This article originally appeared in ILCA
Online, a publication of the International Labor Communications
Association.
If
George W. Bush finishes a second term and avoids adjusting the federal
minimum wage, we will have completed an 11-year record stretch without
any adjustment. The previous record of nine years was brought to
us by Ronald Reagan. The current federal minimum wage of $5.15 per
hour is over 40 percent below the 1968 level adjusted for inflation. A
fulltime worker taking no vacation or holidays and earning the federal
minimum wage earns 55 percent of the federal poverty line for a family
of four and a much smaller percentage of what it takes to actually
pay the rent and basic living expenses in most parts of the country. Such
a worker qualifies for much of what remains of public support and
assistance, placing the burden on taxpayers to pick up where employers
fail to pay a living wage.
The states aren't taking this attack on
their citizens' living standards lying down. The living wage movement
is moving to the state level. After winning living wage laws in
123 cities and counties (laws that mandate higher minimums for certain
categories of workers) and city-wide minimum wage hikes covering
all workers in four cities (D.C., Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Madison),
the campaign for decent wage standards has shifted the battleground
to the state level.
Thirty-one of the 50 states, plus the District
of Columbia, have either set a minimum wage higher than the federal
level of $5.15 per hour, or have had bills introduced in their legislatures
this year that would do so.
Fourteen of these, plus D.C., have already
created minimum wage levels higher than the federal, or – in the
case of Florida – have put the law on the books though it has yet
to take effect. Three of these 14 (WA, OR, FL) have indexed their
minimum wage levels to automatically increase each year with the
cost of living, thus eliminating the need for an annual campaign
to prevent the minimum wage from losing value. Five of the fourteen
(MA, CA, CT, HI, VT) also have bills in their legislatures that would
further increase their minimum wages.
Of the 17 states that do not yet have higher
minimum wages but have had bills introduced this year, two (WY, ND)
have already seen those bills defeated. Bills in some other states
have a good chance of succeeding. Three that are almost certain
to fail (AZ, OH, MI) are in states where activist campaigns led by
the community group ACORN along with labor and other allies, are
fully committed to gathering the signatures needed to force the issue
onto a ballot initiative in 2006. The voters in Nevada, like those
in Florida, passed a minimum wage increase by ballot initiative last
November which included indexing to the cost of living, but initiatives
in Nevada must be passed twice. The second vote, which is expected
to succeed, will come in 2006.
The movement for a fair wage has moved to
the state level in part because no one expects action out of Washington
as long as Republicans control the Congress and the White House. Another
factor is the success of living wage efforts at the local level. There
aren't very many big cities left to win a living wage ordinance in. Only
four passed them in 2004, bringing the total to 123. But at least
as big a factor as these is the approach that the opposition has
taken. As a result chiefly of lobbying and campaign contributions
from hotels and restaurants, and the "think tanks" they
fund, eight states have banned city-level minimum wage laws. It's
nine if we include Missouri, which is in dispute. The other eight
are Arizona, Louisiana, Colorado, and Texas, plus two that also ban
local living wage laws (UT, SC) and two that at least have state-level
laws, making the ban on local laws less damaging, (OR, FL).
Before focusing so heavily on the state
level, the living wage movement took the step three years ago of
campaigning for city-wide minimums. After a campaign led by ACORN
and SEIU Local 100 passed an initiative to create a minimum wage
for New Orleans, the Louisiana Supreme Court threw it out. So the
living wage coalition there began working on state legislation. But
other cities picked up where New Orleans had shown the way. An ACORN-led
campaign in San Francisco has just created a minimum wage there,
and activists are now pushing for the same in Berkeley, Oakland,
and Emeryville. Coalitions in Madison, Wis., and Santa Fe, N.M.,
have also won city-wide minimums. The opposition in New Mexico is
attempting to eliminate the Santa Fe ordinance at the state level
by banning all local minimum wage laws. Labor and community groups,
including ACORN, are fighting that effort at the state level while
simultaneously campaigning for a citywide minimum in Albuquerque.
The new focus on the state level includes
an effort to make state minimum wages as lasting as most living wage
ordinances, by indexing them to the cost of living. Indexing is
a goal of state campaigns in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland,
among other states, according to Jen Kern, Director of ACORN's Living
Wage Resource Center.
The state-level fight also allows the expansion
of decent wage levels to more "red states." Nevada voters
last November chose both the most anti-labor president ever to occupy
the White House and an increase in the state minimum wage.
There are signs that leaders in the Democratic
Party are noticing. Senator Edward Kennedy, who has introduced a
bill that would raise the federal minimum to $7.25 by 2007, will
speak at ACORN's upcoming annual legislative conference about the
need to win higher minimum wages at the state level. And former
Senator John Edwards recently met with ACORN and committed to working
to support these state campaigns. If these efforts result in a distinct
message for the Democratic Party as the party that can see beyond
the selfish interests of robber barons, the living wage movement
might just jump to the national level. And so might the Democratic
Party.
David Swanson was communications coordinator
for ACORN from 2000 to 2003 and is now media coordinator for the
International Labor Communications Association.