Rolf - The fight for fifteen : the right wage for a working America

MORE PRAISE FOR THE FIGHT FOR FIFTEEN

David Rolf has helped put low-wage workers in Seattle at the forefront of a national movement for a $15 minimum wage; his forward thinking helped paved the way for some of the greatest progress toward addressing our nations growing income inequality that weve seen in decades.

Saru Jayaraman, author of Behind the Kitchen Door and co-founder of Restaurant Opportunity Centers United

David Rolf shows that raising the minimum wage to $15 is both just and necessary, lest the American dream of middle-class prosperity turn into a nightmare of enduring poverty for millions of workers in the bottom half of wage earners.

David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Fine Print and Free Lunch

David Rolf has become the most successful advocate for raising wages in the twenty-first century. Where others talk, David leads, and his book is an inside look at a campaign that has the potential to make work pay again.

Andy Stern, senior fellow at Columbia Universitys Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy and former president of the 2.2-million-member SEIU

David Rolfs first book is a call to action, reminding us that we define whats possible in politics, and that the future of the economy is at stake. If youre interested in what can actually be done about inequality, read this book.

Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America

David Rolf is the president of SEIU 775 and an international vice president of SEIU. He has led some of the largest organizing efforts since the 1930s, including the successful organization of 74,000 home care aides in Los Angeles and the campaigns to win $15 wages in SeaTac and Seattle. He lives in Seattle.

The views expressed in this book are the authors alone and not necessarily those of any organization with which he is or has been affiliated.

2016 by David Rolf

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Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2016 Distributed by Perseus Distribution

ISBN 978-1-62097-114-7 (e-book)

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There would be no Fight for $15 in America without the courage and leadership of the fast-food workers, airport workers, home care workers, child care workers, and retail workers who have had the courage to walk off the job to protest poverty wages and demand a union. This book is for them.

Table of Contents

Contents

Thanks, first, to Corrie Watterson Bryant, who took a leave of absence from her job as an SEIU 775 research analyst to do the difficult work of assisting and collaborating with me in all aspects of researching and writing this book; to my editor Marc Favreau, whose idea this book was; to my agent Rafe Sagalyn; and to the great teams at The New Press, ICM/Sagalyn, and SEIU, all of whom supported me through the writing, editing, and publishing process.

SEIU National elected leaders Mary Kay Henry and Mike Fishman, and staff leader Scott Courtney, have provided the nations most critical leadership in the Fight for $15. SEIU staffers Judy Scott and Inga Skippings generously offered to read and review this books manuscript and offer suggestions. John Sweeney and Andy Stern passed along a great, growing, and innovative union to todays leaders of SEIU.

SEIU 775 officers Adam Glickman and Sterling Harders were Fight for $15 leaders in their own right in SeaTac and Seattle. Together with the rest of the SEIU 775 executive board and staff, they also allowed me to spend the time necessary to complete this book, even when it meant juggling more responsibilities themselves.

Many public officials helped achieve $15 in SeaTac and in Seattle. In SeaTac this includes Congressman Adam Smith, King County executive Dow Constantine, King County council members Julia Patterson and Dave Upthegrove, State Senator Karen Kaiser, and State Representative Mia Gregerson. In Seattle, this includes Mayor Ed Murray, Seattle City Council members Sally Bagshaw, Tim Burgess, Sally Clark, Jean Godden, Bruce Harrell, Nick Licata, Mike OBrien, Tom Rasmussen, and Kshama Sawant. Seattles Income Inequality Advisory Committee members included co-chair Howard Wright, Janet Ali, Sarah Cherin, Maud Daudon, Craig Dawson, Bob Donegan, David Freiboth, Joe Fugere, Audrey Haberman, Nick Hanauer, Pramila Jayapal, Nicole Vallestero Keenan, Eric Liu, Gordon McHenry, Dave Meinert, Craig Schafer, Diane Sosne, David Watkins, Michael Wells, and Ron Wilkowski. City of Seattle staff and advisers who worked on the $15 wage policy included Brian Surratt, Robert Feldstein, Chris Gregorich, Carlo Caldirola-Davis, and John Howell.

In addition to those already listed, the following low-wage worker activists, leaders, organizers, and campaign advisers each played an important role in fighting for $15 in Seattle and/or SeaTac: Imam Ahmed M. Abdulkadir, Abdirahman Abdullahi, Samatar Abdullahi, Mahad Aden, Ubah Aden, Yusur Aden, Habiba Ali, Tim Allen, Andrew Beane, Sabe Belucnew, Rachel Biru, Reverend Jan Bolerjack, Socrates Bravo, Malcolm Cooper-Suggs, Cary Davis, Caroline Durocher, Eric Frank, Gerald Hankerson, Halimo Harsi, Jason Harvey, Reverend John Helmiere, Carlos Hernandez, Zachary Heim, Alex Hoopes, Dmitri Iglitzin, Sandeep Kaushik, Dan Kully, Sylvia Liang, Don Liberty, Philip Locker, Coulson Loptmann, Lisa McLean, Joe Mizrahi, Abdi Mohamed, Abdirahman H. Mohamed, Molly Moon, Stefan Moritz, Phillip Neel, Nick Norman, Artie Nosrati, Tracy Newman, Binah Palmer, Claudia Paras, Sejal Parikh, Ben Patinkin, Brittany Phelps, Martina Phelps, Memo Rivera, Jonathan Rosenblum, Sergio Salinas, Dave Schmitz, Zach Silk, Christian Sinderman, Leonard Smith, Jess Spear, Ian Stewart, Rich Stolz, Andrew Thibault, Brianna Thomas, Crystal Thompson, Tracey Thompson, Emma Tupper, Erik Van Rossum, Heather Weiner, Hosea Wilcox, Sage Wilson, Liam Wright, and Amirah Ziada.

My friends Nick Hanauer, Denny Heck, Eric Liu, Ai-Jen Poo, and Andy Stern provided the advice and peer pressure necessary to convince me to become an author and to make me not want to give up. My parents, Margo Rolf and Don Rolf, taught me not just to read and write, but to love history and learning. The most important thanks go, with love, to my wife, Kylie.

This book is about why Americans should organize to demand a $15-per-hour basic wage. Workers in SeaTac, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities have already won $15, while fast-food, home care, child care, retail, airport, and many other workers all around the country are still fighting for a livable wage.