Fight for 15 is anathema to corporations myopically driven by profit margin and to conservatives who think almost half of us are “takers” not producers, a belief stated by Mitt Romney with his famous “47 percent” comment. Now, Jeb Bush says our sluggish economic recovery is because Americans don’t work hard enough. He said Americans “need to work longer hours and through their productivity gain more income for their families.”
This perspective belies the facts.
People in the United States already work longer hours than workers in other wealthy countries. Americans work 30 percent more hours than Germans.
What American workers need is fairer compensation and a better safety net.
Advocating to provide that is Fight for 15, a movement that started in November 2012 with the formation of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago representing fast food workers in Chicago, Indianapolis and Rockford.
These are the facts: fast food is a $200 billion a year industry earning unprecedented salaries for CEOs and executives but relying on people working full-time for minimum wage, living in poverty, eligible for food stamps, Medicaid and other government assistance. That means taxpayers are subsidizing CEO salaries and corporate profits.
People who work deserve fair compensation, and the minimum wage fails to provide that. This is not income redistribution or socialism. It’s economic and social justice.
When corporations that are “too big to fail” pressure Washington to provide bailouts and incentives like lower corporate taxes, that becomes a toxic brew for a democracy based on justice.
But little pockets of hope have emerged:
- More corporations are recognizing it may not make good business sense to keep wages as low as possible. Costco has a starting wage of $11.50 an hour and an hourly average of $21. Walmart, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ikea and GAP increased minimum wage to $9.
- In recent months, a number of municipalities have recognized people earning minimum wage and living in poverty don’t create vibrant neighborhoods. In Los Angeles, 50 percent of the workforce earns below $15 and hour. Raising minimum wage makes communities more livable. Seattle voted to adopt a $15 an hour minimum wage. Chicago’s minimum wage is climbing. Last month it was increased from the statewide minimum of $8.25 to $10. In upcoming years, each July 1 will mark a small increase. Los Angeles is going to $15 an hour by 2020.
- Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Systems, a credit card processing company based in Seattle, Wash., took research to heart. Price read that happiness and well-being peak with a salary of about $75,000. Earnings above that don’t make people measurably happier. Earnings below that add stress and unhappiness. He knew from talking with friends that salaries of $40,000 mean lives of worry. So he cut his own compensation package of $1 million to $70,000 and raised minimum wage for his 120-person company to $70,000.
- In a move focused first on mission with the expectation of impact on quarterly profit, CVS Pharmacy decided to pull out of membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complaining that the chamber is undermining global anti-smoking programs in order to help members in the tobacco industry. CVS dropped its chamber membership several months after it pulled all tobacco products from its shelves because tobacco is the antithesis of health care products and services.
The average CEO in America makes 300 times the salary of the average worker. That’s the largest disparity in the world. It’s also absurdly higher even than the salary differential advocated by magnate J. Pierpont Morgan during the Roaring Twenties when Morgan recommended a 20-to-1 ratio.
In her book “The Good Jobs Strategy,” Zeynep Ton writes that evidence doesn’t support the corporate perspective of keeping salaries low to keep profits high. Companies that put money into employee training and salaries develop a more valuable workforce. Employees become more motivated and more capable of problem solving. They require less managerial oversight. There is lower turnover.
Democratic nations were founded on principles of equality. Today “redistribution of wealth” has become a term of aspersion tossed out by the Tea Party. The reality is democracies use tools to assure no families or businesses amass wealth so large it creates systemic imbalance. Those tools include progressive income taxes, inheritance taxes and government funding for public infrastructure. Those tools should be sacrosanct for maintaining a strong democracy.
Clare Howard