 |
The latest debate in local Santa Cruz politics is the campaign for a minimum wage. The current minimum wage in California is $6.75, and the governor (yes, that guy…) is considering to raise it to $7.75 by 2007. The Working Alliance for a Just Economy held a press conference on January 17th to kick off a campaign to raise the minimum wage to $9.25. Campaigners are collecting signatures to get the proposal on the ballot, and if they manage to do so (this requires 3,338 signatures) there will be a vote on raising the minimum wage in November. Santa Cruz could become the fourth U.S. city to adopt its own minimum wage. |
Last week-end we ran into a campaigner on the main street down town. When he heard that Maria is from Madrid, he began talking very lively about something he had just read about Spain and we couldn’t follow quite well, there was something about a fight, a disaster, an invasion and Maria and me looked at each other a bit worried about what we didn’t know yet – shit, i should really put some more effort into following the international news while i’m here, i remembered thinking. Then came the moment when the guy saw our bewilderment and we could only ask “please tell us, what happened?” and we found out that… he had been reading about Napoleon’s invasion in Spain. (1808, i checked). We couldn’t stop laughing. Anyway, as “alien non-residents” we unfortunately can’t give our signatures.
But we’re getting involved in the living wage campaign by the Student Workers Coalition for Justice, and one of the things we’ve learned is that, taking the actual living costs in this beach resort into account, a wage which permits you to live outside of poverty and assistence in this town would be around $24… Here’s some more info:
Audio
On Indymedia: the press conference by Workers Alliance for a Just Economy
Articles in the local press
In SC Metro (25 Jan.) Fair Factor. A campaign to raise the minimum wage citywide sends shock waves through the local business community
In SC Sentinel (25 Jan.) Wage hike proposal sparks business response
In SC Good Times (2 Feb.) Pay Pals
Other resources
a map of minimum wages through the country, by the U.S. Department of Labor
About half a year ago I read Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America by Barbara Ehrenreich. Ok, it is not a sociological study and it reads more like a novel, but I was really impressed by it. And of course, all the work Ehrenreich did was ligit – so what about all those illegal workers…
(that just makes me think about post-slavery times, where the farmers forced the black labourers to stay on their farm, hugely putting them into “debt” – debt the farmers created… Also, in the beginning of the 20th century, all the levees were maintained by blacks again in this semi-slavery situation. The life of a donkey was worth more than the life of a worker. And the levees–> broke with Katrina…..)
Ah, Nickel and Dimed is one of the new books (actually it’s used copy) i got here, didn’t get a chance to read it yet. But even without having read a lot about the extent of poverty here, you come across it all the time. Walking down Pacific Avenue, the mainstreet in down-town, means coming across many homeless people. But more than this kind of “fallen outside of the system” poverty, its the working poverty that it omni-present. Simply at the university, the janitors and maintenance staff. During the day it remains a somewhat out of sight, but i usually stay in the office until a bit later, and from 5.30 pm (already many people have left the building by then) the janitors come in, they work till 2 pm. There’s one guy that i have almost daily conversations with, but language is difficult and we’re basically being nice to each other. There’s another guy that i sometimes catch the bus with if i leave campus at 9pm and he has an earlier shift, and he’s been talking to me about this living and working conditions. He gets $10 hour and in expensive Santa Cruz that doesn’t make a living. So he has other jobs on the side, and manages just about, but the big worry is if something a bit out of the normal happens, an extra expense that month, than he doesn’t make it. The big dream: to start his own business… America America…