Living Wage Campaigns as Social Movements: Experiences from Nine Cities

Abstract

Ever since Baltimore passed its pioneering law in 1994, a living wage movement has come to life across the nation. Today, more than 63 municipalities have living wage ordinances in place— thanks largely to coalitions of unions and community and religious groups. In a recent article in Labor Studies Journal, Bruce Nissen raised the question of the extent to which these campaigns can be considered social movements. For his Miami case Nissen found that, while the living wage effort achieved much, its accomplish ments as a social movement proved more limited. This raises the question of what a living wage campaign that has greater social- movement characteristics actually looks like. This paper uses the experience of nine notable campaigns to sketch out these social- movement qualities and to explore how and why some campaigns take on more of a social-movement character.