such a measure.
California, it's worth remembering, is home to one-out-of-eight Americans, and, given the disproportionate number of low-wage workers who live there, a large number of them are set to benefit directly. In other words, the initiative is a very big deal.
Raise-the-wage advocates in Portland, Maine, kicked off their campaign yesterday to pass a ballot initiative that would raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years. Tipped workers' wages would be $3.75 less. As the Portland Press Herald reports, this wage plan is a significant improvement over that of Portland's mayor, who proposes an increase to $10.68 by next year, with future hikes indexed to inflation. The city's tipped workers, however, would continue earning a base pay of $3.25 an hour.
Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed plan to raise New York's minimum wage to $15 an hour-following his hike for the state's fast food workers-may be soon run into a predictable political roadblock: the Republican-controlled state senate. The New York Daily News highlights the State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan's skeptical attitude. Still, the majority leader didn't rule out a statewide $15 minimum. In what might be seen as a cross-aisle compromise, Cuomo has said that he'd consider a small business tax credit.
In exchange for support from progressives in his 2014 reelection, Cuomo promised to help flip the senate back to Democratic control. He failed to come through on that promise, and now those very same progressive organizations are pushing him to pass a $15 state minimum.
Next door in New Jersey, the minimum wage debate is moving forward, too. The county board for Essex County passed a resolution urging state lawmakers to pass a $15 minimum wage. The current minimum is $8.38-voters approved a referendum in 2013 to raise the wage by one dollar.
Following New York's lead, worker advocates in Little Rock, Arkansas, have convened a wage board of their own that is looking into passing a $15 minimum in the state's largest city. Arkansas was one of a number of red states to pass a minimum wage hike through referendum in 2014.
And in Missouri, the wage war rages on. This week, the court duel over the legality of a new St. Louis minimum wage continues.
The Endorsement Endgame
Unions' presidential endorsements continue to be a flashpoint for political drama. Last week, it was reported that the biggest labor union in the country, the National Education Association, was close to endorsing Hillary Clinton. That became a reality late Saturday afternoon when leadership announced that the three-million-member union would be backing Clinton for president. This marks the second major education union to endorse the former secretary of state-the American Federation of Teachers was the first union to endorse her a couple months back.
Nearly every union endorsement for Clinton has garnered a considerable amount of rank-and-file backlash who argue that leadership hasn't taken member support for Bernie Sanders into account. The NEA endorsement has been no different. Many have expressed concern over her close relationships to education reform advocates like Eli Broad, who, as the Prospect's Rachel Cohen recently reported, is pushing for a charter takeover of Los Angeles public schools.
Still, Clinton has run into some problems bolstering her union support. Politico reported a couple weeks ago that AFSCME and SEIU are holding off on endorsements, allegedly at least in part because of a possible Joe Biden candidacy. SEIU, however, has firmly pushed back on that notion, saying that its endorsement process is still underway and Biden has no bearing on its timeline.
Last Friday, though, another politically powerful union-the International Association of Firefighters-said it is backing away from an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, citing a lack of support from both leadership and the rank-and-file. Union leadership suggested that there would be much more support for Biden if he were to run.
Digital Fronts
The editorial staff at Al-Jazeera America (AJAM) voted to unionize today. The effort is just the latest in a slew of digital media workers who are seeking to get organized in a traditionally unorganized sector. Roughly 40 staffers held a card check and sought voluntary recognition from AJAM; however, management refused to recognize the union.
Ariana Huffington, president and co-founder of digital news giant The Huffington Post, told CNN Money that she supports her employees' right to unionize and that management would support any decision that its workers make. Editorial staffers have reportedly been in talks with organizers from the Writers Guild of America, East, which also represents Vice Media, Gawker, Salon, and the Guardian US.
Playing Politics
A proposed ordinance that would help on-demand drivers for companies like Uber unionize passed unanimously in a Seattle City Council committee, and looks likely to pass in the entire Council as well. The ordinance gives independent contractors the right to bargain collectively under the jurisdiction of the city. Independent contractors are specifically excluded from the collective-bargaining guarantees of the National Labor Relations Act, as are public employees and agricultural and domestic workers-groups that have secured collective bargaining rights under the jurisdiction of states and municipalities.
The theory behind the proposed Seattle ordinance is that states and municipalities can vest independent contractors with those rights as well. Both proponents and opponents of the measure anticipate that the courts will have to rule on this groundbreaking proposal should it become law.
Last week, hundreds of small business owners descended on Capitol Hill in a massive lobbying effort to overturn the NLRB's recent joint-employer standard that could put such parent corporations as McDonald's on the legal hook for franchise workers. As The Hill reported, the lobbying swarm was led by the International Franchise Association, which is vehemently opposed to the board's ruling and possible implications it could have for the franchise business model.
The Association and business owners asked more than 100 legislators-with a concentrated effort on Democrats-to support the Protecting Our Local Business Act, a bill designed to nullify the NLRB's ruling.
This afternoon, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Mark Pocan introduced legislation that would ease the path to unionization through the card check process.
And tomorrow, the White House will hold a Summit on Worker Voice, which will reportedly focus on ways to increase access to collective bargaining and new forms of worker organizing.
Tidbits
California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law today legislation that aims to close the gender pay disparity, with supporters calling it one of the strongest laws of its kind. The law gives workers the right to compare wages and salaries without retribution.
UAW and Fiat Chrysler have resumed contract talks after UAW members rejected the first contract agreement.
A new report shows that 56 percent of hourly employees receive their schedules less than a week in advance.
Adjuncts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore won a union contract, a notable success for the SEIU Local 500 as it expands its organizing campaign outside of D.C.
Legislation was introduced in the D.C. city council that would institute 16 weeks of paid family leave for all workers.
At The Prospect…
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Hillary is closely courting labor. So how's the courtship going? Well it's rather complicated, writes Justin Miller. Read more…
