Four years after launching living wage campaigns in their respective cities, COPS/Metro and Austin Interfaith leaders celebrated hard won hikes in the lowest wages paid to municipal workers in both San Antonio and Austin. This week, both cities become the first in Texas to set a $15/hour wage floor for city workers. In Austin, this new standard additionally applies to contracted workers, part-time and temporary workers AND to employees of private businesses receiving economic incentives (more in next section).

Leaders also leverage increased city investments in long-term workforce development ($2.4 Million for Capital IDEA and $2.2 Million for Project QUEST) plus affordable housing (San Antonio). Bexar County announced that they, too, would pay their lowest earning employees at least $15/hour. Austin leaders successfully intervened for programs under threat of budget cuts, including PrimeTime after-school programming and parent support specialists in the Austin Independent School District.

Additional background:

Press Statement, COPS/Metro Alliance
Press Statement, Austin Interfaith
San Antonio Ranked Among Nation's Highest-Poverty Cities, Rivard Report
City of San Antonio boosts municipal wages (2015)
City of Austin passes 'Living Budget' and closes labor loophole (2015)

Almost ten years ago, Project QUEST agreed to participate in a randomized control trial in which half of a pool of 400+ qualified and equally motivated applicants were picked by a computer to participate in Project QUEST. The other half were turned away. They pursued other options.

After three years, Project QUEST graduates already earned more than those who were turned away. By Year 6, the difference in earnings not only persisted, but increased to over $5,000 per year.

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When Jacob Mireles returned home from deployment in Afghanistan and Kuwait last year, he quickly applied to Project QUEST for Rackspace's Open Cloud Academy cyber security track in Information Technology. During the training he ran into financial issues and Project QUEST assisted with a portion of the mortgage and utilities. He went on to successfully complete the program and soon after graduation, was hired by IP Secure where he now works as a Security Control Assessor, testing risks attributable to software and hardware systems.

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With Louisiana as the state with the third highest number of poor people, many of them working full-time, Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith leaders are devising new ways to tackle poverty. Says Pastor Clayton Moore, "If you work, how is it that you're poor?"

NCLI leaders have launched Another Chance to Succeed (ACTS), modeling itself on Project QUEST in San Antonio and NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana. The goal is to train adults into higher wage jobs of at least $15 / hour. ACTS is targeting January 2017 as its start-up date.

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Eight months after the passage of a wage theft ordinance that enabled the City of El Paso to refuse government contracts to employers that violated wage theft laws, EPISO and Border Interfaith leaders celebrated the passage of a stronger ordinance which allows the city to revoke the operating license of any business that refuses to pay their workers. Taking the lead on Lift Up El Paso, a coalition of non-profits and congregational members of EPISO and Border Interfaith, EPISO and Border Interfaith leaders leveraged the support of Bishop Mark Seitz of the El Paso Catholic Diocese and local restaurant owners and construction companies to compel the City to pass this stricter ordinance. In several cases, owners were shocked there was even a fight to ensure their competitors don't skirt labor laws. Said EPISO leader Eloiso de Avila, "This is an important step for El Paso to show that way for Texas...that we care about employees and that we are fair."

EPISO and Border Interfaith furthermore secured the support of Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez, county commissioners, other Texas state legislators and the local franchise owner of Chick fil-A. Organizational pressure prevailed over lobbyists flown in from Austin to try to block the new law.

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On the heels of COPS / Metro's recent disruption of business-as-usual at a public budget hearing, District 4 Councilmember Rey Saldana took up the cry for a higher minimum wage for City employees.

"Councilman Rey Saldaña said that while he supports giving relief to taxpayers, he also would support leaving the rate the same if the funding helps increase wages for the city's lowest-paid civilian employees. Communities Organized for Public Service and the Metro Alliance have been advocating for the increase, which has been backed by some council members."

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Hundreds of Spokane Alliance leaders crashed City Council chambers in a final December push for 'Quality Jobs' in Spokane. They succeeded, with a 5-2 vote in favor of an Apprenticeship requirement that contractors on public works projects larger than $350K hire apprentices for at least 15% of the work . Leaders supported this measure to create pathways to careers for living wage jobs.

Council Passes Public Works Project, Spokesman Review

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COPS / Metro Alliance leaders flanked Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff as he announced his instruction to the County Manager to research and craft a plan to raise the County minimum wage from $11.47 per hour to $13 per hour next year, and to $15 per hour within three years.

Two days prior, 325 COPS / Metro Alliance leaders gathered at Sacred Heart Catholic Church to announce their campaign to boost the wage floor for city and county employees from $11.47 per hour to almost $15 / hour. Elvira Adame shared how it angers her to see her daughter earning only $8.50 per hour at a public community college, leaving her "stressed and tired all the time from working so hard." Adame's daughter works full-time without benefits, sick leave or vacation time; to pick up the slack she picked up a second job, but even then is barely getting by.

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