A defining battle: the fight for $15 campaign and labor advocacy in the U.S

ABSTRACT

Notions of decline dominate scholarship on workers in the contemporary U.S. Labor has been pictured as “flat on its back,” framed by a narrative of loss that is linked to the long fall in union density. Through a detailed examination of the Fight for $15 campaign, this article challenges this narrative. Launched in 2012, within four years the labor-based drive had won over $68 billion in increased pay, helping some 22 million workers. By 2021, eight states plus the District of Columbia had pledged to increase their hourly minimum wage to $15 or more, as had numerous cities and leading corporations, including Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart. The $15 wage had also been awarded to all 390,000 federal contractors. Moving beyond the emphasis on density, the article views Fight for $15 in the broader context of labor’s advocacy for all workers. While often pictured as new, Fight for $15 drew on long-term precedents, including growing income inequality, increasing links between unions and community groups, the steady growth of the Service Employees International Union – the campaign’s key backer - and extensive groundwork by organized labor. Overall, Fight for $15 demonstrates that workers still had clout, both at the grassroots and national level.

KEYWORDS:

• Fight for $15 campaign
• contemporary labor
• United States
• minimum wage
• trade unions
• contemporary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Once he was elected, Biden outlined a slew of policy changes for labor, including a promise to call off the ‘war’ on workers and the provision of a ‘federal guarantee’ for public sector workers to bargain collectively.

2. In late February 2021, nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that lawmakers could not include the $15 proposal under budget reconciliation, which had strict standards for deficit effects. Reconciliation allowed the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority. In this case, no Republicans were prepared to support the provision, and the support of a handful of Democrats was also in doubt.

3. These points are developed in the discussion that follows.

4. For the activist perspective, see especially Rolf (2016). Rolf was president of SEIU Local 775 in Seattle and his book focuses on the successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage in that city. Rolf's account was assisted by C. Watterson Bryant.

5. Thomas Donahue interview with author on 3 November 2015 in Washington, D.C. All interviews conducted by the author were part of an approved project on the U.S. labor movement for which I received ethics approval from La Trobe University (approval number FHEC 1072–12). Further details are available from the author.

6. Quoted in AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, 4 August 1970 p. 49, box 91, AFL-CIO Papers, held at the Hornbake Library, University of Maryland at College Park (hereafter cited as ‘AFL-CIO Papers’); Jim Kennedy interview with author on 23 July 2013 in Washington, D.C.; Susan Dunlop interview with author on 19 July 2013 in Washington, D.C.

7. AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, 20 February 1964 pp. 44–46, box 89, AFL-CIO Papers.

8. AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, 4 August 1970 p. 50, box 91, AFL-CIO Papers (first two quotations); ‘Statement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Fair Labor Standards Act,’ 2 May 1972 p. 25, AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, box 93, AFL-CIO Papers (third quotation).

9. ‘Statement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Fair Labor Standards Act,’ 16 February 1981 p. 43, AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, February 16–23, 1981, box 97, AFL-CIO Papers; ‘Statement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Fair Labor Standards Act,’ 16 February 1981 p. 44, AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, February 16–23, 1981, box 97, AFL-CIO Papers (quotations).

10. AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, February 15–18, 1993, p. 12, box 106, AFL-CIO Papers; AFL-CIO Executive Council Minutes, February 20–23, 1995, p. A9, box 108, AFL-CIO Papers; Christine Owens interview with author on 20 April 2015 in Washington, D.C.

11. ‘Chronology of AFL-CIO and Sweeney Initiatives, 1995–2009,’ n.d., AFL-CIO document provided to the author by the AFL-CIO (copy in author’s possession).

12. John Sweeney interview with author on 15 July 2013 in Washington, D.C.; ‘America Needs a Raise,’ AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement, 19 February 1996 (available at http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/EC-Statements). A hard copy of this statement is also in the author’s possession.

13. ‘Notice to AFL-CIO General Board – General Board Meeting to Consider a Presidential Endorsement,’ 19 June 2008 ‘6/18 and 19/08 Meetings w/Barack Obama Washington, DC’ folder, box 6, AR2009–0024; ‘Draft Opening Remarks by John J. Sweeney, AFL-CIO Meeting with Sen. Barack Obama,’ 18 June 2008 ‘6/18 and 19/08 Meetings w/Barack Obama Washington, DC’ folder, box 6, AR2009–0024; ‘Remarks by John J. Sweeney, AFL-CIO General Board Meeting,’ 8 February 2007 ‘2/8/07 – AFL-CIO General Board Meeting, Silver Spring, MD,’ folder, box 1, AR2009–0024, all AFL-CIO Papers.

14. ‘Statement by John J. Sweeney, President, Service Employees International Union,’ 1 August 1989 folder 7, box 120, John Sweeney files, SEIU Papers, held at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit (hereafter cited as ‘SEIU Papers’).

15. ‘SEIU: A Profile of Growth, Membership and Union Density,’ SEIU Research Department Report, October 1991, p. 2, folder 6, box 137, SEIU Executive Office: John Sweeney Records, SEIU Papers; Bob Welsh interview with author on 17 July 2013 in Arlington, Virginia (quotation).

16. Tom Donahue interview with author on 16 July 2013 in Washington, D.C.

17. ‘About Us,’ www.acorn.org (accessed 17 March 2021).

18. Stewart Acuff interview with author on 8 October 2013 in Washington, D.C.

19. The CNBC/MIT study included costs such as food, health care, childcare, housing, transport, and other necessities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy J. Minchin

Timothy J. Minchin is a professor of North American History at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He has written widely on labor and civil rights history. His previous books include Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), and Empty Mills: The Fight against Imports and the Decline of the U.S. Textile Industry (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013). His most recent book is America’s Other Automakers: A History of the Foreign-Owned Automotive Sector in the United States (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021).