Have you heard about the sweet victory of the week? The Working Families Party, and other allies in New York State’s fight for economic justice, won a six-year campaign to raise the minimum wage.
On December 6, the New York State Senate joined the Assembly to override Governor George Pataki’s misguided and mean-spirited veto of the bill, which was originally passed in July. The bill is now law.
On January 1, the state’s minimum wage rises to $6.00/hour, and moves in two additional annual steps to $7.15/hour. For full-time workers, it’s an increase from $10,700 per year to $14,900. That’s still not enough for a family to live on, but it’s a good raise by any standard, and roughly one million workers will benefit from the increase.
It’s important to note that a majority of Senate Republicans overrode the veto of a Republican Governor to raise wages for poor people. This hasn’t happened in decades. (Meanwhile, in Washington, Congress should be held accountable for not even holding a vote on raising the minimum wage since 1996.) And while the Daily News, the Senate Democrats, and the State Assembly all helped build the necessary power base, as the WFP’s organizers will tell you, you need an infrastructure for power to be transmitted. There is no substitute for it, and no shortcut to building it.
For the Working Families Party, the victory is confirmation of a winning strategy that all progressives need to recognize in the tough times ahead: choose issues carefully, stay laser-focused on them, organize hard in the key districts, build multi-racial alliances and reach out to new and old constituencies in business, organized religion, on campuses and in immigrant communities. Above all, don’t give up. As WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor says, “Hope and love really can defeat fear and anger.”
So, kudos to WFP members, leaders, and organizers who had the patience and fortitude to do the day-in, day-out unsexy work of building a competent organization–one that finally produced enough grassroots activity and votes to get poor peoples’ voices heard and make real change happen. And click here to find out what you can do to support the Working Families Party–a multiracial, class conscious, sometimes even fun loving organization that did the maximum to raise the minimum.
Bonus Link: Read Peter Drier and Kelly Candeale’s recent Nation Online article arguing that engaging in a vigorous fight to raise the minimum wage is not just the right thing to do, it also may be the politically astute move for the Democrats in 2006.
