Lessons from the Minimum Wage Campaign in Pennsylvania
 Young citizen calling for a raise in the minimum wage at Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition rally. |
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Lessons from the Minimum Wage Campaign in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania raised its state Minimum Wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.15 per hour in July of 2006. A 17 month campaign was waged by a coalition of organizations from Philadelphia and around the state to win the increase. The increase became law despite solid Republican majorities in both Houses. This is a brief effort to analyze what we learned from the successful campaign.
Minimum Wage was a basic issue that people could understand and that has had historical support from the majority of people of both parties in Pennsylvania. Strong popular support for an increase in the minimum wage was present at all times. (84% supported an increase according to state wide polls taken in mid 2005.)
The coalition was persistent. We didn’t allow ourselves to be distracted from the need to pass a minimum wage increase and continued with regular meetings and events for over 16 months to demand a $7.15 minimum wage. We agreed early on to accept nothing less than $7.15, which was the figure contained in House and Senate bills introduced by Rep. Mark Cohen and Senator Tina Tartaglione. The ongoing chant devised by UFCW Legislative Director John Myerson of “$7.15 nothing in between” didn’t totally make sense, but did make clear our bottom line.
We were able to build a broad coalition with a heavily invested core group. The UFCW, PUP, Pathways PA, Neighborhood Networks, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, Presbytery of Philadelphia, Community Action Committee of Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, ACORN, Congresso de los Latinos Unidos, CATA and the Jewish Labor Committee all were part of that core group. These groups met monthly or more in Philadelphia for 17 months to plan strategies and tactics of the campaign. Later meetings were held by conference call to include groups outside eastern Pennsylvania.
The Philadelphia Unemployment Project made the issue an organizing priority and provided staff to build and maintain the Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition, which met in PUP’s offices. PUP’s history of organizing and relationships with key groups helped maintain and strengthen the coalition work. PUP Director John Dodds acted as Coordinator of the coalition.
The coalition provided an opportunity for different groups to act differently. Those who wanted to organize in different areas were supported and those that wanted to organize in different ways were also supported, even when the coalition leader thought that some efforts were misplaced he supported the efforts as long as they were not counter to the coalition’s goals or strategy.
The nature of the coalition was also extremely important. Organized labor and the communities of faith, both of whom have stature and resources, were key elements and were given multiple stages for their points of views as well as opportunities to show their members the value of their organizations.
The ability to work with elected officials and union lobbyists to analyze where the bill was and what the current thinking on the bill was critical. Here it is important to stress John Meyerson’s knowledge and experience and that of the other labor and religious lobbyists was critical. Elected officials trusted them, worked with them in a way they would not work with people with whom they did not have a working relationship. This information was then passed on to allow for outside organizing.
The decisions to use public events to help move our campaign, to keep the campaign visible and to continue to have events that people can build for were also important.
We mobilized not just for rallies in Harrisburg but for other events including picketing a Santorum $1,000 a plate fund raiser, a State Senate Republican $500 a plate luncheon, as well as conducting a petition drive and asking legislators to sign pledges. We were able to arrange events, which our constituent groups felt comfortable with, wanted to participate in and were often willing to fund. By keeping the focus on raising the minimum wage and successfully allowing different tendencies to work in different ways, a large enough core stayed together to mount successful lobbying days and rallies in the Capital. The ability to create a tent big enough for the different point of views led to our turning out hundreds of people each time. Buses were mostly paid for by the labor movement and people came from all over the state. A wide variety of speakers took part from the Governor to minimum wage workers. Elected officials were continually visited by grass roots lobbyists, as well as by labor and religious lobbyists.
We were willing to try to impact Republican legislators that were in key places to prevent the increase. (All Democrats were on board.) All of the following but Speaker Perzel, from media expensive Philadelphia, were targeted with radio ads on their opposition to a minimum wage increase.
House Speaker John Perzel
Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer
Senate Majority Leader Chip Brightbill
Senate Labor and Industy Committee Chair Joe Scarnati
House Labor Relations Committee Chair, Robert Allen
Pat Eiding, President of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, made strong overtures to House Speaker Perzel, who has had a long time relationship with Labor, and who allowed a vote to happen in the House. Meetings with moderate Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs and Lehigh Valley also had an impact, with constituents from local churches and other organizations playing roles.
Governor Rendell, after taking an early position in favor of a federal rather than state minimum wage increase, became an avid campaigner for the state legislation. He held rallies and events around the state, which were an indirect part of his reelection campaign and raised the profile of the issue.
Strategically, we decided that the key to the issue was getting a vote in the Senate. Two bills passed by the House in earlier legislative sessions had died without a vote in the Senate and the key question was how to win a vote in that body. We decided to focus on Jubelirer and Brightbill, the Senate leadership.
We sent organizers to Lebanon, PA put together a group that met regularly and was able to put pressure on Majority Leader Brightbill with several public actions, with strong local press coverage. Most of the participants were active in the labor movement or the Democratic party or both. The Lebanon work contributed to Brightbill’s defeat in the primary, which opened the door to the long delayed (9 years) vote in the Senate.
Local organizing was also done in Altoona giving us a presence in President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer’s district. We generated dozens of phone calls to his local office when we did a call out night to his constituents who had signed petitions.
We had strength on the ground in several areas of the state including Philadelphia, the Lehigh Valley, Allegheny County, the Philadelphia suburbs and Lebanon County. The Lehigh Valley was particularly active through the Community Action Council of Lehigh Valley and their allies.
A key strategy involved placing radio ads which allowed us access to upstate Republican districts including Brightbill’s and Jubelirer’s. Ads used catchy music like Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” and the Who’s “We Won’t Get Fooled Again” and called for a vote and passage of a $7.15 minimum wage. Extensive coverage in rural areas was possible due to inexpensive advertising rates. Funds were raised from unions, churches, and political donors and went to a 527 committee In Our Interest.org.
We were able to produce the radio ads inexpensively due to Lance Haver’s home computer setup, which produced reasonable quality ads for media markets of the key elected officials that we identified. We got professional actors to volunteer their efforts on some of the ads. Others were cut by Lance and his wife, Lisa.
The legislative pay increase played a role in the campaign and we were able to use it as a contrast to the lack of a minimum wage increase. We did a press event in Harrisburg the day after the increase passed which was covered state wide and focused on the injustice of the working poor getting nothing while politicians got a substantial increase. We used the increase in the radio ads also and were able to capitalize on wide scale upset at the pay raise, particularly outside of the Philadelphia market, where our key opponents resided.
Democratic Senators Vincent Hughes and Tina Tartatlione were relentless in their pressure on the Republican leadership to demand a vote in the Senate. Hughes forced Brightbill to commit to a January vote on minimum wage during a Senate floor debate. Brightbill later reneged on his public commitment. This allowed us to put pressure on Brightbill in his home district, relating to his unkept promise.
We did a good job of keeping track of yes votes in the Senate, so we were able to make clear that a majority of the Senate was supportive of an increase to $7.15, even as Republican spokespeople tried to convince the world that Republicans would allow no more than a $6.15 raise to happen. When Republican Senator Stewart Greenleaf agreed to speak at our June 2006 rally, telling the state that the bill would pass at $7.15, the leadership could no longer stop a real increase in the state minimum wage. PUP staffer Brady Russell and UFCW’s John Meyerson played key roles in keeping the head count.
The House passed the bill in early April by a 145-50 vote. However, the Senate remained. A rally was held in Brightbill’s district two weeks later calling for him to schedule a vote. In May both Senator Brightbill and Jubelirer were defeated in their primary elections and the power of the Senate leadership to refuse a vote was broken. Once a vote was scheduled we had the commitments to win the full $7.15 and the bill passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 36-14.
On July 9, 2006, with many of the key advocates on hand, Governor Rendell signed a $2 per hour increase in the state minimum wage into law.