JASON RANTZ

Rantz: After duping Seattle City Council, union drops ‘Fight for 15’

Apr 2, 2018, 6:59 AM | Updated: 10:02 am

Jayapal minimum wage, Seattle City Council...

(AP file photo)

(AP file photo)

Not long after duping the Seattle City Council and many low-skilled, low-waged workers, the union behind the ‘Fight for 15’ campaign is mostly dropping their fight against fast food restaurants like McDonald’s. Now, they’ll try a new avenue at taking worker’s hard-earned pay.

RELATED: Deeply ironic attack on UW minimum wage study

The Service Employees International Union poured millions into taking on McDonald’s under the auspices of fighting for a $15 minimum wage. Their goal, however, was more sinister.

SEIU wanted to unionize these workers so they can bleed from them union dues. Union membership is struggling and the power they once had is dwindling. This was a way for them to compel more low-wage, low-skilled workers to join their ranks, then keep them under the false promise that they’ll have their backs when their jobs are under even more threat from technology.

Their plan had local help from Seattle City Councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Mike O’Brien who were either duped — or wanted to be — so that they can further demonize big business they blame for the City’s woes (it definitely isn’t the fault of the Progressive leadership under whom all our problems have gotten worse). There was an appearance of grassroots efforts by fast-food workers, but those were organized by labor union interests. Working Washington, an SEIU front-group, helped fuel the plan.

But the plan failed.

According to the Huffington Post’s labor reporter Dave Jamieson, the SEIU has pulled millions of dollars from that plan. Specifically, they’re pulling funds from “…local organizing committees, which have done the on-the-ground outreach to workers and coordinated the fast-food strikes that began in 2012.”

The piece suggests the SEIU disputes the interpretation of the move, but, of course, they would. But, as Huff Post notes, “…the movement has not translated into more dues-paying union members for SEIU, raising the question of how long the union could continue to robustly fund it.”

Much worse, these moves actually hurt many workers at small businesses who have seen a reduction in hours or an increase in duties. When the City of Seattle received negative results of a study they actually funded, they hastily hired researchers to come up with results that seemed favorable to the minimum wage increase. Ask and ye shall receive, however problematic and bias.

So now they’re shifting their plan to go after tips by ending tax tip credit and, instead, increasing a wait staff’s hourly wage. The problem for the waitstaff is pretty obvious: they make more money off of tips than they would off a slightly higher minimum wage. Indeed, after a group of A-list female celebrities urged New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to end the tip credit, 500 female wait staff responded by telling them to take a hike.

So, if ending the tip credit is against the best interest of the staff, why are union forces interested? It’s really simple, says local restaurateur and Progressive activist Dave Meinert.

“[U]nions don’t get dues on tips,” Meinert recently posted to Facebook (his post inspired this blog post).

Meinert has warned this was coming for several years. He’s the owner behind such iconic establishments as The 5 Point Cafe, Lost Lake Cafe and Comet Tavern. And he’s also unapologetically Progressive in his politics. Yet, he’s been vocal in his opposition to big labor dollars perverting our local political scene.

RELATED: Why a higher minimum wage might not help

“In the meantime, the City Council stopped funding the University of Washington study on the effects of how it raised the minimum wage when it wasn’t positive, while all getting tons of money in campaign donations from the unions pushing this,” Meinert said. “Seattle City Council could fix some of this by making the tip credit in the law permanent.”

Will they make the tip credit permanent or will they go along with the latest push by unions? History suggests the Seattle City Council will stick with the unions. Workers may not get much out of these SEIU-funded campaigns, but Seattle politicians sure seem to.

Jason Rantz on AM 770 KTTH
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