Workers rally for a living wage in New York City, November 11, 2015. (AP Photo / Seth Wenig)
On November 11, 2015, Michelle Chen writes on The Nation:
e’ve come a long way since that crisp November day three years ago when a small group of New York City fast-food workers launched a strikewith the slogan “Fast Food Forward.” Today, the movement continues its forward march with the viral hashtag #FightFor15. On November 10, workers in hundreds of cities again went on strike and rallied, this time with an especially militant overtone, timed to launch a year-long campaign to foreground low-wage workers’ issues in the elections.
Tuesday’s protests, supported chiefly by the SEIU with backing from an array of community and labor groups, showed how many methods of raising wageshave made gains—through legislation, voter referenda, grassroots labor pressure—or even administrative intervention, such as New York’s Governor Cuomo’s two major executive-led wage hikes.
But more importantly, the efforts reveal why none of these measures add up yet to structural economic change.
In Seattle and Los Angeles, which got to $15 wages by legislation, and San Francisco, which voted for a raise via ballot initiative, municipalities face new challenges in labor enforcement in sectors that have traditionally had little oversight. On the upside, as other cities lean toward $15 an hour, concurrent local policy discussions have emerged around systemic worker empowerment, such as proposals for fair scheduling and paid sick days to improve workers’ overall economic stability.
And the executive actions in New York—along with new collective-bargaining agreements raising wages for home health aides in Massachusetts and Oregon—show grassroots pressure can spur reforms through administrative measures that might otherwise stagnate in legislatures. Governor Cuomo’s new executive action will boost wages for about 10,000 workers in state government offices and executive agencies. The move may serve as a prelude to Cuomo’s push for statewide legislation that will vie with a similar initiative in California for the first statewide $15 wage floor (a refreshing upward competition, after years of employers racing to the bottom in wages and labor standards).
But the Fight for $15 has so far probably done more to shed light on the crisis of economic inequality than it has to actually improve wages directly on a wide scale. New research shows much more than wage hikes is needed to build a sustainable jobs for low-wage workers.
According to the think tank National Employment Law Project, over four in 10 workers nationwide earn less than $15 per hour. Food services have the greatest percentage of ultra-low-wage earners of any industry, with a whopping 96 percent of fast-food workers earning sub-$15 wages. About 3 million cashiers and 2 million retail sales people—a large chunk working for some of the world’s most lucrative chains—currently earn less than $15 an hour. That wage is roughly the bare minimum needed to live decently anywhere in the country.
But more disturbingly, low wages are a symptom of more systemic, structural oppression across the labor force. Ultimately, while policies to raise hourly pay have drawn populist energy, they will not directly improve the lot of workers stuck in the informal economy, undocumented laborers, people who are part-time and erratically employed, or those trapped in jobs where wage theft and overtime violations are rife.
The New York wage board’s fast-track raise for fast-food workers is limited as well. A careful analysis by the Century Foundation found that—in contrast with rosier projections by the governor’s office—the $15 wage floor is structured so narrowly it reaches just a tiny fraction of low-wage New Yorkers; the estimated 94,000 fast food–chain workers covered by the wage standard represent “just 3 percent of its sub-$15 workforce, and a scant 1.2 percent of its overall workforce.”
Incremental victories aside, the concrete effect of the Fight for $15 is more subtle, equipping many workers with the organizing tools to push their own agenda, which now touches on social-justice issues beyond wages.
The other goal of the labor campaign, unionization, remains a distant prospect for poor workers. Despite some victories before the National Labor Relations Board that ease restrictions on organizing, unions are still hugely impeded by outsourcing and casualization of low-wage jobs and corporate deregulation.
And the intensifying political debate over wage inequality opens another debate around the disproportionate impoverishment of black and Latino workers. Rahel Mekdim Teka of the Black Youth Project 100, described the racial overtones of the crisis at Tuesday’s Fight for 15 rally in downtown Manhattan.
“I know and have witnessed firsthand that low wages are a form of violence,”she said. In marginalized communities, “how can we grow and how can we dream of a better future, if we’re working full time and unable to make ends meet, unable to provide for our children, and unable to pay rent?”
The gender dimension of the Fight for 15 is also instructive for the labor movement. It’s no coincidence much of the mobilization comes from two woman-dominated occupations: childcare workers and home health aides, nearly 90 percent of whom make under $15 per hour. They’re joining the fight to call attention to the overlooked value of their work as caregivers—a side of the economy that needs to be uplifted for consumers and providers, to foster community stability across generations.
As Atlanta childcare worker Dawn O’Neal explained ahead of Tuesday’s protests, their fight is not just for economic survival but for solutions to the inequality dividing communities. She’s observed how affluent communities that she’s encountered as an educator are self-sufficient and able to provide the safe, stable households and healthy neighborhoods that aren’t accessible to families like hers, “They’re able to give back,” she told The Nation. “But here we are, and we’re struggling.… we can’t afford to take care of ourselves, let alone put anything back into our own community.” With so many working parents depending on public benefits, “there’s no reason for us to be working 40 to 60 hours a week and have to go back to the government and say, ‘We need this.’”
So now the Fight for $15 isn’t telling politicians what they need, but what their families deserve and demand. By tying workers’ economic aspirations to the horizon of political change, they proclaim that the fight is not about the money: It’s about the dignity of earning, and of giving, their fair share.
http://www.thenation.com/article/almost-half-of-all-american-workers-make-less-than-15-an-hour/
The REAL focus should by on a LIVABLE INCOME, which is much more than income sourced from ONLY one’s labor input. By that I mean, one source of input is human (and thus employment enables one to earn wages or a salary) and the other source of input is non-human (what economists call capital assets OWNED by people who apply these assets as productive inputs in the workings of an economy). The wealthy ownership class is wealthy by definition because they OWN capital wealth assets that create their wealth valuation and produce a dividend or capital gains income as well as accumulated wealth value.
Yet, Americans, when addressing economic inequality and the necessity to raise the minimum wage, are singularly focused on JOBS, and essentially oblivious to the necessity to empower EVERY child, woman, and man to become a capital wealth OWNER. In the meantime, the wealthy ownership class has rigged the system so that they are ensured of OWNING the future, as well as the present.
The truth is that by simultaneously growing the economy (expanded productive capital assets) and creating NEW capital OWNERS, people would become richer with more disposable money that can be used for consumption to create demand for continued growth, without taking anything away from those who already OWN and without fueling inflation. Over time this means that because the economy now would dramatically expand NEW jobs would result in the short-term, and people would have been able to build a viable, diversified portfolio of OWNERSHIP shares in the corporations growing the economy for long term perpetual income, equity value, and financial retirement security.
What is the REAL solution? Implement the proposed Capital Homestead Act (also known as the Economic Democracy Act), which establishes a Capital Homestead Account (CHA) for EVERY child, woman, and man who is a citizen of the United States. Even with the poor, anemic performance of the American economy, at 2 percent or so of GDP (Gross Domestic Product––the monetary value of all the finished products and services produced within a country’s borders on an annual basis) that would support extending $7,000 of interest-free capital credit to EVERY child, woman, and man in their own personal CHA, regardless of their personal finances. At minimum, this amount would be available EVERY year and actually grow in magnitude simultaneously with the accelerated growth of the economy as more business growth occurs and jobs result, producing “customers with money” to further create demand for the products and services the economy is capable of producing. Capital investments generally pay for themselves within a 3 to 7 year window, and once paid for continue to generate income for their OWNERS indefinitely with proper maintenance and with restoration in the technical sense through research and development. Such compounding over a lifetime would produce a secure retirement and second income in addition to ANY income earned elsewhere, including wages.
The immediate effects of a CHA should be felt within 18 to 24 months — but not because of the dividends, but the effect on “job creation.”
This is because forming a couple trillion dollars worth of new capital will result in new jobs, which will trigger new demand as workers spend their income, and thus more jobs to meet the new demand. The direct effects of a CHA will be felt within 7 years (or sooner) . . . the length of time (estimated) needed to repay the first round of new capital completely and apply the full stream of dividends to consumption instead of debt service . . . which will create yet more demand and thus result in more job creation.
The first year of a Capital Homesteading program will focus first on the enormous number of projects that must be undertaken regardless of the cost of financing. This appears to be around $2 trillion. (Strictly speaking, Capital Homesteading “pure credit” financing would be interest-free, although not cost-free, as a small administration fee would be applicable so banks would manage the account).
Next in line would be those projects that have been in abeyance due solely to lack of available financing at a reasonable cost. This could be considered “additional investment” — but is it really? Let’s assume it is, since it’s above the bare minimum. While there are no solid figures for this, let’s assume that it’s roughly half of the amount of the “must be undertaken” projects, or $1 trillion. Just to be ultra-conservative, let’s include in that replacement capital that managers have realized will be cheaper financed with pure credit and the cash they’ve been retaining for replacement that belongs to the shareholders (OWNERS) can be paid out to the shareholders.
Thus, hypothetically, the additional new capital increment would increase the amount of new capital formation from $2 to $3 trillion.
As can be seen, the economic benefits of a Capital Homesteading program would begin immediately, as soon as the workers forming the new capital get paid. Once the initial loans are paid back, there would be another infusion of consumption income into the economy due to freeing up cash formerly used for debt service. This would increase by the same amount every year, everything else being equal.
All the loans would have to be paid back, in full, for the system to work, with capital credit insurance and reinsurance provided by a government reinsurance agency (ala the Federal Housing Administration concept) to repay the loans for failed projects. As for working capital and R&D — those are, technically, a capital item and an expense, respectively. If more cash is needed for operations, the company should issue and sell new shares, not retain earnings or use corporate debt, neither of which creates any new capital owners.
In other words, we need to shift to an OWNERSHIP CULTURE with the focus on policies and programs that ALWAYS expand capital ownership opportunities for the people, not collectively, but as individual participants and financial beneficiaries.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/. See http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/.
