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Greens Support California Fair Wage Initiative
Greens statewide initiative would raise state hourly minimum wage. Goal is to place initiative on 2006 ballot.
By: Cres Vellucci
SACRAMENTO – In what will be the most progressive ballot gambit in its brief history, the Green Party of California has endorsed, and will begin circulating petitions in December to put a bold new statewide initiative on the ballot in 2006 to dramatically raise the state minimum wage for millions of Californians. Green Party activists initiated the campaign in early 2005, and have formed a statewide coalition – called Californians for Fair Wages, or CFW – of social justice, political and labor organizations to collect the estimated 600,000 signatures to put the measure on the November 2006 ballot.
Early endorsers include the Mexican American Political Association.
The campaign will be an all-volunteer signature-gathering campaign and all Greens, and social justice activists are urged to become involved. While it will not be a "living wage," the new minimum will immediately help underpaid workers, and will help build a political organization for the under-represented
public at the ballot box.
With the state minimum wage languishing at only $6.75 an hour – nearly 4 below the purchasing power of 1968 wages for minimum wage workers –the initiative would raise workers wages by between $1 and $2 over the next few years, a long overdue hike.
The key to the wage increase will be an annual cost-of-living-allowance (COLA) which will allow minimum
wage workers to not fall further behind as inflation increases. It would be the first increase in the minimum wage since January 2002.
The coalition announced its intention to file shortly after Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation for the second straight year to modestly increase the state's minimum wage.
"At $6.75 per hour, the current minimum wage is so low that it does not allow full-time workers enough income to adequately feed, clothe, house and provide health care and childcare for their families. A full-time job at minimum wage is far too low to provide for California families' basic needs," said
CFW's Barry Hermanson, a major funder/organizer for the successful 2003 San Francisco minimum wage
initiative.
"The governor has demonstrated again that he bows to the corporate special interests who would rather line their pockets with even more profits than accept a reasonable, long overdue and fair minimum wage increase for the roughly two million California workers who labor at the bottom of the wage
scale," said Hugo Vera of CFW.
Those interested in helping, see: www.cafairwage.org - 916-484-5888
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