Seattle has the distinction of being the first US city in recent memory to elect an avowed socialist as a member of the city council. Now the politics is getting interesting in this traditionally moderately liberal city.
Seattle to debate $15 minimum wage law amid warnings of 'class warfare'
The only socialist city councillor in the United States is torn.
On the one hand, Kshama Sawant has claimed an “historic victory” for a populist campaign that pressured Seattle’s mayor, politicians and business owners to embrace by far the highest across-the-board minimum wage in the US at $15 an hour.
On the other, the economics professor accuses the Democratic party establishment and corporate interests of colluding to compromise its implementation as the city council on Monday begins to hammer out the terms for setting pay at more than double the federal minimum wage. Sawant is gearing up to put the issue on the ballot in November’s election if the final legislation is not to her liking – a move Seattle’s mayor has warned could result in “class warfare” as it is likely to pit big business against increasingly vocal low-paid workers and to divide the trade unions.
This confrontation offers a test of whether the American public is yet sufficiently disgusted with the declining economic position of workers in this society to turn to supporting more radical political approaches than the prevailing bipartisan neoliberalism.
It is also a test for the future of organized labor in this country. Unions in the private sector have shrunk to a shadow of the strength that they once held. Unions attempting to represent low paid service workers have very different tasks to face than those of the days when unions were mostly focused on well paid manufacturing workers. There are many questions to be sorted out in an effort to find a way forward in dealing with the inequality of the 21st C, but it is heartening to see some people who are willing to engage in some good old fashion class warfare and not apologize for it.