Yes, he canâfrom Salon.
Move over, de Blasio: Meet the big-city mayor vowing to get his city a $15 minimum wage
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray says public workers will get $15/hr within months, and private sector workers could be next
Three days before being sworn into office as Seattleâs Mayor, Ed Murray signed his first executive order: directing city departments to develop a plan to start paying city employees at least $15 an hour. That order follows Murrayâs December announcement of a task force charged with developing a proposal to raise private sector wages. Interviewed this week, Murray told Salon that public employees âshould have confidenceâ theyâll be making at least $15 âin the next several monthsâ and âI think that we are gonna get to $15â for Seattleâs private sector workers as well.
In the Q&A that followsâworth your time to readâMurray shows The Stranger, if not Kshama Sawant, some respect:
The argument was made to me, by the newly elected socialist council member Kshama Sawant, that both you and your opponent were âvery carefully avoidingâ the $15 issue until it was brought up by her campaign and by fast food workers. Do you think thatâs a fair criticism?
It is absolutely incorrect, and itâs really sad to see progressives questioning other progressivesâ motivations.
I have a history as a legislator working on issues related to theârelated to poverty, related to civil rights. Iâm on film at a forum that the local newspaper, the Stranger, did, and a youth organization called the Bus did. They asked us to stand in a squareâit was done more as a game/forum for candidates â and they asked who supported a $15 minimum wage. I stood in that minimum wage [square]. I had no idea who Sawant was at the time. I wasnât paying attention to her race. And the individuals in labor who organized the fast food workers were labor leaders who supported my campaign, and who I have worked with for years. So again, it isâgiven my own history, I think itâs unfortunate that she is questioning folksâ motivation. I certainly am not questioning hers.
Ed confirms that the Stranger is "the local newspaper." The local newspaper, singular. Our new mayor acknowledging that we are, in fact, Seattle's only newspaper? What more could we ask for?