UPDATED: Model Resolution to Defend Seattle's Historic Minimum Wage Victory - August 28, 2024
Earlier this summer, Seattle’s Democrats, led by District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth proposed anti-worker, anti-union legislation attacking our historic $15/hour minimum wage victory. It would've frozen a lower-tier minimum wage for well over 200,000 workers, denying them at least $3/hour of wages starting next year!
Workers Strike Back, rank-and-file union members, working people, and socialists organized, and forced Hollingsworth and her fellow Democrats to temporarily back off. But they and the big business interests they serve have made it clear they aren’t done trying to undermine Seattle’s hard-won, highest-in-the-nation minimum wage (currently at nearly $20/hour), despite the brutal ongoing housing affordability and cost of living crisis.
We cannot let the City Council get away with any attack on our minimum wage victory. because if we let them, they will be emboldened to attack the $15 victory in other cities across the nation, and the unprecedented renter victories we won in Seattle during Kshama’s decade as a socialist City Councilmember. Workers and the labor movement everywhere need to fight to defend the gains we have won in wages, renters’ rights, and taxes on big business.
If you are a rank-and-file union member, please consider putting this resolution forward in your union, and help us fight back! WFSE Local 889 has already passed such a resolution! Contact Workers Strike Back for more information at solidarity@workersstrikeback.org.
Resolution:
WHEREAS: Ten years ago in 2014, Seattle became the first major city to win the historic $15/hour minimum wage. With inflation adjustment, Seattle’s minimum wage is now at nearly $20/hour, making it the nation’s highest major-city minimum wage. This unprecedented victory was made possible by a united coalition of the labor movement, working people, socialists, and the 15 NOW movement, led by socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant;
AND WHEREAS: This sparked movements for a $15/hour minimum wage across the country, which led to gains at city and state levels in a breakthrough for low-paid workers, benefiting tens of millions of workers nationwide;
AND WHEREAS: At the time, big business won a phase-in period of ten years for businesses with 500 or fewer employees, who have received a lower-tier minimum wage. This corporate loophole was opposed by the 15 NOW movement, which advocated for raising all workers’ wages at the same rate, and tax big businesses like Amazon to subsidize small businesses who needed support;
AND WHEREAS: Earlier this summer, Democratic Party City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth brought forward an anti-worker, anti-union bill, which would permanently enshrine the lower-tier minimum wage for well over 200,000 workers, denying them at least $3/hour of wages starting next year. If this bill, or a similar bill, is allowed to pass, it would be a continuation of the divisive corporate assault on working-class living standards. The creation of two-tier wage scales has been a scourge to the labor movement that workers at UPS, the Big Three automakers, and elsewhere have fought to end, including by waging historic strike action;
AND WHEREAS: Councilmember Hollingsworth was forced to temporarily withdraw her bill only because of public pressure from Workers Strike Back, Restaurant Workers United, rank-and-file labor union members, and former Councilmember Kshama Sawant;
AND WHEREAS: If Seattle City Council truly wanted to protect small businesses, they would have passed commercial rent control in Washington, which was brought forward by Councilmember Sawant in 2023, but was voted down by the City Council Democrats;
AND WHEREAS: Working-class solidarity is a founding principle of the labor movement, as our banners proudly declare: An Injury To One Is An Injury To All;
AND WHEREAS: It is imperative that workers and the labor movement be fully aware that Councilmember Hollingsworth has only temporarily withdrawn the bill, and has said she will seek a “new approach” on the legislation. City Council Democrats will return with attacks on the minimum wage as well as other workers’ and renters’ rights;
AND WHEREAS: Workers and the labor movement cannot allow big business and corporate landlords to carry out any attack on the minimum wage or on other crucial gains won by Seattle’s working people. If we let them attack Seattle’s $15 victory, they will be emboldened to attack the $15 minimum wage victories won by the labor movement in other cities across the nation. Furthermore, the current City Councilmembers in Seattle have also vowed to go after renters’ rights laws won over the last decade, including the winter and school-year eviction moratoriums, which Seattle unions helped fight to win and which we must fight to defend;
AND WHEREAS: Councilmember Hollingsworth, the sponsor of the withdrawn bill, and most other City Councilmembers, were endorsed by the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council in the 2023 City Council election, and also received financial donations from labor unions, and the labor movement needs to hold elected officials accountable to working people.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: _____ will stand in solidarity with minimum-wage workers and oppose any future attacks on our minimum wage;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: _______ will call on the City Council to stop their attacks on renters and working people, knowing that a loss of any of these protections would be devastating for _______ members, hundreds of thousands of other working people in Seattle, and for millions of workers across the country, and our union will make clear that any Councilmember who supports attacks on workers needs to face political consequences from the labor movement.
AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED: ________ will join other working people in rallying and organizing against any future attacks on the minimum wage, will organize union members and representatives to attend City Hall public comment periods to speak out forcefully against such attacks, and will mobilize our members to such actions through email, social media, announcements at membership meetings, and other union communication.