The Fight for $15

February 29, 2016
In this look at the minimum wage debate, perhaps the key line is “Low wages are a choice.” Rolf, president of Service Employees International Union 775, makes a compelling, if at times incomplete, case that they are the wrong choice. The book begins by quickly highlighting successful demands by workers to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Ongoing movements in Seattle and SeaTac, Wash., are heavily detailed, as are historic moments such as the WTO protests in 1999 and waitress and organizer Alice Lord’s successful efforts at passing a 10-hour workday law for women in Seattle in 1901. Rolf examines activism across a variety of service professions, including janitors and home health aides. He also shows how the job market has changed, often for the worse: less job security, less employer transparency, and fewer benefits and protections, coupled with more demanding work. Rolf successfully addresses many arguments against higher minimum wages, though the amount of detail can be overwhelming. Rolf acknowledges that a higher minimum wage is only the beginning of a more equitable economy, but a chapter on other important issues, including race, gender, campaign finance, and the prison-industrial complex, feels rushed. Despite these flaws, the book will appeal to anyone looking to know more about the workings of modern-day labor movements and the stories of their members.

March 1, 2016
An expert exploration of a provocative blueprint for rescuing the American middle class through the creation of a new living wage. When New York City fast-food workers first walked off the job in the fall of 2012, power brokers nationwide roundly derided their calls for a $15-per-hour minimum wage as nothing more than pie-in-the-sky prattling. "God bless them--shoot for the stars," said New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo after the assembly finally moved to take action. But the spark that those hard-pressed workers ignited would not be limited to New York. Soon, struggling workers in the Pacific Northwest were also spurred to action--first in modest SeaTac, then in Seattle, where the drive for the higher minimum wage finally hit pay dirt. In this comprehensive analysis of the Fight for $15's earliest challenges, Rolf, the president of the Service Employees International Union 775, provides true insight into the competing forces that ultimately yielded one of the most important victories for organized labor in decades. The author's plainspoken approach and stellar scholarship illuminate in-depth discussions about the deliberate policy decisions that began to decimate the middle class at the start of the 1980s as well as the insidious new ways in which big business continues to attack American workers today via stagnant wages, rampant subcontracting, unpredictable scheduling, and other detrimental practices associated with the so-called "share economy." Ditching moldy, Reagan-era dogma for a fresh "middle-out" approach, Rolf looks beyond traditional unionism for new ways to empower workers through collective action. Self-avowed venture capitalist "gazallionaire" Nick Hanauer is on board. " 'The fundamental law of capitalism, ' he argues, is that 'if workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers, not rich businesspeople like us, the true job creators.' " A savvy inside look at the social movement challenging decades of stark economic decline.

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