title("Houston's Living Wage Campaign Gets On The Ballot")

'What did I tell you! I knew it wouldn't even be close. What did I say, huh!" shouted an obviously exultant activist working with Houston's Living Wage campaign. It is 3:00 a.m., Wednesday morning, November 6th, after the election, and several of us look up smiling, though exhausted. Sure enough, there it is, "30,000 signatures" scrawled on the chalk board inside the Harris County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council meeting hall. These signatures were collected by volunteers at polling places, churches, campuses and parking lots around the clock for a month, and the activist was right--it wasn't even close.

His excitement was shared by all of us who had worked so hard. Kicked off earlier in the year by SEIU Local 100 in Houston, Texas, the Living Wage Campaign--"Six-fifty for the City'. soon won the endorsement and active support of the Harris County AFL-CIO central labor council, ACORN, Houston NOW, the Gray Panthers, the Urban League and numerous church and community groups. Working together, the Living Wage Campaign reached out to all Houstonians in the effort to get a municipal minimum wage proposal of $6.50 an hour for all workers employed in Houston

on the ballot as a referendum measure this winter. In order to be successful, the Campaign had to obtain 19,000 verifiable signatures of registered voters residing in Houston between October 8th and November 5th. When the final tallies were done, it was clear: The hard work of union members, community activists, and volunteers had paid off, and then some. The Living Wage Campaign had collected over 30,000 verified and confirmed voters' signatures in under a month. The petitions were presented to City Hall November 6th, and the battle is on to secure the referendum on the ballot and win the election, tentatively scheduled for January 18th of next year.

Although the hard work is really just beginning, the successful petition drive marks an important milestone for the labor movement in Houston, Texas. "This is the largest grass-roots effort conducted by the Harris County AFL-CIO in 20 years or more,' exclaimed Orell Fitzsimmons of SEIU Local 100. Involvement with the Living Wage campaign follows other solidarity actions the Central Labor Council recently initiated,. most notably picketing and leafleting in support of both the Steelworkers in their fight with Bridgestone and for UNITE in their ultimately successful struggle with K-Mart. By concretely backing this initiative, the workers of Houston have a chance to get to know the labor movement in the flesh, so to speak, rather than the usual negative (and un-"objective') coverage usually provided by the pro-corporate press, when and if working peoples' struggles are covered at all.

However important this institutional support is, this measure would have been just another 'good idea that died" if it were not for the strong grass involvement the Living Wage Campaign received by the hundreds of volunteers who have seen it through to this point. I personally met countless union workers working hard to get the required signatures on this petition drive--members of the I.B.T., C.W.A., S.E.I.U., A.F.S.C.M.E., I.B.E.W., and the U.F.C.W all volunteered their time, to name only a few. Just as important were the many non-union Houstonians active in this campaign. At the polling place where I worked collecting signatures on election day, I had the privilege of working with a college social work professor, a Jesuit social worker, and a member of the SEIU to solicit support for a living wage. If the Living Wage Campaign continues this open arms approach to all Houstonians, the campaign has a fighting chance. As Harris County Constable Rick Trevifio related to the Houston Chronicle on October 1, "What needs to be clear is that this is not about the unions. Its about the working people." 'Nuff said (Trevifio was a union meat cutter).

The Houston business community is probably surprised at our overwhelming success to this point, and they have been slow to respond. However, this silence will not continue. They have formed a group, "Save our Jobs" and the only major paper in town has come down against the proposal in an editorial, citing the specter of firms leaving the area, inflation, and "unfair' advantages to outlying suburban businesses. To successfully counter the fear mongering of the corporate community, the Campaign will have to build on the important alliances forged this fall in the petition drive. However, win or lose, this campaign and the fight ahead opens a new chapter in the social milieu of this fine city. The effects of corporate greed and political neglect in this thriving industrial metropolis have begun to stir the working millions of the fourth largest city in the United States, as it has in countless other communities across our republic. In all probability, the vote on January 18th will be only the opening in a longer, and more fundamental, struggle. Brothers and Sisters, the fight is on!