$15 Wage Wins in Seattle: 'We Did This. Workers Did This.'

Less than six months after the start of an aggressive grassroots campaign, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a $15 minimum wage on Monday, the highest in the nation.

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The measure passed by a 9-0 vote and was met with cheers and celebration among workers in the chamber and those gathered outside.

“We did this. Workers did this. Today’s first victory for 15 will inspire people all over the nation,” said councilor Kshama Sawant, whose victory last fall as a Socialist Alternative candidate and continued push for the $15 wage are credited with galvanizing the city-wide movement that pushed the council for the increase.

“A hundred thousand low-wage workers in Seattle will be seeing their wages raised to $15 an hour over the next 10 years. That would imply a transfer of roughly $3 billion from the top to the lowest paid workers,” she continued. “Such a transfer has not happened in so many decades because mostly what’s happened is the flow of wealth has been from the bottom up. This is really raising the confidence of working people around the country.”

“We did this. Workers did this. Today’s first victory for 15 will inspire people all over the nation.” —Kshama Sawant, city councilor

Working Washington—a coalition of individuals, neighborhood associations, immigrant groups, civil rights organizations, people of faith, and labor—also celebrated the victory. In a statement just ahead of the vote, the group said:

It was not a complete and total victory for progressive coalition. Numerous amendments offered by Sawant to strengthen the new wage law, including speeding up its implementation, were defeated by the council. In the end, however, no one denied that it was only the relentless pressure from below that forced its historic, if compromised, passage.

In her speech following the vote, Sawant acknowledged the shortcomings of the bill, but called it an “historic victory” as she rose to explain the importance of how Seattle activists were able to bend the council, including those tied to large business interests, towards their will:

Writing for The Nation, John Nichols highlighted the aggressive stance of Sawant and her allies as he put the Seattle wage fight in its national context:

In response to passage of the new Seattle wage hike, the International Franchise Association—which represents corporate chain stores and restaurants like McDonald’s, Subway, and others—renewed their promise to sue the city over the new wage law. But as the Seattle Times reports, many local business owners welcomed the vote:

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