Organizers with 15 Now Oregon filed today with the State Elections Division to add a measure to the 2016 ballot that, if passed, would raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2019.
“This is a big undertaking, but we know we have strong support from our community,” said 15 Now Oregon Statewide Organizing Director Kristi Wright. “Oregonians are pioneers, and together we’ll make our state the first to end poverty wages.”
The group now needs 1,000 valid signatures to get the Secretary of State to draft the ballot title. Then, by July 2106, they’ve got to get 88,000 valid signatures to have to initiative qualify for the November 2016 ballot.
The Oregon Legislature has two bills on tap—House Bill 2009 and Senate Bill 610— that would address the $15 per hour issue, but Senate President Peter Courtney recently spoke in opposition to the movement, suggesting that the legislature wouldn’t get to them this session.
“Working people are becoming increasingly impatient with legislators’ inability to act” said 15 Now Oregon member and chief petitioner Jamie Partridge. “If the legislature won’t do the right thing, then we’ll take $15 to a vote of the people.”
The people have been speaking out all this week: Activists on Monday—the day 15 Now Oregon organizers announced their plans to file—packed the Oregon State Capitol for a minimum wage hearing. On Wednesday, as part of a nationwide day of action, marchers swarmed downtown Portland, chanting for action at selected businesses paying “poverty wages” to employees.
“My rent won’t wait (and) $12 or $13 isn’t enough for me and my family to survive. I need $15 now,” said Windy Wiebke, a custodian at South Eugene High School. “I’ve worked here for six and a half years and I still make less than $15. I’m not some kid just starting out.”
For more information visit www.15noworegon.org and www.15nowpdx.org.
Unlike Seattle or San Francisco, Portland is still largely a blue collar city. We’re not flush with tech money, the majority of our jobs are in healthcare, retail and restaurants. When the vast majority of our workforce who currently make between $12 and $20 dollars an hour realize that their labor will be worth significantly less, equivalent to entry level and less skilled employee’s, if a $15 dollar minimum wage is enacted, they will vote any proposed measure down in flames.
And while I’m sure the organizers of 15 Now are paying all of their staffers at least $15 dollars an hour, it’s too bad they can’t just vote themselves more resources to fund their campaign by forcibly taking them from the more productive. I guess that’s where the unions come in.
As I noted in another post, $15 an hour in Portland make sense to me. The formula is $x/hour X 2080 = full time annual salary, so that would mean a wage equivalent to a salary of $31,200. I clawed my way up starting at minimum wage about 25 years ago and guess what: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the minimum wage in the major US city I lived in then was, in today’s dollars, close to $15 an hour (I think it was around $9 then). But here’s the thing: that was a CITY mandated wage.
Why is this a statewide measure? Portland isn’t Medford, Roseburg or Astoria. To insist that wages should be the same everywhere is naive and self destructively greedy. In those smaller economies, the very people who this is supposed to help will be screwed when businesses can’t afford to pay $30k a year or the part time equivalent.
Ah, the well-meaning fools behind this really think 15 is the answer.
As if, a) prices of all goods and rent, etc, wouldn’t be jumping along with the new standard starting wage.
b) all those folks now making 15 wouldn’t demand an increase in their wages, as suddenly some kid is making the same they make after toiling for years, etc etc, all up the line of wages and positions within any organization.
It seems to me a better approach would be attacking the tax structure.
I don’t know, I’m not an economist, but this ’15 Now’ campaign strikes me as not really well thought out.
PS, note to Wendy: perhaps you shouldn’t have kids if you can’t afford them.
Yeah, that’s right. How many kids do you expect to support as a custodian anyway?
I thought this job was just for seniors biding their time before death and to get a little extra income.
Your work is about the same as a teen-age fry cook in difficulty, and yet you want more.
Perhaps you should seek better paying work, and develop the skills needed for it.
$2.00 an hour more is probably just enough to put you in the next highest tax bracket, so you may very well wind up taking home less than you do now. Have you thought about that, Wendy?
Also, Wendy, does the father of your kids live with you? Does he have a job? If he doesn’t live with you, is he paying child support? If not, why not?