When my first campaign for Seattle City Council began, the establishment said that the grassroots movement behind me would have little impact. Yet, a mere six months after my election and the creation of 15 Now, we won a $15 minimum wage, a raise for more than 100,000 people, transferring $3 billion over 10 years to the hardest-working and lowest-compensated workers in the region.
Since then, our movement has helped build the campaign that stopped 400-percent rent hikes on Seattle Housing Authority tenants, changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, built support for striking teachers and shifted Seattle’s political debate toward social justice.
Housing justice
In Seattle, and District 3 in particular, rents are skyrocketing. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment within the city is a staggering $1,750 per month! That’s $21,000 a year, with the first $10.50 of every hour’s pay going to rent for a full-time worker.
One thousand people attended our rent-control debate last year. We need city-owned affordable housing and rent control for both small business and residential tenants, and we also need a tenant’s bill of rights.
The mayor and a number of City Council members have come out in support of my “Carl Haglund Law,” an ordinance to stop landlords like Haglund from demanding rent hikes in uninhabitable housing. Then-Councilmember Nick Licata and I initiated this ordinance in support of tenants fighting for their rights at one of these properties.
I am also introducing a bill for relocation assistance for tenants forced to move by dramatic rent increases. Right now, landlords need to pay assistance to low-income tenants only if they intend to renovate. We need to cap move-in fees, protect prospective tenants from discrimination and injustice in screening applications and continue to build the organizing power of tenants’ unions.
Moving beyond failed policies
Over the last few months, my office has been working with the Capitol Hill Community Council, social service providers and community organizers to develop support for expanding Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program (LEAD). Instead of systematically jailing nonviolent offenders, LEAD’s approach is to connect people who have committed certain low-level offenses with housing and social services. This is proven to limit recidivism and is an important alternative to the inhumane and racist levels of incarceration in this country.
For a safer city, we need policies that are consistent with the reality that crime and public safety issues worsen as a society becomes more deeply unequal. Right now, a tiny minority is getting wealthier, while the overwhelming majority is facing increased barriers to living-wage jobs, education, health care and social services and affordable housing. I look forward to fighting to expand the scope and reach of the LEAD program.
Supporting small business
For months, much of 23rd Avenue in the Central Area has been effectively inaccessible due to street construction. Street improvements are needed and can benefit the entire community in the long run, but impacts differ. Big businesses have the capital reserves to weather a loss of business during construction; very small businesses do not have that advantage and risk going under.
In response, several 23rd Avenue businesses reached out to my office for support. Together, we built pressure that won desperately needed financial assistance for the smallest businesses.
The Seattle Department of Transportation also agreed to reorganize its on-the-ground presence, to make navigation easier for traffic and the public. These measures may not be sufficient, but they show that when regular people organize, our movements can win.
I am also promoting a progressive agenda for Seattle’s small businesses and their workers. We held a town hall to discuss commercial rent stabilization, portable retirement accounts for workers, expanded late night transit and other measures small businesses need.
Fighting for fair scheduling
I have seen business owners and representatives in council meetings take zero responsibility for the impacts unpredictable and unfair work schedules have on workers’ lives. They hire additional part-time workers, rather than allowing current workers to go full-time. They make their employees wait until Sunday to learn if they are working on Monday. And then they blame the workers for asking to switch a shift due to lack of child care or their shift conflicts with another part-time job.
This needs to stop. Workers are demanding to know their schedule two weeks in advance to be able to plan their lives and are demanding to be compensated if that changes. They are demanding access to work full-time when new hours are available, and they are demanding that Seattle defend their right to have reasonable control over when they work.
An affordable city
Obviously, these efforts alone will not achieve social justice. We need stronger unions, independent candidates and broader struggle uniting our movements.
Our past victories have pointed to what is possible, however. If regular people organize and push back against the politics of big business with a socialist strategy, we can tackle the chasm of income inequality and social injustice.
KSHAMA SAWANT represents District 3 on the Seattle City Council. To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.