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Elements
of Success
People
Resources
Information
Strategic Steps
A successful living wage campaign requires three elements: people, resources, and information.
Identifying allies
Living wage campaigns begin with local grassroots efforts. Such efforts include word of mouth campaigns, passing out fliers, sending notices, and contacting potential members through community leaders.
Coalition building relies on a triangle of participating organizations-community, labor, and faith-based groups.
Community groups include providers of social services, such as homeless shelters; groups that work on sustainable community development; groups that work on issues of economic justice including civic associations, neighborhood groups, colleges and local chapters of national civil rights groups (i.e. NOW, NAACP, Urban League, ACORN, etc).
Labor Unions have a central interest in fighting for a living wage. Enacting living wage provisions help strengthen the overall bargaining position of unions by raising the wage floor. The participation of unions can deliver their strong alliance networks and relationships with local politicians. Service sector unions are almost universally involved in local living wage campaigns.
Faith-based organizations , as providers of social services, intimately understand the needs of their communities and offer a source of moral authority to build public will through their members.
Coalition building is time intensive-taking months or years to develop strong relationships and successful campaigns. It requires long-term commitment and participation by both labor and community organizations.
Not all groups provide the same level of resource or expertise. A group's contribution depends on its membership size, time availability, and other resources and constraints. Participating organizations need to contribute to one or more of the following areas:
Writing a living wage provision requires extensive research. The more solid the research, the less opportunity for the opposition to undermine the campaign. Preliminary information should include:
Contracts . Compile a list of all current city/county contracts with private vendors. This requires calling various departments in the city to provide a composite view of a jurisdiction's contracts. Once a list is gathered, identify the large contracts that look like they potentially provide low wages. Research these companies.
Subsidies . Find out which city departments give out money to businesses for "economic development", "job creation or retention" or "business attraction." Request subsidy amounts by company and type of project.
Information gathered in both categories should include wages, the number of employees affected, provision of health benefits, and cost to the jurisdiction. While this information is public domain, it is difficult to gather. Businesses usually report only what is mandated by law, and cities often lack the resources or staff to keep accurate records. Persistence is key to obtaining the necessary information.
It is also useful to contact people or groups that are sympathetic to the living wage movement. This includes academics, human service professions, local unions, state labor departments, local news sources, elected officials and their staff. They can lend help in research efforts and even surveys of particular employees.
Clear objectives . Develop clear objectives, process objectives and goals for the campaign.
Effective organizing . A successful campaign must build a broad coalition of organizations and obtaining key political support, from elected officials.
Efficient process . During the campaign process, run routine and effective meetings. Form sub-groups to deal with the minutia of the provision and to keep members engaged. Set well-defined agendas, deadlines, and goals to keep focused and on track.
Decision Making. From the onset of the campaign, decide how the coalition will make decisions. Will decision-making be made by consensus, by parliamentary voting, by majority rule, or some other system that takes all the groups into consideration?
Define Roles . What will each individual or group contribute to the campaign; what will the role of each organization will be? Ensure that there are adequate follow-ups.
Keep records . Document all work for future reference: meetings; related news clippings, letters and memos sent and received; successes and challenges.
Political alliances . Form alliances with politicians and those that have power at the state and county level.
Know the opposition . Understand the different tactics the opposition will use and prepare counter strategy [challenges].
Tactics . Develop tactics that range from the timid to the bold. Design high-spirited rallies, demonstrations, protests, face-to-face meetings, and run creative campaigns.
The living wage coalition in Los Angeles used a range of tactics to advance their campaign. These tactics included systematically reaching out to individual council members through: phone-in campaigns, emails, faxed letters of support.
Build the Case. Developing a well-crafted media campaign makes living wages an issue in the community; holds politicians accountable for what they say on record; and builds momentum for the campaign.
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