US: Fight for $15 minimum wage heats up in Seattle

US: The fight for $15 minimum wage heats up in Seattle

Across the US low-wage workers are rising up, protesting, and striking for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Seattle is poised in 2014 to be the first major US city to win $15. Voters in SeaTac, a small city outside Seattle, recently passed a ballot initiative for $15.

A leader in the fight for $15 in Seattle, Kshama Sawant, shocked the corporate elite by winning a City Council seat in Seattle as a Socialist Alternative (co-thinkers of the Socialist Party in the US) candidate. Newly elected Mayor Ed Murray has also declared his support for $15.

But big business will not let this pass without a fight. They will mobilise their resources to derail, delay, and dilute efforts to end the poverty wages that are the source of their profits.

The only way we can counter the power of corporate America is by building a massive grassroots campaign with local neighbourhood and campus groups, town hall meetings, mass rallies, and strikes.

Kshama Sawant and a growing list of workers, unions, and activists, have come together to form 15 Now to organise this movement.

15 Now is currently centred in Seattle – where the fight for 15 has the best immediate prospects – but we aim to build a nationwide movement.

A victory in Seattle in 2014 would open the floodgates for working people to demand $15 in cities across the country.

To lay the basis for a serious campaign, we are launching an appeal for 1,000 people to donate $15 a month. 15 Now will be holding a rally for $15 on Sunday 12 January.

This year’s inauguration ceremony, which took place on 6 January, was Seattle’s biggest ever, largely because of the interest in Kshama’s victory. 2,000 people had expressed an interest in attending the event, which Kshama used to explain the huge significance of her election.