Seattle Unions Win Battle to Protect 200,000 Family-Wage Jobs

Lily Wilson-Codega, political organizer for the Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council,  sends us this report. 

Along with environmental advocacy groups and industrial business, we in the Seattle-area union community celebrated a historic victory in recent days with the passage of the 2007 Industrial Jobs Initiative. The ordinance will institute protections for industrial businesses and jobs by limiting office and retail development encroaching on Seattle’s industrial zones.

Industry and manufacturing are the lifeblood of this local economy, bringing in $31 billion annually and generating a diverse spectrum of high-paying, family-wage jobs that employ a quarter of the city’s workforce.

Herald Ugles, president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19, explains:

The Port of Seattle and our maritime industrial core are such a critical resource for our community. For thousands for working people like myself, these jobs mean access to everything from homeownership to health care access. This was not something we could afford to lose.

As is the case for many municipalities, increasing pressure on industrial lands from real estate speculation has been chipping away at this vital economic resource. With hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake, the labor community mobilized a broad coalition to address the issue in what became a three-month land use battle at City Hall.

Testifying before the county at the final hearing on the issue, David Freiboth, executive secretary-treasurer of the King County Labor Council, puts it this way:

It is a matter of whether you believe in a Seattle for everyone or you think we should whittle away what we have left of our industrial sector.

For Chad Smith, political director of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5, passage of the measure was a matter of fairness. 

When we see myriad socio-economic problems plaguing our workforce and the rapid erosion of health care and retirement programs throughout the nation, this ordinance gives us a viable solution right here at home—creation and retention of good, family wage jobs.

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