It’s surprising what can bloom in this city with even the slightest provocation.
For months and months, protestors around the country took to the streets to complain of low wages at the nation’s fast food chains. Portland was mum.
In Seattle, the hubbub swelled and stretched, to the point the city spurned an established incumbent to elect its first socialist city councilwoman in November. That councilwoman, Kshama Sawant, has been forceful (unbending, even ) in demands that the city increase its minimum wage to $15, now. (That campaign is called 15 Now.)
And Portland—progressive reputation and all—hadn’t uttered a peep. The largest debates lately have been concerned, as usual, with the water system.
Then Nick Caleb, a 30-year-old Concordia University professor and attorney—somewhat on a lark—decided to run for city council against Commissioner Dan Saltzman on Monday, calling for a quixotic $15 an hour wage and a host of other reforms. And today, four days later, some of Portland’s noisiest activists are engulfed.
- Dirk VanderHart
- Nick Caleb
At a news conference in front of Portland City Hall this afternoon, Caleb stood with another city council candidate (Sharon Maxwell, taking on Commissioner Nick Fish), and some of the city’s most-vociferous voices, to formally launch his campaign and call for a $15 wage. The crowd waved 15 Now flyers, and a picket “showing support for workers” was announced tonight, outside the McDonald’s at NE Grand and Weidler. Caleb and others said they’d been in contact with members of Sawant’s campaign, and are working to emulate her success in the Rose City.
Just like that, Portlanders are ready to force these discussions. Or at least that’s how it seemed this afternoon.
Aside from that $15, Caleb’s ideas cohere with many of the debates that have bubbled near the surface for months now.
He advocated better citizen oversight over the Portland Police Bureau, echoing a common sentiment that brand new policies are ineffectual. He’s promoting better environmental stewardship—yes in terms of the water supply (Caleb co-authored the public water trust initiative that’s collecting signatures) but also by banning coal transport through the city.
And he’s pushing a more compassionate approach to the thorny issues of homelessness and gentrification.
“Everyone has a right to the city,” Caleb said today, to cheers.
Which brings us back to a hike in the minimum wage. Oregon’s already ahead of the curve in some respects, since we tie our minimum wage to inflation. But, as Denis pointed out this week, that happy development came at a cost: cities no longer have the authority to set their own minimum wage.
That’s not something Caleb was aware of until he was asked by the Mercury.
“It took me a whole 30 minutes to come up with a plan” after learning of the restriction, he said today. He poked fun at Saltzman, who told the Mercury he supports a minimum wage, but said Portland’s powerless.
“We can be creative,” Caleb said, pointing out the city can use its lobbyists to fight for the current minimum wage laws to be overturned. He also proposed taxing companies who employ low-wage workers, putting that money into a fund, and subsidizing wages through that pool.
Caleb’s campaign won’t accept any donations of more than $50, he said (Maxwell made a point of saying she would) and he pledged to spurn a typical commissioner’s salary (more than $100,000), saying he’d take the wage of an average Portland worker (according to the Portland Business Journal, just under $47,000 in 2012), a concept he cribbed from Sawant.
He announced his candidacy late, Caleb conceded, thinking that it might be an “interesting learning experience.” But in light of the support he’s heard— the online messages, the signs and cheers, the guy who asked after the press conference if it’d be okay if he gave $100 for his wife and he, both—Caleb said: “I’m starting to believe, myself.”
The wages that one receives are indicative of the value that one has as a person. This attempt at raising the minimum wage is an affront to good society and to God himself.
25 NOW!
Come on C.O., man up. $50 an hour.
Help support the Caleb for Council campaign: http://calebforcouncil.com/
Finally, a candidate saying the things that Portlanders have been dying for our City Councilors to say.
@jesse who’s dead?
Thank goodness Portland, and the rest of the US is talking about higher minimum wage laws, following in the example of such progressive European countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Cyprus … oh wait, none of those countries have minimum wage laws.
This move towards a ridiculously high minimum wage of $15 an hour is largely directed at the resentment that’s been earned by conglomerates like Walmart and McDonald’s, right? But guess who has the capitol to back up a wage like that? Conglomerates like Walmart and McDonald’s, and not the majority of small to mid-tier local businesses who aren’t chasing stocks profits, and run on slim profit margins to survive. What a great win for the mega corporations who won’t have to be burdened by actually having to compete with more small businesses.
How nice it must be for Caleb to accept voluntary donations for his campaign … a campaign where he pledges to use government force to coerce companies to increase their expenses. Boy, makes me want to be a politician.
@Graham: “The wages that one receives are indicative of the value that one has as a person. This attempt at raising the minimum wage is an affront to good society and to God himself.”
The moral idiocy of a comment is indicative of the moral idiocy of the commentator.
@Graham: “@jesse who’s dead?” There have been several deaths of houseless people in Portland this winter, y’know “Portland, the City that Works it Out that Warming Emergencies Begin at 30 Degrees, or Below Freezing.” The most recent death was Thursday March 13.
the PBA’s candidate (Dan Saltzman) will no doubt agree with him, knowing full well that he will never face a vote where he has to go against his constituency in the PBA…
Paying at least a $15 minimum wage is fair “because in 2013 output per hour in the US was $67.32 — higher than in every country in the world with the exception of Norway and Luxembourg. In a country where labor productivity is that high paying anyone less than $15 an hour is both unfair and unnecessary.”
More from economist Robin Hahnel @ http://calebforcouncil.com/15-now-2/
keep in mind you can donate $50 to this campaign and get ALL of it back as a credit on your oregon tax form and you can do this every single year. use it or lose it. a free $50 gift from the state of oregon that you can use every year and if you file taxes jointly, each person gets $50 for a joint total of a $100 credit. make your donation to caleb – or any other candidate or PAC, and it is FREE money. it is a unique and very cool benefit not everyone is aware of. http://oregontaxcredit.com/
catch this press conference livestreamed at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/44882799
Uh, isn’t that Vahid Brown, FBI collaborator, on the far left of the picture? These two are perfect for each other – naive academic ‘progressives’ that don’t understand the purpose of the State.
Uh, isn’t that Vahid Brown, FBI collaborator, in the far left of the picture? These two are perfect for each other, a couple of academic ‘progressives’ who clearly don’t understand the history and purpose of the State.
If you’re a commenter above ragging on raising the minimum wage, I urge you to drop your current wage(whatever it is) to $9.10/hr for one week and see how that works for ya.
Families can’t afford to pay rent, food, car insurance, utilities, clothing, etc. with one 40 hr job at $9.10/hr.
College kids can’t make any reasonable savings to pay off their loans without being indentured for years at that wage.
I’m an employer myself, own a small business, and would gladly pay my employees a living wage if that were the standard. When the minimum wage is raised, the spending capital of the community is also raised, meaning businesses can raise prices to accommodate what they need to pay workers.
@Hiram Asmuth:
Since when should one expect to be able to afford a family on one McD job? I mean, are you being facetious? You can’t really think that…
“I’m an employer myself, own a small business, and would gladly pay my employees a living wage if that were the standard”–There is nothing stopping you right now from paying whatever you want. Or is there? Say, Market forces? Competition? You see, claiming the high moral ground and then hiding behind the “well, it’s not the standard” flimflam, is disingenuous at best.
“When the minimum wage is raised, the spending capital of the community is also raised, meaning businesses can raise prices to accommodate what they need to pay workers.”–So, basically accomplishing jack shit? If you make $100/hr but a hamburger costs $35, what have you gained besides a few hundred percentage points worth of inflation?
I run a business, and at times I don’t make $15 an hour and have been on food stamps. I hope this can guarantee me the same rate. I would love to pay more, I just don’t know how to. I guess prices will go up, but that will mean less sales. ohhhh the conflict. Perhaps I just need to start having my kids help me more… Peeps are going to loose jobs. It seems like mega-corporations who can control prices in markets will beat the small guy out who has no room to raise profits. Perhaps we can all work for walmart in the future. yay. Perhaps Estacada is my new home
I duuno, this seems foolhardy and none too well thought out.
Employees already making 15 will want a raise to cover their being a better / more experienced / longevity, etc raise as well, and this will work its’ way up the chain, then the cost of their product will have to be raised in order to cover the greater costs.
Then perhaps local peoples products will be undercut by those outside of the Portland area, etc etc etc.
Seems to me we ought to be looking more at other ways to combat the extremely high discrepency between lower wage and higher wage earners.
$15 an hour doesn’t mean a thing if inflation causes a basic cheesburger at McDonalds to cost 5 bucks.
This will never, ever happen. Just sayin’. Maybe in 2114. And for the gentlemen above daring “families” to go on 9.19 an hour. Been there. Been on unemployment making less. Still think this is a pipe dream. And I think it vastly overestimates how much many employers earn and could pay.
I started talking about an $11.00/hr minimum wage over a month ago, my props to Caleb for getting it noticed in the press. I considered $15 and $13 but chose to go with the more doable $11 because I pragmatically think we can get the goons of the PBA behind it. Michael Durrow, Portland City Council Candidate