Convergence is pleased to be collaborating with the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center on a series of articles spotlighting progressive initiatives in play this election season. This is the third article in the series; you can read the first one here and the second one here.
When asked to sign a petition to put an initiative on the ballot for paid sick leave and a raise in the minimum wage, one voter in Springfield, MO seized the moment to talk with his 9-year-old daughter about the value of her labor. After explaining the issue to her, he asked, “When you start working, do you think you should make at least $15 an hour?” She shrugged, unsure, and he responded, “Of course you should, because your labor is valuable and you should be paid what your labor is worth.”
The year-long campaign to qualify the Missouri Minimum Wage and Earned Paid Sick Time Initiative provided opportunities for thousands of similar conversations about what’s necessary for workers and families to thrive. Now on the November ballot as Proposition A, it has opened the door to building relationships and power, breaking isolation and effecting change.
“As polarization and cynicism take over our nation’s politics, voters increasingly feel disengaged, disenfranchised or combative, as if they are part of a reality show or a WWF match. Like many of our allies around the country, we are faced with breaking through the noise, figuring out how to have real conversations and connect with voters in a meaningful way,” said Caitlyn Adams, executive director of Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action, the organization anchoring the “Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages” Coalition. Other coalition partners include Missouri Worker Center, Abortion Action Missouri, Metropolitan Congregations United, SEIU, UFCW, Action St. Louis.
How we got here
Missouri Jobs with Justice is a statewide power-building organization committed to creating a democracy and economy that works for all of us. We are everyday Missourians—workers, community members, faith leaders, students, and union members—coming together to build a Missouri where we can all thrive. Our over 100 member groups include Laborers Local 955, Congregation Kol Ami, Action St. Louis, and Missouri Rural Crisis Center. Our 500 individual members live across the state in rural, urban and suburban areas.
Although Missouri is considered a red state, we have a substantial economic justice majority that has consistently voted with us on core issues, voting against Right to Work and in favor of raising the minimum wage in 2018 and expanding Medicaid in 2020. Despite the base of economic justice voters statewide, partisan gerrymandering has brought a conservative supermajority to power in the state legislature. Democrats hold 51 out of 163 seats in the House, and 10 out of 34 seats in the Senate, and Republicans hold all the statewide offices. We are constantly on defense against anti-worker policies including efforts to undo legislation passed by voters, tax policies that benefit only the very wealthy and corporations, and efforts to destroy the citizen-led initiative petition process. To build power, we must articulate the values we see on statewide ballot issues into durable progressive power in our state.
Our voter engagement strategy is grounded in our strong relationships with other grassroots groups in Missouri, including labor unions, Black-led organizations, and our fellow members of MOVE Action, our statewide, grassroots voter engagement table.
Collectively, we acknowledge that Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action is uniquely positioned to build relationships with the many working and middle-class white families in our state who share our core values around economic justice issues, but who are also the targets of white nationalism and right-wing populism. Breaking through racist dog whistles and forging an economic justice majority will require a sustained engagement that positions our organization as a trusted messenger and highlights how right-wing solutions leave all working families behind.
JWJ has historically been involved in the minimum wage and fighting for a “living wage.” But we have always been about a more complete experience of worker empowerment, which has led us into campaigns on more social issues like police accountability, voting rights and, more recently, reproductive freedom. On the economic front, over the past five to 10 years we have been taking a more holistic approach to compensation and moving beyond the frame of a living wage towards a “family supporting economy,” something that includes not just wages, but the benefits, both employer-provided and social, that workers need for our families to thrive. This includes things like paid sick and paid family leave and strong public infrastructure for children.
We are moving beyond the frame of a living wage towards a “family supporting economy,” something that includes not just wages, but the benefits, both employer-provided and social, that workers need for our families to thrive.
Proposition A builds on the minimum wage increase started in 2018, when we raised the wage through a ballot initiative from $7.85 to $12 by a gradual increase of 85 cents a year. Prop A will continue that gradual increase by raising Missouri’s minimum wage to $13.75 in January 2025 and to $15 in 2026. Proposition A is expected to raise wages for over 550,000 Misosuri workers. With almost 750,000 workers in Missouri currently lacking even a single minute of earned paid sick time, choosing between going to work sick and paying their bills, Prop A will also require employers to give one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, giving one in three working parents access to earned paid sick time
Over the last 12 months, Missouri Jobs with Justice and our partners have mobilized over 850 leaders and activists from all corners of the state. These activists were of different races, different gender identities, different income levels and sometimes even different politics. We knew we were doing something special when on the first day of the campaign we mobilized over 150 Missourians and gathered over 8200 signatures—the most signatures collected by grassroots groups in one day in our collective history. Two months later we smashed that record when nearly 200 Missourians braved high temperatures to gather over 9,000 signatures during a municipal election in the Kansas City region.
Across the state, workers support this ballot measure because they see it as a way to make a real improvement in their lives. It has been a space for educating and taking action on their values.
The process of gathering signatures is one of beginning dialogue, of connection, and organizing. While out at an art event a volunteer asked a woman with a 12-year-old son to sign the petition. As she signed the petition she told the volunteer that she didn’t have any paid sick time. Her son was shocked and noted that he had been completely unaware that his mom was expected to go to work when she was sick or he was sick. He immediately saw the injustice of expecting workers to choose between their health and a paycheck.
In our 25 years of on-the-ground organizing in Missouri, we have learned that while voter engagement work tied to candidates and electoral calendars can be an important tactic, building long-term power depends on building long-term relationships with working people that equip them to take action year-round. Deep canvassing is an opportunity to connect with voters outside of the partisan sphere and have longer in-depth conversations about issues to attempt to understand their self-interest, to share stories and to offer paths to connection. That is why we paired our signature-gathering efforts with a statewide deep canvassing program.
Deep canvassing
We prioritized knocking doors in suburban and rural Missouri and used deep and relational canvassing techniques to engage in conversations that gave people a place to discuss their concerns, misconceptions, and biases about paid sick leave and raising the minimum wage. Around the state, these conversations gave voters a chance to reflect on times that they or someone they care about earned minimum wage, or when they’ve had to miss work to stay home with a sick child. By spending that time connecting and being curious instead of making assumptions, we were able to move people not only into signing the petition, but also to getting more involved with our organization.
Our deep canvassers utilized multiple techniques to connect with people in the community. One deep canvasser was gathering signatures at a local park and got a voter to sign the Healthy Families and Fair Wages petition. The next week the same canvasser was going door to door deep canvassing and ended up knocking on the same person’s door. In the past, with traditional canvassing, we would have just thanked her and moved on to the next house, but with clarity on building our base, the voter had a conversation about why she supported the issues and signed a pledge to get involved. With intentional follow-up, this person attended a welcome meeting and has stepped into a leadership position in the organization.
With the HFFW petition, we knocked over 200,000 doors, had multiple conversations with over 30,000 voters with over half signing the petition. Similar to other places around the country, working people in Missouri are pitted against each other based on where they live, the color of their skin, what their jobs are, their citizenship status, and how much they make, among other things. But we know that working people have more in common than any differences and it is only by talking and having real conversations that we can build a Missouri that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected.
Looking ahead
As we look ahead to November, we have a robust field plan that includes deep canvassing in key regions into October, transitioning that team to support traditional canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts for Prop A and Amendment 3 through the election, and returning to deep canvassing in mid-November. We have supported the creation of the Missouri Inclusive Democracy Fund, which is seeking to bring racial equity to our electorate. We are engaging these newly registered voters on how and why to vote after they are registered.
In November, voters also have an opportunity to overturn Missouri’s total ban on abortion by voting Yes on Amendment 3. Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action endorsed the initiative and supported the signature-gathering effort; we are talking with voters about both Proposition A and Amendment 3 in our volunteer-led canvasses because we are clear that both are economic justice issues.
This election cycle will be the first election after redistricting, which made a number of State Senate seats more competitive. We will see big spending on the US Senate seat currently held by Josh Hawley.
Breaking isolation
While we will focus many resources on winning in November, JWJ will continue our deep canvassing beyond the election because we believe these relational conversations are the antidote to division and isolation, and are critical to building the future we need.
Last spring, a canvasser knocked on the door of a union member who lived in a conservative area. This person was grateful that someone had knocked on his door because he had been wanting to sign the petition but he told the canvasser that this would likely be the only good conversation they would have in his neighborhood. At this, the canvasser was able to let that voter know that that wasn’t the case. They had already had several people who had shared his values and signed the petition and he was not as isolated as he felt.
Too many people in Missouri and beyond feel that isolation this man was talking about. This isolation is keeping us from coming together. However, it is through campaigns like this that show when people come together to engage in politics not as Republicans or Democrats but as workers we can see past what keeps us apart. By challenging these feelings of isolation and polarization, breaking down division, and creating long-term relationships, we can achieve our goal of building a democracy and economy that works for all of us.
Kay Mills is the political director with Missouri Jobs with Justice. Kay has been a political organizer in Missouri since 1996, and holds a BA in political science from Washington University in St. Louis. Her experience includes work with Missouri Jobs with Justice, Moms Clean Air Force, the Service Employees International Union, Missouri NEA, UNITE HERE, and various political campaigns. Kay has worked on many issues in her career, including fighting for expanded access to health care, an increase in the minimum wage, and implementing clean power standards.
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