Status
Available
Publication
Boston : Beacon Press, [2017]
Description
"The inside story of the first successful $15 minimum wage campaign that renewed a national labor movement SeaTac, Washington--a small city built around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport--gained national recognition as the first successful $15 minimum wage battleground. But what most people don't know is that the SeaTac fight didn't begin with wages. The campaign emerged from an unlikely coalition that first united over the right of Muslim airport workers to pray. When unions stood in solidarity with Somali immigrants in a conflict with their employer over prayer breaks, something remarkable happened. From this skirmish a powerful coalition of immigrant workers, clergy, and unions emerged to force a dramatic showdown with the airlines and political establishment. At stake was not just money but justice: whether the airport economy would serve the needs of everyone who made it work. Driven by captivating narrative and insightful analysis, Jonathan Rosenblum's book reveals the inside story of SeaTac: airport workers and clergy staging face-to-face confrontations with corporate leaders; the challenges of uniting a diverse, largely immigrant workforce; and the internal tensions that nearly destroyed the coalition. Beyond $15 is a blunt assessment of the daunting problems within today's unions; a blueprint for a powerful, all-inclusive labor movement; and a call for workers to reclaim their power and voice in the new economy"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member pbirch01
Surprisingly readable and even enjoyable at times! I realize that reading a book about a labor movement and a ballot initiative might seem tedious and dry but I was pleasantly surprised that this book managed to be both informative and a pleasure to read. Rosenblum does stick to the tired tropes of
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the evils of capitalism but where the book soars is when he focuses on the lives and stories of the people involved in the movement. Putting together names of people I may have even interacted with at SeaTac airport made this book all the more real and why I enjoyed reading it as much as I did. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jim53
Rosenblum's book appears to have two purposes: to describe the process through which a group of airport workers pushed for and obtained significant financial concessions from a large airline, and to describe how much more is needed to achieve true economic justice for workers. He provides
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excruciating details about how airlines used bankruptcy laws to break unions and rebuff workers' demands, and recounts the many strategies that were combined to achieve progress at SeaTac in Washington state. He stresses the involvement of clergy early in the process, to make the fight a truly moral one, rather than adding them late as window dressing. Above all, he focuses on the need for workers to achieve a better balance of power in the ongoing relationship with employers, rather than simply gaining economic concessions. Recommended for readers with a strong interest in collective bargaining, economic justice, the airline industry, and/or a story of workers of many faiths and nationalities working together toward a common goal. Show Less
LibraryThing member snash
A union led campaign for $15 minimum wage does not sound like an engaging topic. but it was well written with plenty of personal anecdotes. The book also presented a possible mechanism to address the inequity inherent in capitalism, recognizing that neither traditional unions or political forces
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will provide a solution without a broad based social justice movement. Show Less
LibraryThing member GaryLeeJones
Rosenbaum's _Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activist, and the Revival of the Labor Movement_ is a close account of the recent successful efforts to gain a $15 per hour minimum wage for airport workers at SeaTac Airport in Washington state. Presenting the struggle from the points of view of
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numerous workers, past and present, and through accounts of official meetings with airport executives, CEOs of airlines and car rental agencies, union officials, church leaders rabbis, and Muslim leaders in the area, Rosenbaum offers both a clear vision of what happened at SeaTac and a plan of procedure for other labor leaders. A good book. Read it and pass it on. Show Less
LibraryThing member JeffV
It's been awhile now since Seattle approved a $15 minimum wage. How did it get passed there when the struggle was more prominent elsewhere? This book by a labor organizer tells exactly what went down.
Most publically, the $15 demand has been associated with fast-food chains, and judging from the
It is stories like this one that shows organized labor is still relevant and needed today. I don't always agree they are a good thing, and when they kill the golden goose rather than come to terms out of pure stubbornness and cause permanent damage to their particular industry, they can be a destructive force. But today laws are friendly to business and wealth is concentrated at the very top -- in some cases cited in this story bonuses paid to a single executive could have provided the difference between minimum and $15 for hundreds or thousands of employees. And that ain't right.
There are a lot of industries that are extremely profitable on the backs of those making less than $15 per hour. They are not all drop-out burger flippers -- my wife is a nurse, started as a CNA making about $10 per hour changing diapers on elderly patients who had no control anymore. CNAs, by the way, are regulated and need to be educated and pass a government exam before they are allowed to change diapers for a pittance. This book does give a nod to them, but the prime story is still SeaTac workers vs. Alaska Airlines. It's a good story, one worth learning about.
Most publically, the $15 demand has been associated with fast-food chains, and judging from the
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experience many have at such places, sympathy is far from universal. This book is not really about them, however, it's about airport workers who, prior to 9/11, had good paying jobs working as ground crew, baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and the like. These people supported families and owned houses. After 9/11 and changes that allowed airlines to declare bankruptcy at a whim, all of these good jobs vanished...airline management hit the reset button and via outsourcing agreements determined these jobs were now just worth minimum wage. And the SeaTac community (the city encompassing Seattle's airport) suffered greatly.It is stories like this one that shows organized labor is still relevant and needed today. I don't always agree they are a good thing, and when they kill the golden goose rather than come to terms out of pure stubbornness and cause permanent damage to their particular industry, they can be a destructive force. But today laws are friendly to business and wealth is concentrated at the very top -- in some cases cited in this story bonuses paid to a single executive could have provided the difference between minimum and $15 for hundreds or thousands of employees. And that ain't right.
There are a lot of industries that are extremely profitable on the backs of those making less than $15 per hour. They are not all drop-out burger flippers -- my wife is a nurse, started as a CNA making about $10 per hour changing diapers on elderly patients who had no control anymore. CNAs, by the way, are regulated and need to be educated and pass a government exam before they are allowed to change diapers for a pittance. This book does give a nod to them, but the prime story is still SeaTac workers vs. Alaska Airlines. It's a good story, one worth learning about.
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LibraryThing member CharlesSvec
I'm not sure what I expected from this book. After reading this, I have a better understanding and appreciation of what how corporations try to take advantage of people. I'm still not a believe in unions, but there are times that they serve a purpose. I would recommend this book as a good study on
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political activism. Show Less
LibraryThing member 3wheeledlibrarian
I really appreciated this testimony to the power of direct action. I have, in fact, really truly recommended this book to my daughter, who is a political activist. As the other reviewers have described, this is the account of one of the organizers of this important labor victory.
I am also a
I am also a
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disabled traveler. This book reminded me of the humanity of the people who have helped me get through airports. If you use airports, read this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member GramRaye
The author begins by describing what has gone wrong with the labor movement and how it fell apart (with help from the corporate bosses and the union bosses). Then he relates the battle for decent pay and working conditions in one particular place, the SeaTac airport facilities near Seattle, and
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tries to tell us how to do it in other places. I hope he's right. Show Less
LibraryThing member bks1953
Do you get 2 consecutive days off from your job? Does your 10-year old child labor 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, in a coal mine? Hopefully, you answered yes and no, respectively, to those questions. Yet, truly so, a little more than a century ago, your answers might very well have been the
The recently departed Dick Gregory, I had the pleasure of seeing him many times, always reminded his audiences that, "you got to ORGANIZE!!" And although he didn't mean it in the same vein, my Poppa often exhorted, "Organization spells success." Jonathan Rosenblum's book, "Beyond $15," is a tribute to those aphorisms.
It is an important work, not just in the story that it tells (the first successful effort to secure a $15/hour minimum wage), but also how a diverse community of interests -- workers, unions, community groups, faith workers -- can coalesce with a common idea.
Three decades ago, Reason-for-Living (hereinafter R-for-L)and I were employed at a well-known New England university. For over ten years, attempts at organizing the clerical and technical staffs of the colleges that comprised the university had been fruitless. Several times, Jesse Jackson appeared at our rallies, when there really wasn't much political capital in it for him. "How many of you own an MX missile?" Smiles and chuckles in response. "Well then, how many of you own a color TV?" 1000 hands in the air. "That's the problem; we don't make anything anymore except weapons." The difference isn't black and white," he would remind us. "It's GREEN!"
Literally, as this piece is being written, the president of the US is in Indiana, selling his "tax reform" plan that he claims will be a "yuge" benefit to the middle class; yet initial studies of the bill suggest that the biggest tax cuts will be for the proverbial 1%. Nothing new there; Reagan's tax "reform" of the mid-1980s did pretty much the same thing.
This same-ol' same-ol' often leads R-for-L to ask, and not always rhetorically, "WHY do people consistently vote AGAINST their own self-interest!?!?" One reason it happens is because the politricksters -- and apparently at least one real estate magnate as well -- love to peddle fear. Alas, we have seen it work too well and so often, throughout the world.
Which is why Rosenblum's chapter 4 is so important. "Bridging The Trust Gap" (pp. 56-72). Perhaps it should have been a much longer chapter, it is SO important a lesson. Yet the message is crystal clear: an "embryonic foundation of trust" among employees had been formed, truly and literally building a bridge across ethnic and cultural divides. With trust comes learning, and one "yuge" thing we learn is what unites us is stronger than any subterfuge that is designed and erected to divide us.
At that university where R-for-L and I worked, we would very often be asked, "But what will my boss THINK of me if I vote for the union???" Indeed, that was one of the college's main line of attack: that we should feel proud to be working at such an august university. But Congressman Barney Frank had a ready answer: "You can't eat prestige."
The more things change, the more they stay the same, the old folk-wisdom says. That often seems so true, doesn't it? But it doesn't have to be so forever. Mr Rosenblum's important tutorial can remind all of us of another eloquent quote: People see things as they are, and ask why ... but I dream of things that never were, and ask, why not?
Why not, indeed.
(PS: The campus where R-for-L and I worked did vote to organize. Approximately 1500 people voted, and it passed by all of 30 votes. The grad school where R-for-L worked, 65% voted for union represenation.)
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reverse, were it not for the trade union movement.The recently departed Dick Gregory, I had the pleasure of seeing him many times, always reminded his audiences that, "you got to ORGANIZE!!" And although he didn't mean it in the same vein, my Poppa often exhorted, "Organization spells success." Jonathan Rosenblum's book, "Beyond $15," is a tribute to those aphorisms.
It is an important work, not just in the story that it tells (the first successful effort to secure a $15/hour minimum wage), but also how a diverse community of interests -- workers, unions, community groups, faith workers -- can coalesce with a common idea.
Three decades ago, Reason-for-Living (hereinafter R-for-L)and I were employed at a well-known New England university. For over ten years, attempts at organizing the clerical and technical staffs of the colleges that comprised the university had been fruitless. Several times, Jesse Jackson appeared at our rallies, when there really wasn't much political capital in it for him. "How many of you own an MX missile?" Smiles and chuckles in response. "Well then, how many of you own a color TV?" 1000 hands in the air. "That's the problem; we don't make anything anymore except weapons." The difference isn't black and white," he would remind us. "It's GREEN!"
Literally, as this piece is being written, the president of the US is in Indiana, selling his "tax reform" plan that he claims will be a "yuge" benefit to the middle class; yet initial studies of the bill suggest that the biggest tax cuts will be for the proverbial 1%. Nothing new there; Reagan's tax "reform" of the mid-1980s did pretty much the same thing.
This same-ol' same-ol' often leads R-for-L to ask, and not always rhetorically, "WHY do people consistently vote AGAINST their own self-interest!?!?" One reason it happens is because the politricksters -- and apparently at least one real estate magnate as well -- love to peddle fear. Alas, we have seen it work too well and so often, throughout the world.
Which is why Rosenblum's chapter 4 is so important. "Bridging The Trust Gap" (pp. 56-72). Perhaps it should have been a much longer chapter, it is SO important a lesson. Yet the message is crystal clear: an "embryonic foundation of trust" among employees had been formed, truly and literally building a bridge across ethnic and cultural divides. With trust comes learning, and one "yuge" thing we learn is what unites us is stronger than any subterfuge that is designed and erected to divide us.
At that university where R-for-L and I worked, we would very often be asked, "But what will my boss THINK of me if I vote for the union???" Indeed, that was one of the college's main line of attack: that we should feel proud to be working at such an august university. But Congressman Barney Frank had a ready answer: "You can't eat prestige."
The more things change, the more they stay the same, the old folk-wisdom says. That often seems so true, doesn't it? But it doesn't have to be so forever. Mr Rosenblum's important tutorial can remind all of us of another eloquent quote: People see things as they are, and ask why ... but I dream of things that never were, and ask, why not?
Why not, indeed.
(PS: The campus where R-for-L and I worked did vote to organize. Approximately 1500 people voted, and it passed by all of 30 votes. The grad school where R-for-L worked, 65% voted for union represenation.)
Show Less
LibraryThing member Karen.Helfrick
I won this book through Librarything's Early Readers group.
As the synopsis states, Rosenblum did "dig deep into the root causes of poverty in the United States, and gives a blunt analysis of the problems the union currently faces in the wake of a struggle for power between immigrant workers and
I guess when I registered to win this novel I didn't realize that the author was one of the organizers of Proposition 1? The story becomes more of a historical memoir, a success of a personal nature. I do think Rosenblum makes several good points about the state of the labor movement in America, if arguable. But the fact that he begins the story with his origins, his experience before Seattle, helps to tell the reader who's talking to you.
Overall I think it's a very interesting story. Dry at times, maybe a little too expansive in others. I don't need to know every character's origin story from the beginning of their youth. But it does create a sympathy for those whom this story is really about.
As the synopsis states, Rosenblum did "dig deep into the root causes of poverty in the United States, and gives a blunt analysis of the problems the union currently faces in the wake of a struggle for power between immigrant workers and
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business and political elites." At least, in his opinion.I guess when I registered to win this novel I didn't realize that the author was one of the organizers of Proposition 1? The story becomes more of a historical memoir, a success of a personal nature. I do think Rosenblum makes several good points about the state of the labor movement in America, if arguable. But the fact that he begins the story with his origins, his experience before Seattle, helps to tell the reader who's talking to you.
Overall I think it's a very interesting story. Dry at times, maybe a little too expansive in others. I don't need to know every character's origin story from the beginning of their youth. But it does create a sympathy for those whom this story is really about.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TravisWilson
Attempts at universal wage policies fall flat when taken to logical ends and economic theory is put to the test, these policies fail every time.
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