Raising the Minimum Wage: Let Justice Roll

ACORN & the Ruckus Society "quarantine" 6100 WalMart managers meeting in Kansas City, MO, January 29, 2006 to protest WalMart's failure to provi

Around the US, a movement to make the minimum wage a living wage is growing fast. The Let Justice Roll Campaign, an umbrella network of over 60 state and national groups, is playing a key role in efforts to raise the minimum wage at both the state and federal levels.

The federal minimum has declined in value dramatically since it was raised to $5.15 in 1997. In terms of real purchasing power, the minimum wage is lower than it has been in nearly 50 years. It would have to be raised to $9 an hour to reach the value it had in 1968. Full-time minimum wage workers earn $10,712 per year — $5000 less than the official poverty line for a family of three. The cost of family health insurance now exceeds the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage worker.

Let Justice Roll supports proposed legislation in Congress which would raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour by 2008. Given the hostility of the current leadership in Congress to working people, state campaigns have become a key strategy both to help workers immediately and to add pressure for change at the national level.

A valuable resource in the campaign is the report A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future by Holly Sklar and the Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry. The report, along with news and other resources, is available on the web at www.letjusticeroll.org.

In West Virginia, we worked to pass a bill to raise the state minimum in three stages to $7.25 by June 2008. The WV Economic Justice Project was a key player in the statewide campaign and New Empowerment for Women Plus helped keep the bill alive in the state senate, where it faced significant challenges. Other major supporters were the AFL-CIO, the WV Council of Churches, WV Citizen Action Group, the WV chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, the Service Employees International Union and child advocacy organizations such as Prevent Child Abuse WV.

Last year, this coalition convinced a legislative committee to study the issue. The committee did recommend a minimum wage increase. We announced the campaign on Martin Luther King day, 2006. The Children's Policy Forum held a children's lobby day focusing on this issue, and mobilized an email alert system. Our bill passed the House pretty easily. The Senate referred the bill to three committees, which often means a proposal will die. There was quite a groundswell from church groups, labor groups, and children's advocates, and the Charleston Gazette covered the issue pretty well.

I was able to publish an op-ed in the Gazette on the day the bill went to the Senate. The National Council of Churches endorsed it, and Ernest S. Lyght, a Methodist Bishop, wrote an op-ed. In the last few days of the session, some legislators tried to amend the bill to kill it, but phone calls and talk radio discussions kept the heat on, and it passed on the last day of the session.

While hard-won, the victory was incomplete. Due to quirks in state law involving definitions and exemptions of employers, many workers will not immediately benefit from the bill. According to some estimates, only about 2000 of the approximately 20,000 West Virginians now earning $5.15 will be covered initially. However, plans are in place to try to amend state law to cover all workers in the next session. Legislation is already drafted to fix these loopholes. Because we passed the bill this year by a wide margin, prospects look good.

Most of the work was in forging a large coalition, generating cogent and persuasive talking points, and getting the word out in the media. By the time the bill was introduced, we were positioned so that if they rejected the bill they would be hurting themselves.

At the April 4 bill signing, WV Governor Joe Manchin said, "I am so proud of this piece of legislation. Some people said it's symbolic. Well if it's symbolic, it's a good symbol for the State of West Virginia to treat people right and fair. There are more and more people that are living on the minimum wage, or trying to live and exist on the minimum wage. It sends a strong signal to the federal government that we're serious. I think you're seeing some other states take the initiative also."

Significantly, Manchin, a pro-business Democrat whose motto for the state is "open for business," stressed that a higher minimum wage "is not affecting the business community. It will not affect business whatsoever, or the productivity of our businesses, or the amount that I believe we're able to be competitive…."

Strategically, the immediate significance of the West Virginia victory is geographic. Many states with higher minimums are in the northeast or west. To reach the "tipping point," more victories are needed in the south and center. Since the WV win, Arkansas has provided additional momentum by passing an increase to $6.25 per hour.