How to Fight for a $15 Minimum Wage

Activists demand McDonald's offer a $15 minimum wage in Fort Lauderdale, May 23, 2019 [Joe Raedle/AFP]

By Samantha Grasso

Last month, just over 60% of Florida voters approved an amendment to increase the state minimum wage to $15, making Florida the eighth state to do so. The state minimum wage will increase annually by $1, until it reaches $15 in 2026. It’s a huge win for the underpaid essential workers who have been deemed “heroes” amid the pandemic.

I spoke with two Florida workers about organizing their communities to vote for Amendment 2, and what workers in other states could take away from their success. Mimi Wiggins is a server at the Tampa International Airport and an organizer with a Central Florida chapter of the union Unite Here. Cristian Cardona is a shift manager at McDonald’s and an organizer with Fight for $15 in Orlando.

Start with your community

Wiggins, who traveled to Orlando several times a week to register and meet with union members during the day, spent her nights and weekends engaging with neighbors, family and friends. The organizing team at Unite Here built out volunteer teams of 20 people each, with each volunteer creating a list of tens of contacts. From there, her team used the canvassing app Reach, which was developed for New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first House race, to contact those folks, particularly those who were thought to be more progressive, but hadn’t recently voted.

“The [response] changes when they know you as opposed to getting those crazy texts that we were all getting during the election time,” Wiggins said. “There were days when my team, for example, we’d say, ‘If you're in the neighborhood and you're up to it, go knock on that door and say, ‘Hey, I'm your neighbor. Remember I texted you,’ just so they know that you're a real person.’ And those were amazing conversations too, ‘cause we have plenty of those.”

Take advantage of the moment

As a way to help members during the pandemic, Unite Here distributed several rounds of $50 gift cards for Publix grocery stores. At these in-person distributions, Wiggins said they were also able to have conversations with members about Amendment 2 and get them registered to vote or update their registration.

Cardona got involved with Fight for 15 at the beginning of the pandemic when his workplace failed to provide personal protective equipment and a living wage during the crisis. Though he wanted to unionize his store, he received little enthusiasm from his coworkers, so he shifted into organizing for Amendment 2. He participated in protests and texted voters, and found Zoom to be a valuable resource. With his irregular schedule as a manager, having the ability to work safely and remotely with others gave him the flexibility he needed when organizing beyond his own workplace.

Find the right messaging

Both Cardona and Wiggins said that they had to cut through the clutter of anti–Amendment 2 messaging to reach their family and coworkers. (Cardona said his own employer, McDonald’s, invested in fighting Amendment 2.) This meant explaining the confusing language of the amendment on the ballot and dispelling common anti-raise talking points pushed by corporations and conservative groups, like that a wage raise would crush businesses and lead to layoffs.

Wiggins said just having conversations with people about their own circumstances, and the inhumane circumstances that other hourly workers experience, put into perspective how much a raise in minimum wage would help them.

And the biggest supporters

Though people close to him, including coworkers, doubted that the amendment would pass, Cardona said that having Fight for 15’s efforts acknowledged by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris and Service Employees International Union president Mary Kay Henry lent credibility to the fight.

“Even though most people kind of deep down knew that what I was doing [with Fight for 15] was for the greater good, they didn't believe that anything good was going to come from it,” Cardona said. “Having such official people just made [the fight for Amendment 2] seem a lot more serious.”

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