Socialist party defends paying $13 an hour while calling for much higher minimum wage

A leader of Seattle’s Freedom Socialist Party is defending the group’s search for a new web content manager paying $13 an hour, even though it’s fighting for a $20 minimum wage.

“Isn’t it hypocritical?” KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson asked Anne Gurry Hodderson, International Secretary for the group, in an interview Monday.

The group drew the attention of Dori late last week after posting a job listing seeking a skilled web content manager. It’s a job that would pay far more in many other organizations.

But Hodderson says the Socialist Party simply can’t afford to pay more.

“We’re a working-class organization. We don’t have any millionaire members, no government grants or grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” says Hodderson.

She says since they don’t qualify for nonprofit status, their donors don’t get a tax break.

“We’ve worked for decades for the most exploited workers, and as you know, their wages have fallen steadily and that makes it very difficult for us to pay out $20 an hour,” she says.

Yet she remains steadfast in her insistence other businesses should pay at least $15 an hour, if not more.

“We’re basically a nonprofit organization, as in we don’t make a profit,” she says.

But Dori asks why businesses, especially small ones barely making a profit or just breaking even, should have to pay any more.

“You are calling for other people to pay a salary that you yourself, your organization, cannot afford to pay. A lot of business owners have told me ‘we can’t afford a higher minimum wage in Seattle’ and yet you don’t care about them, you care about yourselves.”

Hodderson argues big businesses should have to pay more, and advocates for a head tax for larger employers, saying many are “getting away with murder.”

Dori just shakes his head, remaining floored by the hypocrisy.

But Hodderson remains steadfast.

“Workers create the profits, they create the wealth,” she insists. “We deserve all of it. We deserve to be able to share it with society.”