Raise the Wage needs your help

RALLY: Defend the Right to Strike

This Saturday, May 6

10am - 11am

Federal Courthouse

700 Stewart 

The Supreme Court, which just stripped away abortion rights, is gearing up for the biggest attack on workers in a generation: forcing workers to pay for corporations’ losses from strike action!

 

If big business can recoup their lost profits by suing unions, as corporations plan to do in the Supreme Court case Glacier NW v. the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, it will not only have a chilling effect on strike action but will undermine the key reason why strikes are so powerful—they shut production down and bring the profits of big business to a halt.

 

Strikes are the most important tool workers have to fight for better wages and conditions–we can’t let the bosses and their courts take this away from us!
 

📣Join Glo’s restaurant workers this Sunday as they celebrate their brand new union!🎉

After months of organizing, workers at the beloved Capitol Hill diner won voluntary recognition of their union with Restaurant Workers United on April 19. They are the first unionized full-service restaurant in Seattle in several decades.

Over 100,000 people in the Seattle metro area work in the restaurant industry—a field plagued by overwork, wage theft, sexual harassment, and many other indignities. The organizing effort at Glo’s (in which a long-time Seattle DSA member is involved) hopes to demonstrate that it’s not only possible to unionize the restaurant industry, but vital in order to bring radical change to it as they fight for stable and consistent scheduling, pay transparency, and tip equity and more.

 

The workers at Glo’s dedicate their rally in part to the brave organizing efforts at Starbucks and Homegrown, which inspired their own organizing. If you’re able to, please consider supporting the workers’ fledgling union by donating to Restaurant Workers United. 

 

Please also consider donating to support Glo’s Community Meals program, which provides free breakfast to those in need.
 

📣Upcoming Activities📆

Check out our calendar to sign up for one of our many outreach events!

 

The recent landslide victory of a pro abortion rights State Supreme Court Justice in the fiercely contested Wisconsin elections and Brandon Johnson, a Chicago Teacher Union activist and Bernie-crat, winning Chicago’s mayoral race, defeating a conservative, tough-on-crime Democrat, makes clear, if given the option, large sections of working class people are voting for pro-working class solutions. 

 

This follows on the heels of the 2022 midterms when working people also voted for pro-working class solutions: raised the minimum wage to $15/hour in Nebraska, 6 states voted to support abortion rights in referendums, and a majority bucked their own Republican dominated state in South Dakota to extend Medicare funding. 

 

All of this makes crystal clear - if we can get Raise the Wage Renton on the ballot, we have a high likelihood of winning. 

But we are certain to lose if we don’t get on the ballot - sign up today to help gather the signatures to get on the ballot! We have a fighting chance if you sign up for a shift!
 

Friends,

In 2014 under pressure from a movement led by socialists and the local labor movement, Seattle City Council passed the $15 minimum wage - the first major city to do so.  This set off a prairie fire of other minimum wage struggles, most recently in Tukwila.  It’s been estimated that the 2014 Seattle minimum wage victory will transfer $2.5 billion over ten years from some of the biggest corporations in the world to 100,000 workers, disproportionately people of color, women, LGBTQ, and Black people. 

 

We have an opportunity to strike a blow against the billionaire class through a grassroots movement of working people and youth that can win a higher wage in Renton.  First and foremost we need to help gather the 10K+ signatures to qualify for the ballot.  This will take resources.

 

Will you kick down $25, $50, $100 for Seattle DSA to support the grassroots movements for a higher minimum wage in Renton?  

 

The low wage, no benefit corporations that dominate Renton will fight tooth and nail to prevent any attempt to stymie their ceaseless flow of profits.  They will spare no amount of money to defeat our movement.  

 

In October our chapter voted to hire two part-time staff members – a major milestone for Seattle DSA.  This month, Guillermo Zazueta began work as our new Campaign Organizer and Ty Moore stepped in as our new Communications Organizer. The two staff will help activate our 1,500 members, build in South King County, and ramp up our chapter’s communications and media. 

 

With its multi-racial working class, the need for socialists to root our movement in South King County is clear. Raise the Wage Tukwila winning by 82% showed there is an opening, and we’ve established points of support during the Gallardo campaign. 

 

But to build DSA in South King County will take serious resources.  

 

Please chip in $25, $50, $100 to strike a blow against the billionaire class!