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Libby Schaaf Takes Credit for California $15 Minimum Wage with Billboard Tribute to Herself

by Dave Id
On April 3, 2016, a $15 minimum wage was signed into law in California, gradually raising the minimum wage from the current $10/hour to $15/hour by 2022. The same day, a similar law was signed in New York state. Based on the huge billboard in her honor that was seen high above San Pablo Avenue in May, one would be led to believe that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf single-handedly fought against all odds to bring an increased minimum wage to fruition. Apparently, workers themselves deserve no credit.
sm_libbyschaaf-15minimumwage-billboard_20160515_001.jpg
(Billboard glorifying Libby Schaaf at 57th Street and San Pablo in Oakland as seen on May 15.)


These new laws in New York and California came after years of struggle and risk-taking by fast food and other low-wage workers in the "Fight for 15" campaign. The first fast food worker strikes began in New York City in 2012. By 2013, similar actions were spreading across the country to the West Coast and the Bay Area.

Not waiting for businesses and state legislators to do the right thing, Oakland voters approved a new minimum wage structure in November 2014, which set the lowest allowable wage at $12.55 by March 2015, with further Consumer Price Index (CPI) increases annually from there. The Oakland measure also mandates paid sick leave and that hospitality service charges be paid to employees. Other cities passed similar measures.

Certainly, established labor unions such as Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) threw their weight into the Fight for 15, offering needed financial, political, and logistical resources, albeit with the strings that come attached to working with large unions. In California, the SEIU-UHW spun off the group Lift Up California, raising millions of dollars to promote and gather signatures for the "Fair Wage Act of 2016" ballot initiative. The initiative's qualifion for the ballot undoubtedly added pressure for final passage of SB-3 by the California legislature just one week later.

While it is unclear how much work they actually put into the initiative campaign, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee were listed as co-chairs of Lift Up California (the Lift Up website is no longer active and now redirects to The Fairness Project). Whatever the amount of time put in, not only did Libby Schaaf get at least one huge billboard with a ten-foot tall photograph of her smiling face in Oakland, Ed Lee got one of his own in San Francisco.

"Millions of Workers Thank Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf!" the Oakland billboard disingenuously read. The advertisement was designed and paid for by Lift Up California and/or SEIU-UHW, not millions of workers. Worse, it gives zero credit to the workers themselves who stood up for a more fair wage — by organizing, staging strikes and demonstrations, being fired by employers and harassed by police — when most people called them crazy for demanding too much. Instead, all credit goes to Libby Schaaf (and Ed Lee).

Even if it wasn't Libby Schaaf and Ed Lee who conceived of these billboards — and it's doubtful they paid for them out of their own pockets — it seems highly unlikely that Lift Up California placed the advertisements without the approval of the mayors, who were all too happy to take credit for the blood, sweat, and tears of countless others.


May Day: The Fight for $15 Kicks Off in Oakland (2013)
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/30/18736158.php

The Fight for $15 Takes the Bay Area by Storm (2015)
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/04/19/18771303.php

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$50 Per Hour Now
Sat, Jul 23, 2016 6:10PM
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