While fast food workers are striking in 100 US cities today, Seattle is already moving on to the next stage of the next battleground in the war to win workers a living wage: City Hall. Low wage workers set off this morning from SeaTac—were voters recently approved a $15 an hour minimum wage for airport and hospitality workers—on a 15-mile march to Seattle City Hall to demand the same for Seattle’s low-wage workers:
- 9:00 – brief program at SeaTac Hilton Conference Center, 17620 International Blvd, SeaTac
- 9:30 – march departs, heading north on International Blvd
- 10:30 – marchers pass Abu Bakr Mosque, 14101 International Blvd, Tukwila
- 11:40 – marchers enter Seattle city limits (Boeing Access Rd & MLK)
- 12:00 – marchers reach MLK Way S & S Henderson St
- 1:00 – lunch en route – northwest corner of Brighton Playfield (6000 39th Ave S)
- 1:20 – march continues
- 2:30 – Marchers reach Rainier & MLK
- 4:00 – Supporters gathered at Hing Hay Park (423 Maynard Ave S) join march at Jackson & Maynard
- 4:30 – Rally at City Hall (600 4th Ave)
And if $15 an hour for fast food and other low-wage workers seems too ambitious a demand, well, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Mayor-elect Ed Murray has already committed to a $15 an hour minimum wage, as has a majority of the city council. And of course council member-elect Kshama Sawant made her campaign a virtual proxy fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage.
The political stars are aligned to deliver a $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle. How long the phase-in, and what kind of exemptions remains to be seen, but the debate has moved on from whether to impose a $15 an hour minimum and on to the question of how.