Despite being given the largest state tax break in U.S. history, Boeing is shipping jobs out of the state. One guy that nobody listened to predicted it.
New Mayor Ed Murray says, “We know it is not a matter of if we get to $15 per hour, but when and how we get there.” All nine city council members publicly endorse the concept. But underneath the apparent consensus are differences on what $15 means and how long it should take. So labor and community groups in Seattle are mobilizing to hold the council’s feet to the fire—and to get the job done by ballot initiative if the council compromises too far.
In the years since the destruction of the occupations, the critique of inequality has only broadened and deepened in the U.S. Occupy should claim credit for getting it on the map, while political iterations old and new have been keeping it there. Today, the fight against inequality is taking greater institutional shape, and seemingly exerting more leverage, in places inspired by Occupy but moving beyond its initial tactics.
Washington raised the minimum wage in 1998 linking it to inflation. In the 15 years that followed, the state's minimum wage climbed to $9.32 - highest in the country. Meanwhile job growth continued at an average 0.8 percent annual pace, 0.3 percentage point above the national rate. Payrolls at Washington's restaurants and bars, portrayed as particularly vulnerable to higher wage costs, expanded by 21 percent.
Poverty has trailed the U.S. level for at least seven years
The full text of the new Seattle city council member's inauguration speech. Despite recent talk of economic growth, it has only been a recovery for the richest 1%, while the rest of us are falling ever farther behind. To begin to change all of this, we need organized mass movements of workers and young people, relying on their own independent strength. That is how we won unions, civil rights and LGBTQ rights.
Socialists in Seattle: Kshama Sawant's Campaign Assistant Anh Tran interviewed by Andrew Sernatinger and Tessa Echeverria
The Machinists’ vote assures the 777x will be built here, but also affirms the company’s hard-nosed negotiating tactics with labor and elected officials.
With 51 percent of the 24,000 or so local machinists who voted saying yes to the pact, Boeing's " 'best and final' offer [now] guarantees assembly of the next 777 widebody jet and the fabrication of the plane's carbon-fiber wing" will be done at plants in the Puget Sound region.
It was clear from the beginning national IAM officials were upset with the Nov 13 overwhelming rejection of their deal with Boeing and they seemed to be making the point more emphatically by ordering a new vote. Obviously disappointed with the national leadership, a longtime IAM member told me “this rushed vote is not right,” and pointed out “35% of our members are on vacation during this period,” unable to get the information and participate in a democratic discussion
Raising the floor for our lowest-paid workers is an absolute necessity, and continued victories in this area should be a priority for workers everywhere. However, these victories are not enough by themselves. For community-labor coalitions to reach their full potential, they must go beyond the political agenda that Richard Trumka outlined prior to the AFL-CIO’s convention. They must also be able to defend the gains that unionized workers have already won.
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