Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement

by Jonathan Rosenblum

The inside story of the first successful $15 minimum wage campaign that renewed a national labor movement

With captivating narrative and insightful commentary, labor organizer Jonathan Rosenblum reveals the inside story of the first successful fight for a $15 minimum wage, which renewed a national labor movement through bold strategy and broad inclusiveness. Just outside Seattle, an unlikely alliance of Sea-Tac Airport workers, union and community activists, and clergy staged face-to-face confrontations with corporate leaders to unite a diverse, largely immigrant workforce in a struggle over power between airport workers and business and political elites. Digging deep into the root causes of poverty wages, Rosenblum gives a blunt assessment of the daunting problems facing unions today. Beyond $15 provides an inspirational blueprint for a powerful, all-inclusive labor movement and is a call for workers to reclaim their power in the new economy.

Genres: Social Justice, Nonfiction, Labor

224 pages, Paperback

Published March 14, 2017

Reviews

[Sarah El-Khodor · Rating 1 out of 5]

i deserve 15$ in compensation for destroying my will to live having to read this book.

giving it one star solely for the respect it put on immigrant and muslim workers’s name🙂‍↕️

[Vee Bogumill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A love letter to collective action and a cautionary tale to unions still attempting to work under the current system of capitalism.

The book explores the SeaTac airport low-wage worker’s demands for a $15 livable wage. One of the first successful campaigns in the country. This call for dignified work reverberated across the nation, challenging the power structure of corporations versus workers and made income inequality a moral issue instead of only an economic one.

The stories were compelling— especially the power of immigrants and the working class for one common goal. People who are seen as “unskilled” or outcasts. These working class struggles often made me consider conditions I saw growing up in the south and in minimum wage jobs today. Particularly the staunch position so many take against their own best interests.

I learned more about unions. More about power structures and more about how to articulate the need for a living wage for all workers.

“What would it take to create a powerful new labor movement in the US that embraces the core elements of a social movement union? I believe there are three bedrock principles to guide justice activists: aim higher, reach wider, build deeper.” Pg. 179

⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Jan Petrozzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book pretty riveting, however I spent the first half of my career as labor and the other half as management. I saw a lot of things, and I am a supporter of the solidarity concepts, but as indicated in this book, unions have to change if they want to exist. These folks at Sea-Tac found the right idea! Quick read cause it was so interesting to me.

[Bookworm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author Rosenblum looks at the battle around the Seattle-Tacoma Airport for raising the minimum wage. What emerged from a fight for Somali immigrant workers for the right to pray soon evolved into immigrant workers, clergy, and unions coming together for a larger battle that would have implications beyond the Sea-Tac area. The author looks at how we got here, the role of big businesses and banks and what people from immigrants to clergy to union members, etc. can do in the fight for their rights.

At least, the book is supposed to be something like that. While I was intrigued at the story (I had not realized the role of prayer and the issues that had arisen during this particular time) I thought the writing was just horrible. It was pretty difficult to get through and I thought Rosenblum would have been much better served if he had worked with a ghostwriter or co-author.

Even when he starts off with personal stories (he recounts when he ended up in a showdown with his boss and found that his union membership was meaningless to the boss, at the beginning with another chapter he tells the story of a newly arrived immigrant who sees some of the same or even worse poverty he left behind), the writing just isn't very interesting. Sometimes goes on in run-on sentences, in other places it could have been re-written to combine a few shorter ones with some re-wording.

Don't get me wrong, it's clear that there's a story here. Unfortunately it just wasn't served by this particular author. Borrow from the library.

[Jim Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosenblum's book appears to have two purposes: to describe the process through which a group of airport workers pushed for and obtained significant financial concessions from a large airline, and to describe how much more is needed to achieve true economic justice for workers. He provides excruciating details about how airlines used bankruptcy laws to break unions and rebuff workers' demands, and recounts the many strategies that were combined to achieve progress at SeaTac in Washington state. He stresses the involvement of clergy early in the process, to make the fight a truly moral one, rather than adding them late as window dressing. Above all, he focuses on the need for workers to achieve a better balance of power in the ongoing relationship with employers, rather than simply gaining economic concessions. Recommended for readers with a strong interest in collective bargaining, economic justice, the airline industry, and/or a story of workers of many faiths and nationalities working together toward a common goal.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through Librarything's Early Readers group.

As the synopsis states, Rosenblum did "dig deep into the root causes of poverty in the United States, and gives a blunt analysis of the problems the union currently faces in the wake of a struggle for power between immigrant workers and business and political elites." At least, in his opinion.

I guess when I registered to win this novel I didn't realize that the author was one of the organizers of Proposition 1? The story becomes more of a historical memoir, a success of a personal nature. I do think Rosenblum makes several good points about the state of the labor movement in America, if arguable. But the fact that he begins the story with his origins, his experience before Seattle, helps to tell the reader who's talking to you.

Overall I think it's a very interesting story. Dry at times, maybe a little too expansive in others. I don't need to know every character's origin story from the beginning of their youth. But it does create a sympathy for those whom this story is really about.

[Barbara Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly interesting story of worker activism around an airport in the Pacific Northwest. The writing style was narrative, more like a story than like a non-fiction litany of facts and dates and footnotes. I read this for my book group and can see that there will be much to discuss.

[Tena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this in a GOODREADS giveaway -- Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement by Jonathan Rosenblum.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opening to the book was amazing. The decline of the labor and well paying jobs was depressing fascinating to see