It’s a big win for working families, and Mountain View deserves a pat on the back. The city that’s home to Google and a host of other high tech giants, is joining the ranks of cities moving to help lower wage workers earn a basic, fair wage. Going into effect next summer, Mountain View will join San Jose at a minimum wage of $10.30 an hour, indexed to the Consumer Price Index. Council members set a goal to raise the wage to $15.00 by 2018. Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga championed the effort, saying “Why not try to give folks a bit more in order to live…I know this (raise) means another meal, a better meal, pair of shoes to go to school in…this matters. ”
The effort was spearheaded by Raise the Wage Mountain View Coalition, a coalition of neighborhood residents and local community organizations pushing for a minimum wage increase for almost a year. Working Partnerships USA stood as a proud member of the coalition along with the hundreds of workers, residents, community organizations, and supporters, many of whom turned out last night to support the ordinance.
Mountain View is situated in the heart of Silicon Valley where the tech industry has recently come under fire for its treatment of subcontracted tech workers. You can read more about that here.
By raising the wage in Mountain View, and indexing the rate so that the minimum wage goes up as costs rise, the council and citizens have recognized that working families should earn a decent wage and have done what tech companies thus far have refused to do for its contract workers.
Working families simply cannot survive earning the current minimum wage of $9 an hour. (The State of California raised it from $8 last summer.) But the average rent for a one bedroom in the city is over $2,082 a month and costs for other essentials like food, transportation and healthcare keep rising.
We are proud of the city council for standing up for working families last night and will continue to work to make Silicon Valley a valley of opportunity for all.
Maria Noel Fernandez is Director of Organizing and Civic Engagement with Working Partnerships USA and Meghan Fraley is with the Raise the Wage Mountain View Coalition
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