JOBS WITH JUSTICE AND THE FIGHT FOR 15

Jobs with Justice San Francisco is a long-term,

strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based,
and student organizations working together to build
a strong, progressive movement for economic and
social justice locally and nationally.
The following case study is based on a 2016 interview
with Gordon Mar, Executive Director of Jobs with
Justice San Francisco. It is told in his voice. More
information about this campaign and other JWJ campaigns is available at www.jwjsf.org
(Picture source: Jobs with Justice SF)

As part of our work to improve working conditions, in 2014 we convened a coalition of

community and labor groups that proposed and pushed for a $15 minimum wage measure
here in San Francisco. That was part of the broader Fight for 15 Movement that has been so
exciting and vital nationally over the last three or four years. As a part of that movement, our
coalition proposed to increase the minimum wage in San Francisco to $15/hour.
San Francisco already had a history of having the highest minimum wage in the country, going back
to 2003 when we were one of the first big cities in the country to enact a local minimum wage. By
2014, the minimum wage in San Francisco, while it was still one of the highest in the country, was
$12 an hour. That wasnt enough, given the huge increase in housing costs and the cost of living.
Because of the broader success of the Fight for 15 Movement nationally, there was already a lot of
momentum and support for higher minimum wages. Just three or four years earlier, a $15
minimum wage was kind of unthinkable, even for those of us working on economic justice issues.
But by 2014, because of the success of the Fight for 15 Movement elsewhere, it did seem more
realistic. Then we did some polling in early 2014 that showed very strong support for a $15
minimum wage in San Francisco. People in San Francisco, across the political spectrum and in
different classes and communities, saw that the housing affordability crisis was the biggest issue.
They could see low- and even middle-income residents being pushed out of the city because of the
housing costs. So, I think that helped generate more public support for a higher minimum wage,
even as high as $15 an hour.
That campaign in 2014 was about us out-organizing the mayor. Mayor Ed Lee was also proposing
to increase the minimum wage, but he didnt necessarily want to go to $15 or go very quickly. It was
also about us out-organizing the business community. It was a challenging time for them, because
they could see that there was strong public support for raising the minimum wage, so the Chamber
of Commerce and the Restaurant Association didnt want to come out publicly against a higher
minimum wage. But they were doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes, with the Mayor in particular, to
try to limit how high the minimum wage was going to be. So, a lot of our work was organizing
against the Mayor and the business interests, and ensuring that the minimum wage measure that
was going to move forward on the ballot in 2014 was as strong as possible.

Case Study prepared by Janey Skinner, Health Education Dept., City College of San Francisco

The Mayor convened a Stakeholders Group that included mostly employers and the business
community and some token worker representatives to try to come up with a consensus agreement
on what the minimum wage measure should be -- like how high the minimum wage should go up to
and how long it would take to get to that and what types of exemptions there might be. But we
organized outside of that. Some of us participated in the Stakeholders Group, but since it was really
stacked with employer representatives, it wasnt going to wind up with a very strong minimum
wage policy from a workers perspective. So our coalition organized outside of that.
We (Jobs With Justice SF) came out with our $15 minimum wage proposal while the Mayors
Stakeholder Group was still meeting. The Mayors Stakeholder Group couldnt come to consensus
on a minimum wage measure, but we came out with our proposal. We proposed $15 by 2017 (that
meant in three years, 2014 to 2017) and with no exemptions, and we started gathering signatures
to put it on the ballot. We were also able to get some good media coverage, some really good
feature articles about the need to raise the minimum wage from the worker perspective. So that
helped to give us a good position, and I think it forced the Mayor and the business lobbyists to
negotiate with us.
We were able to get them to agree on a very strong minimum wage measure that gets, that got the
wage to $15/hour by July 1, 2018. It started to be phased in in 2015. The first increase happened on
May Day, May 1, 2015.
Through all of that the communications, the inside and outside organizing, get the Mayor and the
business community to negotiate with us, and we came to agreement on a measure that was pretty
close to what we originally proposed the actual campaign that was needed to ensure that it
passed on the ballot was minimal because there was no significant opposition in San Francisco, just
the Republican Party which is very small here.
In this case, all the important political work happened before the measure got on the ballot, to make
sure that the proposition people would vote on would be as strong as possible.
I want to mention a companion innovative policy measure that we worked on in 2014 alongside the
$15 minimum wage measure: the Retail Workers Bill of Rights. This was a comprehensive set of
fair scheduling policies for retail, restaurant and other service workers. These five or six policies in
the Retail Workers Bill of Rights were intended to promote full-time employment, fair and
predictable work schedules, and job security for service workers here in the city. They were the
first fair scheduling policies passed anywhere in the country (first of their kind). We passed that
through the Board of Supervisors also in the fall of 2014, at the same time as we were working on
raising the minimum wage. Together, they make for better jobs, better wages, more stable
schedules, and more access to full time work.
The Retail Workers Bill of Rights and fair scheduling policies that we enacted were intended to
address the trend, particularly with retail and restaurants workers, towards more unstable,
unpredictable schedules, more contingent and part-time work. Combined, the increase in the
minimum wage and the fair scheduling policies should provide an important boost in economic
security for tens of thousands of the lowest paid workers in the city. The Retail Workers Bill of
Rights, since we passed it late in 2014, has served as a model for similar fair scheduling campaigns
that have happened in many other cities and some states over the last year and half.

Case Study prepared by Janey Skinner, Health Education Dept., City College of San Francisco

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What stands out for you about the success of this campaign? What did JWJ do that was
smart or stupid? Why do you think the campaign worked?
2. What is a coalition? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of working in a
coalition for social change? How did that play out in this example?
3. Why do you think it was important for the Jobs with Justice SF coalition to get their
proposal for $15/hour into the public eye before the Mayors Taskforce made any public
announcement or even reached consensus?
4. How did the Fight for $15 minimum wage measure and the Retail Workers Bill of Rights
work together to improve the lives of low-wage workers in San Francisco?
5. What difference would it make to you if your wages went up three dollars an hour, for
example, from $12/hour to $15/hour? What specifically would be different in your life?
6. Now many cities nationally (and in the Bay Area) have increased their local minimum wage
and a few states have, too (California, New York). What would you expect to be the
community health impacts of a higher minimum wage in a city?

FOLLOW UP RESEARCH FOR DISCUSSION NEXT WEEK

A. Do some research between now and next week to find out what the impacts of a higher
minimum wage has been in cities like San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, San Jose, or others.
Who is right conservatives who say that higher minimum wages kill jobs, or progressives
who say that higher minimum wages are good for the economy (more expendable income
circulating) and good for communities? What evidence can you point to? Come to class
ready to discuss next week bring printouts of articles if you can.
B. What campaigns for economic justice are happening right now in San Francisco or the Bay
Area? You can start with the Jobs with Justice SF website (www.jwjsf.org) to get some
ideas. What lessons learned from the Fight for 15 might apply to these newer struggles?
What opportunities do you see for students to get involved in these campaigns?

Case Study prepared by Janey Skinner, Health Education Dept., City College of San Francisco