Understanding framing is one of the most important steps to understanding how the

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1 FRAMING THE NEWS Far from being an objective list of facts, a news story results from multiple subjective decisions about whether and how to present happenings to media audiences. Newsmakers engage in a selection process, actively making sense out of an immense quantity of experience, selecting some points as critical, discarding or downplaying others. Charlotte Ryan, Prime Time Activism Understanding framing is one of the most important steps to understanding how the media can work for you or against you. The frame of the story is its boundaries, its borders, its defining limits, its impact. The frame is your point of view. How you frame a story is critical. Whoever helps the reporter frame the story in a more significant manner gets the most press coverage and sometimes the best. Who is in the story and who is not? What is the impact of the story? Who is affected? Who are the players in your story? The heroes and villains? Who gets to define proactively the issue and who gets to respond? All are framing questions that must be answered in your frame. How Framing Works Government officials, corporate heads, interest groups and think tanks all employ public-relations experts whose sole job is to get their point of view in the media. In other words, to help set the frame. Editors and reporters must make choices every day about what stories make the news and whose point of view is going to be in the story. How you frame the story will help determine whether or not you are included in the news. Take the example of welfare. The official frame on welfare is something like this: This country was founded on individualism. Every individual not our society needs to pick himself up and take care of himself. The reproduction of images of people who do drugs, refuse to work or are welfare cheats, all work to reaffirm the frame s legitimacy. At the same time, the frame absolves government of the responsibility to take care of its citizens. Or, look at living wage. We frame the issue as one of worker salaries and benefits, fighting poverty, strengthening working families and their communities, ensuring corporate responsibility and accountability, and guaranteeing broader economic justice. The opposition frames it as raising taxes, losing jobs, displacing workers, creating hostile business climates, or actually harming those it intends to aid, among other arguments. It s a battle of the frames, playing out in your local news. Whoever frames your issue in the broadest way so it affects the most people will, in the competitive media market, get the coverage and win the campaign. b THE POWER OF FRAMING: How you frame your news will determine its prominence in the media. How you frame your news will determine the competitiveness of your story as compared to all the other news happening that day. How you frame your news will define the debate. How you frame your news will define the players: who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. How you frame your news will persuade people to respond in a particular way, including public officials, voters and regular community members. How you frame your news will inform the public about your position and will communicate your messages. How you frame your news will determine what images and metaphors communicate the story. 25

2 PART 4 Framing the News, cont. Strategizing Your Frame To get yourself in the frame or change the frame altogether you have to think strategically. What is the issue? What is your objective? What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish both politically and socially? Returning to the living wage example: Are you trying to get a living wage law passed for in a specific amount of time or using a specific tactic (city council vote, referendum)? Are you trying to empower low-wage workers? Are you trying to expand coverage of an existing law? Do you seek to build your base and expand your social justice movement? Define your goal and attach it to the frame. Next, think about what symbols carry the frame. In the welfare framing example, the official hostile frame tried to represent the issue with an African-American mother with numerous kids. In a living wage context, the opposition will counter frame your arguments through expensive advertising and PR campaigns designed to instill fear and uncertainty in the minds of voters and elected officials by symbolizing the issue with images that strike terror (advertisements showing empty business offices forced to relocated because they couldn t afford to pay a living wage; public services, such as library programs cut because of the economic downturn caused by a living wage). You have to counter How you frame the story will that with whoever represents your point help determine whether or not of view: the working you are included in the news. parents struggling to make it against a system of vast injustice and indifference; the children caught in the middle; the communities affected. You have to change the frame of the story by changing as many of its components as possible: the characters, the goals, the terms of debate. Often, when asked to describe how our opponents frame the issues we usually respond quickly because it is easy to see their arguments. But when asked how we frame the subject, we often go off in many different directions. We need to step back from our work and contemplate how we are framing our issues and what messages we are communicating. Recognizing the importance of framing and coordinating a strategic message across a broad range of publics is important. How does your frame touch people who may not be directly affected? 26

3 CASE STUDY Rats Bite Baby: A FRAMING EXAMPLE Charlotte Ryan, noted national media critic and advocate, cites an example of framing in her book, Prime Time Activism, excerpted and paraphrased here. It involves a newspaper headline and story concerning an event, or series of events, in an inner-city area in the U.S. This example should help you understand the whole subject of framing. The lesson of this example that stories can be framed depending on political positions is transferable to living wage battles. Picture this headline in the metro section of a major urban daily: Rats Bite Baby. The story is set in a housing project in the Black inner-city community of a large metropolis. It involves a single mother of five who left her baby in the bassinet while she went down to the corner to cash her welfare check, most likely next to the Pay Day Check Cashing store. The door was left open so her neighbors could hear the children playing. While she was gone, the baby was bitten repeatedly by rats. A neighbor responded to the cries of the infant and brought the child to Central Hospital where he was treated and released in his mother s custody. How is this story being framed? For those who oppose welfare, it s is clear. Who are the bad guys? Not the rats. Not the city. Not the owner of this project. It is the mother who left her baby alone to go and cash her welfare check. The bad guys here are all welfare recipients and unwed mothers especially people of color. The good guys are upstanding citizens who work or get off welfare, as well as politicians who advocate welfare reform. The images that communicate this frame are the photos of people hanging around the local check cashing business, abandoned children playing in the project, and politicians calling for welfare reform. Now, let s look at another variation: Rats Bite Infant: Landlord, Tenants Dispute Blame Suddenly, the frame has changed considerably. Now it is a story emphasizing controversy and conflict: the slumlord hounded by cameras in his wealthy neighborhood and shielded by his lawyers versus low-income neighborhood residents coming together to protest terrible housing conditions. This version of the story includes information from other tenants who claim their repeated requests for rodent extermination had been ignored by the landlord. An image that communicates this frame is one of angry and concerned residents of the project coming together to protest. Though the landlord tries to blame the tenants for improperly disposing of their garbage, the frame has been expanded. The facts will now be selected and ordered differently, guided by a different set of values and responsibilities. Still, something is missing. Consider this: Rat Bites Rising in City s Zone of Death The frame has changed again. Now City Hall is implicated and the frame opens up to include: elected officials, urban policy, economic empowerment zones and affordable housing. The whole inner-city context is under fire. According to this version of the story, the woman s baby is only the latest victim of a rat epidemic plaguing inner-city neighborhoods in the Zone of Death. The good guys and the bad guys have changed places. The mother, vilified in the first Rats Bite Baby story, has now become a spokesperson for families victimized in the urban Zone of Death. She becomes the emblem of the story. The frame of the story its focus, its boundaries, its underlying values has changed. And not only that, this local story suddenly has national consequences as cities across the U.S. struggle with similar inner-city challenges. This is what you must do for your news. You can set the frame. You can create the messages, the images and the significance of the story in a way that puts you on the offense. You can shape public opinion by strategically framing the story and communicating messages. This is the most empowering thing you can do as you communicate with the media. When you go to the press with your message, you help to change the terms of debate. Understand that you have a window of opportunity to seize; to do so, you first need a frame. With issues like poverty, economic opportunity, living wage and community benefits we are framing for our lives. The better we are at doing it, the more we are going to be heard. 27

4 HOW & WHY TO FRAME LIVING WAGE NEWS This article focuses on framing your living wage news to capture reporters attention and put the opposition on defense. It is not an in-depth political framing analysis (see the following Analysis by George Lakoff). Framing of living wage can incorporate numerous issues, including poverty, workers rights, economic justice, corporate responsibility, globalization and more. This framing model helps activists break down the issue into its most important and persuasive components. b TARGET YOUR REPORTERS AND FRAME THE STORY IN A WAY THAT IS MOST PERTINENT TO THEM. How you frame for your local business reporter will be different than how you frame an issue for the lifestyle or political desks. How you would frame for Oprah is different than how you would frame for The Wall Street Journal. Customize your frame to fit the picture! A well-framed living wage argument most likely will appeal to the business or metro/local reporters. However, it can also have cross-over potential with state reporters (if other towns in your state have successfully passed a law), the religious beat (as faith-based groups get involved); labor/worker reporters; human-interest reporters, City Hall beat, and so forth. Think like a reporter as you frame your issue. What will make this story of interest to her or him, and why? Why should they cover this story when there are dozens of others for them to cover? How can your frame and its hooks help reporters convince their editors to give the story bigger play? We Frame Stories for Two Reasons: 1. Maximum media impact. The story framed most effectively will appeal to the media, help reporters and editors understand the significance and scope of the issue, cut through competition for news coverage, and score headlines. By framing the issue to include drama, controversy, reach, impact, human interest, civic and economic consequences you make the story more compelling and irresistible to the media. Aim your frame high. Frame so your news has the potential of appearing on Page 1A of your local newspaper, not buried in the back pages. 2. Put opposition on the defense and you on the offense. Set the terms of the debate by framing the issue proactively. Whoever controls the frame controls the debate. Force your opposition to play framing catch up because you have articulated the issue in a way that serves your agenda. Living wage laws have been successful because, among other reasons, we have framed them effectively to capture interest and establish broad impact by communicating galvanizing arguments such as people who work should not live in poverty, and paying a living wage is ultimately good for our local economy and our families. Meanwhile, opponents resort to a litany of myths and counter-frames, including the easily refutable lie that living wages ultimately harm workers. How to Frame: A Model Answer these specific questions to help determine your frame. What is the issue about? The issue can be about almost anything you want it to be as long as it serves your political agenda. Avoid framing the issue so narrowly that it is about something very small. For example, living wages can be framed simplistically as paying workers, say, $10.25 an hour. Or, it can be about something so much more, something that affects the entire city or county, that has dramatic and positive economic consequences, that appeals to the core values of your community, that makes this issue one of the most important ones now being debated. Who is affected by the issue? Try to frame the story so more people are impacted by the issue, not simply the literal number of workers covered by the law, although that is of course key. Greater impact equals greater consequences and significance, which means more public interest and press attention. How many people will be affected, including workers covered by a living wage law, their families, employers, 28

5 How and Why to Frame Living Wage News, cont. and so forth? How wide is the reach of the issue? How deep does the issue penetrate into your community s core concerns? Will your news only impact 29 people in your community, or does the issue have a much broader scope and ultimately affect every person in your area? One living wage activist said, The law itself will only affect a few thousand employees at this phase, but ultimately if it impacts everyone who cares about paying decent living wages for those who work, who care about economic strength and community growth, who care about responsibility and accountability, who have empathy for all those who live in our city, including the most poor, who pay taxes and want to live in a community with real benefits and values, and who care in general about the social, civic and economic well-being of our area ultimately, that just about includes everyone! Frame so the opposition is on the defense and forced to counterframe, and you are on the offense having claimed the political and moral high ground. Define the issue and players in your frame. Whoever defines the debate, controls it. Move your frame, not the frame of your opponents. The frame will determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Every drama needs a hero and villain. Frame so the opposition is on the defense and forced to counterframe, and you are on the offense having claimed the political and moral high ground. In a living wage, there are many players, including: Good guys: workers, their families, clergy, supportive elected officials, supportive business leaders, unions, employers who pay a living wage, communities outside your area that have passed living wage laws, voters on your side, and so forth. Bad guys: Employers tying to deny a decent living wage, Chamber of Commerce officials not considering the well-being of the entire community, elected officials who oppose a living wage, corporations and associations (e.g., hotel owners associations) only concerned about their profit interests, and so forth. It might appear simplistic to reduce the battle down to good and bad guys. However, by profiling the story and framing the players you make moral and political choices and their consequences more clear for the media and for the different sides of the debate, and most important for those who haven t taken a side yet but are still impressionable. Create hooks on which to hang your frame. Reporters are always looking for news hooks, those aspects of the story that make it more timely and compelling. The more hooks contained in your story the better the chances of it scoring headlines (See News Hooks For Your Frame for full descriptions). Some useful living wage hooks include: controversy (point, counter-point, debate), human interest (stories of workers), strange bedfellows (employers and workers unite). Finally, to support and transmit your frame, consider what images, metaphors and symbols communicate the frame. What pictures embody your values and you frame? What media photo-ops can you construct to symbolize the frame? In the welfare example cited above, one of the most powerful and disturbing images that communicated the side of the welfare reformers were the shots of check-cashing/alcohol stores with African-American welfare moms waiting in line to cash their welfare checks. In living wage campaigns stage images that signify your frame, including events that showcase the actual workers and their families, that expose the injustice of a poverty wage paid by employers who do not support the living wage law, and that indicate broad community support (clergy, business, working families, etc.). b FRAME WITH YOUR VALUES IN MIND Values-based framing is integral to advancing a progressive social agenda. All to often we construct the issue with facts and figures and statistics at the forefront. Our arguments are reduced to pie-charts and graphs. But we can appeal to the minds and hearts of constituents by framing with values in mind. Values that uphold democratic principles and decency. Values that indicate what we believe in, what we stand for and what kind of society we want to live in. Values such as: Empathy Personal Responsibility Justice Fairness Decency Share the fruits and benefits of our community Good business sense Work (Hard Working) Strong Faith Strong Families Opportunity Making a better life Dignity Civic Participation Strong Communities Public Health Personal Happiness Equal opportunity Public accountability Equanimity Character and contribution 29

6 NEWS HOOKS FOR YOUR FRAME Every frame needs a hook. Hooks help you catch reporters attention. Hooks make stories more newsworthy. They can be included in the framing of a story in a way that expands the significance of the news and makes it more compelling. When you pitch a story and frame the news for the reporter, consider including as many of these hooks as possible. New announcement Is your news unprecedented, groundbreaking, first-ever? If so, say it. The rule of the game is: Reporters are only interested in new news, not old news. Make your news fresh. The launch of a the first living wage campaign in your area, or the first-ever public hearing on workers wages in your town would be examples of this hook. Trend Reporters naturally are interested in trends. Stories that suggest new opinions, behavior patterns and attitudes might get covered. Trends can be revealed in reports that detail new information. And remember: In the news business, three is a trend. Find at least three examples to corroborate your assertion that a new trend is emerging. If living wage laws are sweeping your state, that would be a trend. Localize a national story. A convenient news hook is to take a nationally breaking story and emphasize its local impact. The national press has covered living wage and probably will continue to do so. That offers you opportunities to spotlight your local measure. National news stories such as the affect of the economy on American If you see a national story is breaking, consider calling your local media and localize it. workers may be localized to show how workers in your area are specifically impacted. If you see a national story is breaking, consider calling your local media and localize it. The other side of this framing hook is: nationalize a local story. If your local news has state, regional or national implications, by all means include that in your frame. Make your town a model that has universal implications for other towns in your state, region or even nationally. Dramatic human interest. Compelling personal stories almost have to be part of the frame. Flesh out the frame to include the stories of real people, their triumphs and tragedies, ordeals, adventures and anecdotes. Besides, the stories are true and represent the voices of people who are often not included. Living wage campaigns offer rich example of dramatic human interest in the stories of low-income workers affected by the law. Controversy This sells stories, for good or for bad. Your opposition is obviously framing the story to emphasize their agenda. So you should frame the controversy to put your enemy on the defense. Living wage has inherent controversy: between the campaign vs. the opposition, between workers vs. insensitive employers. 30

7 News Hooks For Your Frame, cont. Fresh angle on an old story Similar as news being new (see previous example: New Announcement ). If you can take an old story and put a fresh twist on it, make that part of your frame. The age old example is: Dog Bites Man a non-story. Man Bites Dog : now that is a story. A living wage second time around campaign story that is made fresh with new details and updates would be an example of this hook. Anniversaries One year later, one decade later, 20 years later. These anniversary stories are attention-grabbers. For example, one year after the passage of a living wage in a nearby location resulted in various things happening to workers. Does that story have implications for your campaign? If so, use the anniversary as a hook for your news. Calendar hook Frame your story to capture something coming up on the calendar. Mother s Day can be a hook for poor working moms who would be covered by a living wage. Labor Day can be a living wage rally and worker story opportunity. Religious holidays offer your side s clergy opportunities for media coverage. Profiles and personnel Your news may feature individuals, community leaders or galvanizing spokespersons who may become news themselves because of their fascinating stories and civic standing. Special event If you are staging a sizeable conference, rally or gathering, frame the event to capture the issue and signify its importance. If your opposition announces some new anti-living wage tactic, respond with your message and get into the news. Respond and react Most of what we describe in this section is about proactively framing your news for maximum media impact. However, consider reacting to news made by others as an opportunity to counterframe the issue and move your messages. If your opposition announces some new anti-living wage tactic, respond with your message and get into the news. Celebrity Sometimes fame and fortune can serve as a hook. If you have a nationally or locally known luminary cultural, religious, political or entertainment make sure he or she is included in the story. Celebrities attract the news. The downside to celebrity is, of course, it tends to outshine the stories of real people actually affected by the issue. Plus, celebrities are often famous simply for being famous, not necessarily for their political acumen or experience. Strange Bedfellows Unusual allies often attract media attention. Republicans and Democrats supporting living wage. Labor and business come together for living wage. Highlight strange bedfellows to show the diversity and breadth of your campaign support. 31

8 ANALYSIS Framing can be a complex discipline requiring years of study, focus group polling, analysis, research and target audience testing. Professional communications analysts and practitioners have devoted much resources and time to this study. This section of the Winning Wages guidebook presents both quick spot-framing tips (see previous article) and more in-depth framing analysis. In this piece by noted academic researcher, progressive political thinker, author and cognitive science expert George Lakoff, we discover a more detailed analysis of framing for living wage. The first part focuses on the basic frames of living wage for those who want that specific focus. The second part goes beyond living wage into a moral economy. George Lakoff is the author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, University of Chicago Press. Article used by permission. PART 1: New Lenses For Your Frames: AN ANALYSIS OF THE FRAMING OF LIVING WAGE by George Lakoff, Rockridge Institute and UC Berkeley Framing in Everyday Life Suppose you have a friend who doesn t spend his money very freely. You can understand his behavior in at least two very different ways. You might think of him as stingy. This contrasts with generous. Either of these words raises the issue of how willing he is to part with his money to benefit someone else. Stingy says not very and imposes a negative judgment. But the same behavior might also be described by someone else as thrifty. Here, the opposite is wasteful, and the issue is how efficiently he manages his money. The judgment is positive. What we have here is a case of framing. The same behavior can be framed positively as managing money efficiently, or negatively as being unwilling to help someone in need. Opposites like stingy and generous are defined as opposing values in the same conceptual frame. The job of the living cage campaign is to bring the living wage frames into American life, and with them, the progressive moral worldview. George Lakoff A frame is a mental structure that we normally use in thinking, usually without being aware of it. All words are defined in terms of frames. Framing can be extremely important to your life. Framing matters. Frames characterize the way you understand a situation and they affect how you live. Political Frames On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words tax relief started appearing in White House communiqués to the press and in official speeches and reports by conservatives. Let us look in detail at the framing evoked by this term before we get into living wage because it offers an excellent perspective on how issues in the public debate can be framed with political and media consequences. The word relief evokes a frame in which there is a blameless afflicted person who we identify with and who has some affliction, some pain or harm that is imposed by some external cause-of-pain. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, and it is brought about by some reliever-of-pain. The Relief Frame is an instance of a more general rescue scenario, in which there is a hero (the reliever-of-pain), a victim (the afflicted), a crime (the affliction), a villain (the cause-of-affliction), and a rescue (the pain relief). The hero is inherently good, the villain is evil, and the victim after the rescue owes gratitude to the hero. The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. Taxes, in this phrase, are the affliction (the crime). Proponents of taxes are the causes-of affliction (the villains), the taxpayer is the afflicted victim, and the proponents of tax relief are the heroes who deserve the taxpayers gratitude. Every time the phrase tax relief is used and heard or read by millions of people, the more this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced. Recently, President Bush started using the slogan, Tax relief creates jobs. Looking at the Relief Frame, we see that afflictions and pain can be quantified, and there can be more or less relief. By the logic of framing (not the logic of economics!), if tax relief creates jobs, then more tax relief creates more jobs. Conservatives have worked for decades to establish the metaphors of taxation as a 32

9 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. burden, an affliction, and an unfair punishment all of which require relief. They have also, over decades, built up the frame in which the wealthy create jobs and giving them more wealth creates more jobs. The Power of Framing and Reframing Indeed, conservative think tanks frame the full range of issues from their perspective. Today conservative framings dominate our political discourse. Even democrats have taken to talking about tax relief, although the frame contradicts everything they are trying to do economically. That is the power of framing. Frames are in your brain, physically in the synapses. Just telling people facts that contradict the frames will usually not have any effect. Frames are in your brain, physically in the synapses. Just telling people facts that contradict the frames will usually not have any effect. The frames stay, the facts just bounce off. Statistics and numbers won t matter. Even negating a frame just reinforces the frame. If you say, I m against tax relief, you are still evoking the tax relief frame, with taxation as an affliction. You might give facts and figures indicating that costs from federal tax cuts will just be passed down to the local level and to private costs, providing no relief, but the word relief still evokes the same frame. What you have to do is reframe. Either find another frame that better fits the reality you are talking about, or create one. Finding an existing one is by far the better choice. If it exists, people already have it in their brains and you just have find the language to evoke it. If you have to create a new frame, you have to get people to learn that frame, which takes time and effort and may not work. Framing in Living Wage Campaigns Our side s frame: When advocates talk about a living wage they assume what I call a Working-for-a-Living Frame. The frame has certain elements the basic parts of the frame: An employee (whose viewpoint we take) An employer (either a person or a business) A job (e.g., waiting on tables, trimming trees) A salary (for performing the job) Basic needs of the employee (that the salary is to pay for) This frame also has certain internal truths that is, what is taken to be true of a situation when this frame is used. These include: The employee does the job. The employer pays the salary to the employee for doing the job. The employee deserves the salary. The salary is sufficient for the employee s basic needs. Their side s frame: Meanwhile, business interests that oppose a living wage frame the issue conceptually very differently, with contrasting elements. Their frame could be called the Conservative Business Frame. Frame elements include: Business owners (whose viewpoint is taken by the opposition as paramount) Employees Products Customers Revenue Expenses Profit Inherent in the opposition s frame are their truths: Owners own the business (not workers) The purpose of the business is to make maximum profit for the owners, who deserve the profits. Jobs must be done to produce the products sold by the business. Employees are paid to do the jobs. The less paid the employees, the higher the profits To maximize profits, owners must maximize revenues and minimize costs That s the American way of doing business, and we should not interfere with it (with living wage laws and other measures) A note about their Conservative Business Frame : I use the term conservative to contrast it with a socially-responsible business frame, or what might be called the Family- Business Frame. A word of caution should be used at this point. Real conceptual frames that people use are far more complex than those we are discussing here. I discuss the simple business frame for two reasons: (1) most people have it and understand it, and (2) it is commonly used in 33

10 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. arguments against living wage legislation. Unfortunately, in many areas of our society influenced by a conservativecontrolled Congress, Right Wing dominated state legislators, and big business not to mention many of those who are just wealthy the Conservative Business Frame is the dominant frame that rings true. Such truths may not actually be true at all, or maybe rarely. What is important is that when the frame is used to structure a situation and then communicated to the public through the media, it is assumed to be true unless explicitly contradicted. And even then they may reappear as assumed truths. Living Wage Campaigns and The Market The Conservative Business Frame does not stand alone. It is supported by the idea of the market, as economists often understand it and teach about it. The idea of the market is the basis of the entire American economy. It is framed in a way that distorts radically how it really operates, and that frame stands in the way of living wage campaigns. Here s what that frame looks like: The Natural Market Frame Entities: Businesses Commodities Customers Prices Internal truths : Commodities are relatively scarce; they are not freely available. Businesses sell commodities to customers at prices Businesses seek to maximize prices for commodities sold Customers seek to minimize prices for commodities bought The Market is part of nature; its operation is inescapable. If left alone, it works best and maximizes profit for everyone in the Market. Prices are determined by a law of Nature the Law of Supply and Demand. Supply increases tend to make prices drop. Demand increases tend to make them rise. The operation of the Market is fair, since nature is unbiased. Prices determined by the Market are fair prices. For optimal results, the Market should be left alone. Externally imposed constraints on prices are not optimal and mess things up for everybody. This frame is, course a myth, but living wage advocates encounter it everywhere. You need to recognize it, know its problems, and know how to reframe. One of the most insidious aspects of the Natural Market Frame is its use as metaphor for the basis of labor and wages. Note that neither labor nor wages are in the Market Frame itself. Labor and wages are brought into the frame via metaphor that labor is a Resource (a kind of commodity), where wages are prices for labor, and employers are customers. This is an extremely insidious metaphor and it is everywhere. The name Human Resources assumes the metaphor. When labor is made a resource, the fact that the resource is a What is important is that when the frame is used to structure a situation and then communicated to the public through the media, it is assumed to be true unless explicitly contradicted. human being is hidden by the metaphor. Human values and human relationships are hidden. Individual qualities are hidden one worker is as good as another who fulfills the same function. And of course, the very question of a living wage is outside the metaphor, as if it didn t exist. Resources don t have families, needs, health problems, and so on. A fair wage becomes a fair price determined by the labor market. The concept of skill is important in this metaphor. Skill is seen as a measure of value, with highly skilled labor worth more and unskilled labor worth the least. This idea, as it works in the frame, is also insidious. In the metaphor, high skill is assumed to be in short supply and needed. But this defines skill in terms of the Law of Supply and Demand. A teacher may be highly skilled, but those skills will have low value if teachers are in great supply, or if there no way to profit from those skills. There is one more important issue here: Who sells labor to the employer? There are two answers. The worker either sells his own labor, or a union sells it for him, as an agent. If the worker sells his own labor, he is usually put at big disadvantage by the Law of Supply and Demand. Since he controls only a supply of one, he can t drive up the price. The individual is at another disadvantage as well coercion, that is, sexual harassment, bad 34

11 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. working conditions, demeaning treatment, predatory lending, and so on. Unions control a greater labor supply, and so can drive up the price and defend workers against coercion. We can see why conservatives hate unions. They see them as interfering in the natural labor market. And worse, they see them as immoral giving workers things they haven t earned and undermining discipline. We can see why conservatives hate unions. They see them as interfering in the natural labor market. This puts unions in a difficult position. With their workers they use the Working-For-A-Living metaphor, which is their whole reason for being. But with employers, they use the employers metaphor the Labor Market metaphor. These are conflicting frames, and that makes for a hard balancing act. The Conservative Moral Frame Conservatives have a very different view of morality than progressives do. At the center of conservative morality is the idea of discipline. The Moral Discipline Frame People naturally tend to follow their desires rather than to do always what it is right. If people are to do right, they have to learn discipline. People who are not disciplined will not act morally. Scarcity and difficulty in the world imposes a form of discipline. Marketbased competition and unfettered free enterprise thus contribute to morality by imposing discipline. If people did not have to compete if they were just given what they need, there would be no reason to be disciplined, and so no one would follow moral rules. People would just do what feels right. Getting payments not earned ( according to need, not worth ) promotes immorality and is itself immoral. Moreover, it upsets the market and leads away from the maximization of the interests of all, thus hurting people in general. An important consequence of the Moral Discipline Frame is that there will always be winners and losers. The more disciplined people will win and they will deserve it. The losers will serve the winners. Those who accept the frame assume this is as it should be. Otherwise, there would be no need for discipline and all morality would break down. A saying like, The poor will always be with us, expresses this clearly. Notice that the us in this saying does not include the poor. The economic application of this moral frame derives from the specter of scarcity: If resources are scarce, then people who don t work to produce them don t deserve a share. They just take from those who are productive, creating the threat that there may not be enough for those who are productive. In a society like the US, where there is such abundance, there is no real specter of scarcity; there is only the lack of money to buy on the part of many people. Yet the frames have ossified in the brains of much of the population and are being taught to a new generation Yet the frames have ossified in the brains of much of the population and are being taught to a new generation. These frames do not accurately portray our reality. That does not make them less real, as frames. 35

12 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. Let s start with the other side s own words, What is the Living Wage, excerpted below. The website of the conservative think tank, The Employment Policies Institute (EPI), provides the following characterization of the living wage. By the way, note how this website also demonizes ACORN and others working for a living wage ( The real ACORN: Anti-employee, anti-union, big business. ) Real Arguments: The Opposition s Frames and Words These dominant conservative frames illustrate what the living wage activist is up against. Let us look at how these frames create a logic a mode of reasoning that living wage advocates constantly encounter. What is the Living Wage? Since the mid-1990 s, the American Left has been assembling a new Economic and Social Justice movement that works to implement so-called living wage ordinances in cities throughout the United States. What is the living wage campaign? It is an organized effort to force employers to inject a welfare mentality into the workplace. The goal: to set pay wage rates to each according to their need rather than their skills. This means doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling the current minimum wage at a huge cost to consumers and taxpayers. In this debate, need is defined not by independent experts but by the living wage movement itself. Far from subsistence wages, various living wage proponents have endorsed mandatory wages as high as $48,000 per year, mandatory vacation of four to five weeks per year, health care coverage for all employees, and more. The living wage movement did not start out with such large demands. The first successful campaign for a living wage, in Baltimore in 1994, sought a living wage of $6.10 an hour, rising to $7.90 within five years and thereafter adjusted to inflation. This ordinance applied only to companies that provided contracted services for a city or county (such as landscaping public grounds, providing meals on wheels to senior citizens or busing children to public schools). Contrast that with a living wage ordinance pushed through in Santa Monica, California, in That ordinance required a $10.69 an hour minimum wage for all businesses with fifty or more employees in the city s coastal zone business district, plus twentyfour paid vacation days each year. Even that is not the limit. Help The Homeless, a pro-living wage organization, has suggested the following hourly minimum wages for select U.S. cities: Boston $19.27 Santa Cruz $16.93 New York $16.81 Washington $15.46 Newark $14.58 Chicago $14.37 Boulder $13.62 As the living wage movement grew throughout the 1990 s, proponents sought coverage of living wage laws to include companies that had received tax abatements, or incentive grants or that lease property from a city or county. Many businesses, whose customer was the general public and not the city or county government were now required to pay living wage rates to their employees, yet they were unable to pass along the cost of the mandated increase to the government body that mandated them As the scope of the living wage coverage widened, the proposed living wage rates skyrocketed to $11, $12, even $15 an hour, plus full benefits packages for what were heretofore entry-level jobs. One group recommended a $48,000 living wage for a single parent with two children living in Washington, D.C. That works out to $24 an hour if the parent works full-time. That s more than four times the current minimum wage, and that money has to come from somewhere. It will come from employers and their customers, or from government and taxpayers. In both cases, that means it will come from you. Or, the costs will be shouldered by employees who lose their jobs, or applicants who cannot get hired. The living wage movement is now expanding its reach with, in the words of advocate Robert Pollin, a more ambitious aim: to create a living wage policy with a national scope. 36

13 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. After reading the opposition s argument, it should be clear they see the world through different frames than we do. Since we need to understand them in order to counter them, let s take a closer look at how their frames structure their arguments. Let us begin with the term welfare mentality. For conservatives, a welfare mentality violates the Moral Discipline Frame. It assumes the idea behind the welfare state: Every human being inherently deserves to have basic needs met (regardless of whether they are earned through the discipline of the market ). The term mentality is condescending. The idea here is that the very concept of a living wage violates the idea of the labor market, which is taken to be literal, not metaphorically constructed. It uses a frame in which some people have intellects superior to others, and in which those with inferior intellects have modes of thought that are wrong false or immoral, or both. The word mentality refers to such modes of thought. Other Uses of Conservative Frames The entire argument is an elaboration of the conservative frames adopted above. Let s take apart their words. The goal: to set pay wage rates to each according to their need rather than their skills. The phrase to each according to his needs is part of a Marxist slogan. By using that phrase, the authors are suggesting indirectly that the living wage campaign is a form of communism. They refer elsewhere to living wage advocates as Marxoids. The idea here is that the very concept of a living wage violates the idea of the labor market, which is taken to be literal, not metaphorically constructed. The labor market is assumed to be a special case of the market in general, which is taken as defining capitalism assumed to be in contrast with socialism. It is seen therefore as a threat to very idea of the American economy and conservative morality. It is not just anti-business, it is communist, un-american and immoral. The conservative Pay-According-To- Skill Frame assumes that the pay-skill hierarchy is a natural constraint governing the labor market. The implication is that, without it, the market would not function correctly to maximize the profits of all and that therefore everyone would be hurt financially. This means doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling the current minimum wage at a huge cost to consumers and taxpayers. Of course, doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling is an exaggeration, a rhetorical trick. that money has to come from somewhere. It will come from employers and their customers, or from government and taxpayers. In both cases, that means it will come from you. Or, the costs will be shouldered by employees who lose their jobs, or applicants who cannot get hired. After reading the opposition s argument, it should be clear they see the world through different frames than we do. Since we need to understand them in order to counter them, let s take a closer look at how their frames structure their arguments. What is interesting here is at a huge cost to consumers and taxpayers. This reasoning follows from using the Conservative Business Frame and not using the frames employed by the living wage campaign. Note what is not mentioned in these passages: Community payments to corporations (in the form of tax breaks, development subsidies, zoning changes, local education, local infrastructure, and so on). These payments are made invisible by accounting methods. Lowered community service expenses (emergency health care, food programs, housing programs, and so on). These too are invisible, since they are saved, not paid. Increased profits due to improved corporate efficiency and lowered expenses for recruitment and training. These too do not appear overtly in budgets as living wage effects. The moral structuring of the economy. Economies are claimed to be amoral, despite all sorts of moral structuring (e.g., no child labor, no assassinations of competitors). Entrepreneurs are expected to work within moral limits. 37

14 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. Lowered but still reasonable profits (return to stockholders, stock price, bonuses to management, etc.). Profit relative to previous wages is taken as fixed, as if by a law of nature. Profits with a living wage are always considered relative to profits without a living wage taken as a norm. Non-living-wage profits are held fixed and other alternatives not considered: raising prices, firing employees, asking for more tax breaks, and so on. In other words, many Americans commonly assume that, in this land of opportunity, a job will pay enough to live on. We will discuss these in detail below. I mention them here because they cannot be considered or even perceived because they stand outside of the conservative frames. The conservative frames hide everything the living wage advocates are talking about. Consider the response, Times are tough. There isn t enough money to pay for a living wage! The lack of money depends on how you keep the books, and the conservative frames dictate only one way of keeping the books. Finally, a last argument is worth considering: As the living wage movement grew throughout the 1990 s, proponents sought coverage of living wage laws to include companies that had received tax abatements, or incentive grants or that lease property from a city or county. Many businesses, whose customer was the general public and NOT the city or county government were now required to pay living wage rates to their employees, yet they were unable to pass along the cost of the mandated increase to the government body that mandated them. The assumption again is that living wages are externally imposed additional costs that should be passed on. Profits without a living wage are considered not only as a financial base line, but as a moral base line. The Living Wage Frames The Ideal versus the Norm The Working-for-a-Living Frame, mentioned earlier as our side s frame, has an interesting mental status. For most Americans, it characterizes an ideal: working a job should pay enough to meet basic needs. It also has the mental status of a norm. In other words, many Americans commonly assume that, in this land of opportunity, a job will pay enough to live on. That is, the frame is both taken as ideal and normal. The ideal status of this frame is an advantage to the living wage movement. The norm status of this frame contradicts the living wage campaign as many people assume that jobs already pay a living wage. That is why books like Barbara Ehrenreich s Nickled and Dimed, which exposes the reality of working Americans trying to get through, have been so shocking to so many people. It is why most Americans believed that simply going from welfare to work would allow someone to earn a living wage. Living wage campaigns not only have to counter-frame the opposition, but have to confront this fallacy: that the ideal has not been achieved it s not even close, but most people don t know that. The Progressive Moral Worldview Living wage campaigns exist within a moral perspective that is fundamentally at odds with the conservative moral worldview. They assume a progressive moral worldview that centers on: Empathy (caring about, identifying with, and connecting with others) Responsibility (actually carrying out what empathy requires that includes taking care of yourself so you can carry out your responsibility to others) From this moral center, a great deal more follows: fairness, protection of those who need it, cooperation, honesty and trust, open two-way communication, competence, education, fulfillment in life, and the development of communities that live by these values. It is from this moral perspective that Unless our moral worldview and those frames become dominant in the American cognitive landscape, there will be little hope for economic justice in general and living wages in particular. the Working-for-a-Living Frame makes sense as an ideal. The fact that most Americans accept it as an ideal is testimony to the fact that most 38

15 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. One reason that living wage campaigns are difficult is that these frames are mostly novel and have to be introduced and repeated over and over, while there is no ready-made language for them. Americans accept the moral worldview that underlies it. But people are not necessarily logical. Many Americans accept both the Working-for-a-Living Frame and the conservative frames, even though they may contradict each other. The job of the living cage campaign is to bring the living wage frames into American life, and with them, the progressive moral worldview. Unless that moral worldview and those frames become dominant in the American cognitive landscape, there will be little hope for economic justice in general and living wages in particular. More Living Wage Frames The genius of the living wage campaign has been to provide specific framings that highlight oft-hidden economic realities and fit progressive morality. Some of these are implicit, some explicit. We have already seen the Working-for-a-Living Frame. Here are the others. The Constructed Market Frame Markets are constructed to fit practical considerations, moral principles, and specific interests. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission structures the stock market. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has almost 1,000 pages of regulations, mostly favoring international corporate interests. Slavery is excluded from the labor market as is child labor. These are all externallyimposed constraints, and they exist in all markets. This realistic view of markets is entirely at odds with the view that the market is a force of nature, entirely free, amoral, and optimal. Once one sees that markets are constructed in this way, the question arises: How can the market best serve the public interest and progressive moral values? The living wage movement is providing some answers to this question. Living wage advocates are not just pointing out the benefits of the living wage to communities; they are creating a new frame. The Community Benefit Frame The more businesses pay living wages, then the more: The cost of community services will go down The economy will improve (more money spent) The self-respect of low-income residents will rise The general quality of life in the community will rise (less crime, drugs, homelessness) The moral level and reputation of the community will rise Property care and property values will rise Businesses will do better. This frame takes the focus away from business alone and puts it on the community as a whole and the people who live there. From this perspective, certain otherwise hidden things can be seen, namely, that businesses do better as their communities do better and that communities do better when businesses do better, and both do better with a living wage ordinance in place. The Business Benefit Frame If a business pays living wages, then: Morale will rise Turnover will fall Recruitment and training costs will fall Efficiency will rise This frame focuses on things that are left out of the conservative frames: Morale, turnover, recruiting, and efficiency. It is based on studies by distinguished economists Janet Yellen and George Akerlof. The Payment to Corporations Frame Tax breaks and subsidies from cities to corporations are wealth redistributions; taxpayers taxes are going from cities to corporations. Zoning changes for corporations are wealth redistributions from taxpayers to corporations; the reason is that zoning changes lower property values for taxpayers and raise property values for corporations. If corporations are receiving payments for communities, it seems reasonable for the communities to get something in return. What, exactly, makes this seem reasonable? There are actually two different versions, one involving fairness, and one involves a social contract. The Fiscal Fairness Frame It is only fair to balance part of the flow of wealth from taxpayers to corporations with a flow of wealth and well-being (health, safety, etc.) to the community. 39

16 Part 1: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. It s a bargain for the corporations; they spend only one to four percent of revenues on living wages, while they get much more than that in wealth redistribution from the tax payers and future profits. The Social Contract Frame We allow corporations certain privileges, protections, and even payments and we expect certain ethical behavior in return: paying taxes, honest accounting, environmental responsibility, and paying employees a living wage. One reason that living wage campaigns are challenging is that these frames are mostly novel and have to be introduced and repeated over and over, while there is no ready-made language for them. On the other hand, opponents can use commonplace, everyday, familiar frames with familiar language and patterns of reasoning. We can now see the basic argument for living wage ordinances, given these frames. The Basic Argument for Living Wages Everybody who works for a living deserves a living wage. No one who works full-time job should be mired below the poverty line and be unable to support a family. It is simply immoral ( Working-fora-Living Frame ). Markets are structured morally. Child labor is not permitted, because it is immoral exploitation. Slavery is not permitted. Nor are whippings and beatings of employees. So increasing profits by driving wages below the poverty line should be outlawed on moral grounds impoverishing people should not be permitted. Moreover, markets are structured to serve special interests. Oil and coal subsidies are examples of how special interests structure markets. Such subsidies are Increasing profits by driving wages below the poverty line should be outlawed on moral grounds impoverishing people should not be permitted. huge payments from taxpayers to such companies. The effect is to keep oil and coal low in price, thus allowing more to be sold with the result that the country has become more dependent on oil and coal. This serves the interests of those companies, since it structures the market in their favor. We believe that markets should be structured to serve the public interest ( Constructed Markets Frame ). Local communities make payments out of taxpayers money to businesses in many forms: tax breaks, development subsidies, zoning changes that raise the value of businesses, local education and infrastructure development that contribute to business profitability, and most obviously, contracts ( Payment-to-Corporations Frame ). It is only fair that businesses return some of these payments in the form of living wages to employees ( Fiscal Fairness Frame ). They have that responsibility ( Social Contract Frame ). Living wages benefit communities in many ways. First, they lower the cost of community services to the indigent by allowing those working to move out of poverty. Those costly services include emergency medical care, food programs, housing programs, drug and alcohol programs, and so on. Living wages make communities better places to live less poverty, less crime, less homelessness, less addiction and more self-respect, more community pride, and better-kept communities. When communities are better places to live, more people want to live there and more businesses want to locate there. Living wages are infectious in their benefits to communities ( Community Benefit Frame ). Living wages also benefit businesses. As economists Janet Yellen (a former presidential advisor) and George Akerlof (a Nobel Prize winner) have found, businesses benefit from living wages in the following ways: they increase morale, they increase productivity (workers who are better off and are not quitting and moving around as much work better), and because such workers tend to stay on the job, businesses save on recruitment and training costs ( Business Benefit Frame ). In some cases, businesses may face the possibility of lower profits. Well-run businesses can cope with the moral limits set on markets. Effective entrepreneurs have coped without slavery, child labor, and the beating of workers. If they are competent, they can cope without below-poverty-level wages. ( Constructed Market Frame ) But they shouldn t have to. The cost to business of paying living wages has been found to be extremely low. Between payments by the community and the benefits of increased productivity and lowered costs, living wage costs should be easily absorbed when accounting practices make the trade-offs clear. Businesses can both do good and do well. That is how the living wage frames are put into practice. 40

17 ANALYSIS The previous section of this essay focused on the basic framing arguments of living wage, both from the opposition and from our side. This part suggests framing living wage beyond its basic premise into a more progressive worldview of a moral economy. PART 2: Beyond Living Wage Campaigns A MORAL ECONOMY by George Lakoff, Rockridge Institute and UC Berkeley Conservatives are right to be afraid of living wage campaigns. They are just one step to a moral economy. Living wage advocates sometimes get a bit dejected with the thought that they re doing all that work for such a small portion of the population. But the results of their efforts go far beyond the often modest wage increases they win for others. Living wage campaigns are changing the framing of the economic system. Each of the frames introduced by our side make the conservative frames weaker and move us in the right direction. I want to mention two new frames beyond the living wage that I think we will need to create a moral economy. The Two-Tier Economy In Greek mythology, Altas was the Titan whose job was to hold up the heavens to keep them from falling. He wound up stuck in this job, unable to move lest the heavens fall. The Modern Atlas Frame The U.S. has a two-tier economy, with about a quarter of the population in the lower tier. Those in the lower tier mostly work often multiple jobs but tend not to have health insurance or adequate housing, nutrition, education, child care, transportation, and so on. The jobs they do are absolutely necessary to our economy. For low wages they pick fruits and vegetables, care for children and the elderly, clean houses, cook, waitress, garden, bag groceries, work at check out stands, mop floors and clean up in office buildings, work as security guards and hospital orderlies, and so on. Without them, this society and this economy cannot function. These Atlases support the life styles of the top three-quarters of the population and yet are financially enslaved. They are paid far less than their labor is worth to the economy. They deserve to be paid on the basis of their contribution to the economy. That last sentence They are paid less than their labor is worth to the economy makes no sense from a commonplace economic perspective. It violates a fundamental property of markets, namely, the Exchange Metaphor for Value, that the value of something is what buyers in a free market pay for it and that includes labor. From this perspective your labor is worth exactly what you are paid for it, no more, no less. Since the economy as a whole is not an employer (a buyer of labor), that sentence is nonsensical from a traditional economics perspective. That sentence can only make sense if one rejects the Exchange Metaphor for Value and adopts another metaphor. Our two-tier economy calls for a very different metaphor for the value of labor, a Contribution Metaphor for Value : the value of labor is what it contributes to the economy as a whole. Given the Contribution Metaphor for Value, what you contribute is what you Living wage campaigns are changing the framing of the economic system. earn through your work. But you may be paid much less than you earn, that is, less than your labor contributes to the economy. This is unfair. The living wage campaign and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are two ways to begin addressing this unfairness at least minimally by bringing what is paid a bit closer to what is earned, at least close enough to get working people out of abject poverty. These two approaches share important common elements. Both have a moral component in that they make use of the Working-for- 41

18 Part 2: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. a-living Frame, and the fact that it is seen as a moral ideal. Both focus on hidden aspects of the economy. Living wage points to community payments to corporations and asks for equity in the form of wages above the poverty level, which provide community benefits. The money ultimately comes from taxpayers, though it is the form of salaries and is seen as earned, since, according to the Exchange Metaphor for Value, what is earned is what is paid by one s employer. Under EITC, the money also comes ultimately from taxpayers, but it is not seen as earned from the company since it comes from the government in a lump sum, not from one s immediate employer. The living wage campaign makes sense for many, but by no means all of such workers. The American economy is structured so that, in all too many cases, the people or businesses paying employees cannot afford to pay them what they are really worth to our society and our economy. They are, in short, not able in this economy to be paid what they earn. Nannies and child care workers, for example, contribute much more than they can be paid by their employers as do many others throughout our society. They are working to support the economy as a whole, cannot be paid what they are worth by their employer, and so, one might argue, they should be paid by the economy. A far more serious EITC (earned income tax credit) a negative income tax might be a fair way for these modern Atlases to be paid what they earn for holding up the sky. Living wage and EITC are both needed. They have two different constituencies, which in some cases may overlap. Note that I have framed both living wage and EITC not as social programs, but as the use of taxpayers money for taxpayers benefit. At no time have I argued for the right to a living wage. I have used an equity argument. Toward Ethical Business The business of America is business ethical business. Business is central to American life and American values demand that business be ethical. There is no shortage of ideas in this area. I am including one version The Ethical Business Frame. At the center is the distinction between a shareholder and a stakeholder. Stakeholders are more than shareholders: they include people who represent the interests of the employees, the community, and the environment. Corporations receive their charters from the state. The idea is to change those charters to turn corporations into better businesses. The Ethical Business Frame The shareholders own the business The stakeholders are the shareholders plus representatives of the employees, the community, and the environment The purpose of the business is to maximize the interests of the stakeholders The board of directors represents the stakeholders The actual gains made say, moving the minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.50 are small compared to the gains that need to be made. What is important in the long run is changing the frames used in comprehending the economy. All Employees are paid a living wage plus a share of the profits. Revenues minus costs equals profits, where employees salaries are seen as part of profits, not costs. Costs include costs previously unloaded onto the community, e.g., pollution cleanup costs. Community infrastructure contributions, tax breaks, subsidies, etc. are recorded as community loans to the corporation. The higher the profits, the greater the employees salaries Employees share in the risks, as well as the profits The devil, of course, is in the details, which are to be worked out. There is more than one way to do it. But it s time to start. Conclusion Living wage campaigns are about much more than living wages. Ultimately, they are about what Fred Block has called a moral economy. Living wage is but a significant first step. The actual gains made say, moving the minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.50 are small compared to the gains that need to be made. What is important in the long run is changing the frames used in comprehending the economy. Replacing the Natural Market Frame with the Constructed Market Frame is crucial, as is replacing the Exchange Metaphor for Value by the Contribution Metaphor for Value. Part of the process of making such cognitive changes must be to focus on 42

19 Part 2: New Lenses For Your Frames, cont. the payments made by taxpayers to businesses both in the form of money (subsidies, tax breaks) and in the form of common infrastructure provided by taxpayers. Businesses make use of such common assets as roads, airports, the airwaves, the Internet, the air traffic control system, and the technology developed largely with taxpayers money, e.g., computer technology, biotechnology, and so on. An important aim of such reframing should be to destroy a major economic and moral fallacy, The Myth of the Self-Made Entrepreneur. Nobody makes it alone. The American taxpayer has supplied a huge infrastructure and makes enormous payments that allow entrepreneurs to succeed. Entrepreneurs are given enormous resources by the taxpaying public. They are not operating in a free market. They owe a lot morally if not legally. The market is skewed toward them and away from ordinary working people. Frames are not just ideas. They are very often ideas that get institutionalized and made real. Conservatives are in the process of institutionalizing their frames. We must stop them, undo the damage, and institutionalize ours instead. 43

20 A MODEL FOR YOUR LIVING WAGE MESSAGE: PROBLEM, SOLUTION & ACTION Living wage is a complex issue, involving economic issues, worker rights, benefits, city policy, poverty, justice, race, employer subsidies, and much more. Creating political campaign messages can be an elaborate process involving consultants, focus group polling and research. If you have the budget and the time, by all means consider those activities. This article helps activists distill the issue down into a strategic message without overwhelming the public and confusing reporters. It by no means offers the "silver bullet" sound bite message. That should come from your own research and what works best in your campaign. However, consider the following message model for breaking down living wage into a message that your messengers can deliver succinctly. Of course, the message sometimes changes depending on a variety of factors, including your target audience, your political goals, and the evolution of your campaign. But the fact is, the basic living wage message has proven successful time and again across the country. And, most living wage laws to date have been passed through some form of city council vote or similar move. This suggests the message and communication tactics from one campaign is appropriate to consider for others with some modifications detailed in various case studies throughout this kit. It may require some tweaking every now and then, in particular to response to opponents, but the basic living wage message has carried the day in the media for numerous campaigns. The basic message premise people who work should not live in poverty still rings true. Media messaging can be a highly refined task, involving expensive focus groups and polling studies. By all means, if your campaign has the budget, consider The basic message premise people who work should not live in poverty still rings true. Goals and Messaging testing the message out on voters or city council members. But the fact that most living wage laws to date have been passed through some form of city council vote or similar move suggests the message from one campaign is appropriate for another with some modifications detailed in the various case studies throughout this kit. First, it is important to be clear on your goals. Is your goal to pass a living wage ordinance? Is it to organize your communities around a campaign? Is it to educate various publics about broader economic justice issues? All of the above? Make certain your message supports your goal, not distract from it. The below message model focuses primarily on winning a living wage measure, but also MESSAGE REMINDERS: Do not simply answer reporters questions; respond to them with your message. Seize the moment to move your message. Speak in soundbites. Practice condensing your message and delivering it in ten seconds or less. Remember: Don t try to explain everything in your media message. That s what reporter background briefings, press releases and fact sheets are for. Repeat your message. Echo it throughout your campaign, including in speeches, press releases, letters to the editor, opinion editorials, your website and so forth. Stay on message. Discipline the message. Don t get pulled off by the media or by your opposition. Personalize the message whenever possible. Make key messages your mantra. 44

21 A Model for your Living Wage Message, cont. can be used to mobilize constituents, empower low-income workers and pressure elected officials to take action. The Message Model This model suggests that you condense your issue into three parts of a message: 1. The Problem 2. The Solution 3. The Call to Action Often you can mix up the order of the message. You can offer the solution first, then the problem, and then the action. This keeps the message fresh and allows you to respond to reporters questions without seeming routine. The following example is culled from several living wage media battles fought around the country, including Alexandria, Virginia; San Francisco and Santa Monica, California; and Atlanta, Georgia. Message #1: The Problem What is the problem you are working to address? Forget the mountains of minutiae you have gathered on your issue. Step back and look at the big picture. Take a moment to create a message that defines the problem clearly, broadly, and in as compelling a way as possible. How does the problem affect people? Whoever defines the problem controls the terms of the debate. Message Part #1, the problem message, is also the framing message. It will communicate the scope of the issue or problem, and dramatize its impact. The problem message: Many workers are working two or more full time jobs yet can t rise above poverty. They can t provide for their families because their wages are so low that basic housing, food and health care What are the values associated with living wage? Fairness, economic justice, decent pay for hard work, empathy and responsibility, dignity, are just a few. are beyond their reach. This has disastrous consequences for working families and our communities. Meanwhile, taxpayers are paying for poverty jobs through subsidies given employers who don t pay living wages (for campaigns emphasizing subsidies). Personalizing the problem: The Atlanta Living Wage Campaign augmented the above message with the following quote, delivered by Camille Johnson, security guard at Hartsfield Airport. Johnson earns just $7 an hour with no health benefits. She and her children lived in a homeless shelter at the time of the campaign. The job I do stands between you and disaster, says Camille, yet it doesn t even pay enough to keep a roof over my family s head or provide a safe place for my children to stay while I m working. Message #2: The Solution Remember, always be for something, not just against something. Hence, the solution message. Message Part #2, the solution, is the values message. Use it to communicate a sense of your values: In what kind of society do you want to live? How do you want people to be treated? Make sure to provide hope in your solution message. What are the values associated with living wage? Fairness, economic justice, decent pay for hard work, empathy and responsibility, dignity, to name just a few. (See Frame With Your Values In Mind in this section.) Our jobs are valuable to the community, and so is our need for time with family and volunteer activities. The solution message: People who work full time should earn enough to support themselves and their families. People who work full time should not live in poverty. That s basic fairness. Workers paid a living wage can provide for their families and help the local economy, and lift themselves above poverty. Personalize the solution: Again, from the Atlanta Living Wage campaign, Camille Johnson is the messenger who said, We need a living wage ordinance in Atlanta so workers like me can provide safety and security for our families and the public. Our jobs are valuable to the community, and so is our need for time with family and volunteer activities. Working one job with a living wage would make all this possible. (Note values; safety and security, and implied civic participation and responsibility. ) Message #3: A Call To Action You have already defined the problem and offered a solution. Now, what do we need to get to the solution? The call to action. The action call may be different depending on your targeted audience. What you ask elected officials to do might be different from what you ask regular voters or community members to do (see Targeting Your Audience, Part 3). 45

22 PART 4 A Model for your Living Wage Message, cont. The action message customized for select target audiences: For City Council: Approve the living wage measure. Everyone in our town working a full time job deserves to live free of poverty. For regular voters: Call your City Council representative (or vote yes on a ballot measure) and urge them to support a living wage for all full-time workers. For your base (or for targeted constituencies, such as communities of color directly impacted by the measure): Join our Day of Action (or campaign) to make sure all workers of our state have decent living wages. We want to send a clear message to our elected officials: Lift working families out of poverty by paying them a decent living wage. Additional Tips For workers: Focus relentlessly on the conditions of workers and how the living wage will help them; For supporters: Associate support for the living wage with trusted community members; For opposition: Associate opposition to the living wage with large, profitable corporations that receive tax breaks and other subsidies but don t want to pay workers a living wage; In a time of economic hardship: Those who are working hard and are the most vulnerable deserve a living wage. This lifts them out of poverty and keeps them from being forced to use government assistance and charity. It makes economic sense, and it benefits our communities as working families earning a living wage increase their buying power. b THE LIVING WAGE MESSAGE: THE SHORT VERSION People who work in [our town] should earn enough to stay above the poverty line and support their families. Yet many full-time workers in [our town] are working two or more jobs and can t make ends meet. That s because businesses that have received millions of dollars in taxpayer investment and subsidies don t even pay their employees living wages. People who work should not live in poverty. This is not fair, and it threatens the well-being of our working families and our communities. Vote yes on the living wage ordinance. KEY ARGUMENTS People who work full time should earn enough to support themselves and their families. Workers who provide security, clean hotels, wash dishes, and haul supplies among other jobs deserve to earn enough so they aren t forced to rely on charity or government assistance. Living wages reduce poverty. Businesses that have benefited from tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer investment should pay their workers a living wage. Everyone should benefit from the investment taxpayers make through subsidies of business and contractors. The largest hotels, businesses, city contractors and other employers can afford to pay a living wage. If appropriate to your measure: the law includes a hardship exemption for businesses that can t afford to pay the living wage. 46

23 WHAT THEIR SIDE SAYS: COUNTERING OPPOSITION MESSAGES AGAINST A LIVING WAGE By Nathan Newman, Amanda Cooper, and Paul Sonn, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University The good news about messaging for a living wage campaign is that the movement has already successfully established a powerful frame for this issue. Our opponents are devising new strategies for fighting the living wage with each campaign. But the frame for their strategies is a winning one for us. The question both sides ultimately are asking is, What can we do to help the working poor? Conservative business groups have lost the battle repeatedly when they have tried to argue that the needs of business dictate that local governments should just ignore the needs of working families. This has led to a somewhat peculiar evolution of the opposition s arguments. Opposition to living wage laws has increasingly been couched in terms of helping the poor by avoiding supposed drawbacks of living wage laws. It s a cynical game on the part of conservative business interests. But you need to be ready to respond and armed with the language to convince local law-makers, opinion makers and even some wavering allies. So here are a few of the typical opposition arguments raised and pointers on how to respond. You need to be ready to respond and armed with the language to convince local lawmakers, opinion makers and even some wavering allies. Living wage laws will cost the city too much and divert funds from other social services Facts: Evidence from local governments across the country shows that living wage laws result in very modest cost increases, largely because most city contractors don t employ large concentrations of low-wage workers. For those that do, better wages often mean less turnover, better training and more efficient delivery of services. In addition, in some cities living wage laws have created increased and more transparent competition for local contracts as local governments have put out for bid service contracts that had not been competitively renewed for many years. Bottom line message point: A living wage job is the best social program local government can provide. It helps struggling families and can even improve the quality and efficiency of city-contracted services. Raising wages will lead to job cutbacks Facts: As more and more cities have enacted living wage laws that resulted in minimal or no job loss, opponents have quietly abandoned this argument. However, it still pops up here and there. City service contracts and subsidy grants generally specify a certain level of services or job creation that must be provided by the recipient, so cutting back on jobs is usually not an option for the recipient businesses. And extensive research on broader minimum wage increases have also found little, if any, job loss even in price sensitive, low-wage sectors like fast food. Bottom line message point: Research and experience have shown that the cost impacts of living wage laws are modest, and there is no reason to fear job losses. 47

24 PART 4 What Their Side Says, cont. b QUICK PRIMER FOR HEADING OFF THE OPPOSITION By David Swanson, Communications Coordinator, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now! (ACORN) Expect to be told that your proposal will cause unemployment, that it will cause job loss by replacing low-skilled workers with high-skilled, that it will cause businesses to flee the area, that it will be costly to taxpayers, that it is socialist, and (in contradiction to this last label), that programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are preferable to wage standards. Do not raise any of these false claims. Head off most of them with your own messages if you know that the opposition will raise them. Counter the claims about cost and socialism before they arise with the messages from business leaders, wealthy residents, and elected officials. Part of the central message that workers have a right to a living wage is that in the United States they used to have one, or at least much closer to it. Constantly remind the media that in 1968 the federal minimum wage was much higher, and that its decline is the reason that action is now needed. You are not demanding something that has not already been successfully tried. The false claims about unemployment and business flight should be countered by workers, business owners, and economists. Workers should make clear they resent the paternalism of low-wage employers trying to tell them what is in their own interest. Prep workers not to say they are willing to risk job loss for a higher wage standard. Despite being a well-intentioned response, that approach simply repeats the language of the opposition. They should say they don t take predictions of job loss seriously, and they should question the source of these claims but quickly move back to the central message. Because there is no evidence of job loss, recent opposition has tended to focus on the somewhat bizarre claim that low-skilled workers will be replaced by high-skilled, as well as advocacy for the EITC. Respond to the first by asking where the high-skilled would-be janitors are hiding now and pointing out that the most valued skills in low-wage jobs are dependability and experience on the particular job. Respond to the EITC argument by pointing out that a public subsidy is not an alternative to employers paying their employees. The EITC is important, but both are needed and Even if there are no overall job cutbacks, disadvantaged workers such as youth of color may lose out as businesses attract more skilled workers when they raise wages Facts: No city that has passed a living wage law has reported this sort of widespread displacement. Both before and after passage of a living wage, the types of contracted lowwage jobs covered by most living wage ordinances janitors, security guards, landscapers, home healthcare aides and child care providers continue to be held by workers with few other job options. In most parts of the country, these are disproportionately immigrants and workers of color. In fact, in most of these sectors city contractors couldn t retain staff because of the low pay. Living wages have helped reduce staff turnover. Bottom line message point: Far from displacing current workers, decent pay stabilizes these jobs, which is good for the workers and the recipients of the services they provide. Living wage laws are inefficient ways to help needy workers because most workers helped are not poor Facts: These claims are based on the assumption that any family whose income is already above the official federal Poverty Guidelines is not needy. But the federal Poverty Guidelines which are, as of 2003, $12,120 for a family of two and $15,260 for a family of three are widely recognized as woefully out of date and far too low. See U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Poverty Guidelines, available at Nationwide, the overwhelming majority of workers earning less than $10.00 per hour are members of low and moderate income households struggling to meet basic needs not middle class teenagers earning extra spending money. This is especially true in cities with high immigrant populations and in the low-wage jobs that living wage laws tends to cover, such as publicly contracted janitors, security guards, landscapers, home healthcare aides and child care providers. Few if any workers in these jobs are members of affluent households that don t need the money. Bottom line message point: Both research and common experience tell us that most low-wage janitors, landscapers and home healthcare workers those helped the most by living wage laws are from working families that are facing real economic hardship and deserve a living wage. Living wage laws are inefficient ways to help needy workers because they lose more in government benefits than they gain from living wage increases Facts: It is true that many federal programs for the poor, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), do phase out as people earn more money. So a dollar of extra pay does not 48

25 What Their Side Says, cont. translate into a full dollar of extra income after lost benefits are calculated. But with a living wage, workers still end up with most of the higher pay, despite the poor design of federal aid programs. Moreover, critics vastly overstate this impact by assuming that low-income workers are participating in all available benefits programs from public housing to subsidized child care. But many of these programs have limited eligibility rules and long waiting lists. Bottom line message point: Despite the poor design of some federal aid programs, the lion s share of living wage increases still result in higher take-home pay for workers covered. EITC vs. Living Wage? It would be more efficient for the community to promote an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) rather than pass a living wage. Facts: Opponents sometimes argue that promoting federal, state or local EITCs are a better approach for helping working families since the benefits of such policies are directed more precisely towards the poorest of the poor. But while EITCs are an important policy tool for helping working families, they are not substitutes for living wages. Some opponents propose outreach campaigns to increase local participation in federal and state EITCs for families that qualify but are not currently claiming the benefit. But such outreach is a not a substitute for raising wages. Indeed, living wage laws are important elements of such outreach campaigns since they typically require covered employers to help their workers apply for the EITC. Other opponents propose that a city or county create its own local EITC rather than passing a living wage law. While worth considering, such proposals are possible additions to not substitutes for living wage laws. An EITC is an worthwhile program, but an expensive one. Unlike a living wage, in which much of the cost is borne by employers and consumers, government finances 100 percent of the cost of the EITC. Mustering the political will to expand it is therefore difficult at any time, and especially so in the current budget climate. (No doubt it is not coincidental that low-wage employers favor strategies like the EITC that they do not pay for.) And there are many administrative costs and questions associated with setting up a local EITC, since most cities do not impose income taxes and therefore don t have a local administrative system in place. Bottom line message point: The EITC is an important program but it is a supplement to, not a replacement for, living wages. Living wage laws lead local government to substitute local funds for federal social program dollars, thereby undermining local economic development. Facts: The first thing to emphasize is that the living wage usually costs local government far less than the wage gains of the workers affected, so it s very costefficient. While it is true that federal money from the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps and other programs phase-out as wages rise, the logic of living wage opponents is that cities and counties should focus on generating only poverty level jobs so the city can haul in federal aid for city residents. This is absurd! You don t build a long-lasting economy or build vibrant communities without raising wages to a reasonable level. What s more, most of the business interests opposing living wage laws also oppose solving these phase-out problems at the federal level. A number of organizations have promoted bills to deal with this problem, so living wage opponents using this argument should be publicly asked to endorse those federal bills or risk being branded as hypocrites. Bottom line message point: The best way to build a strong economy is with good jobs that build healthy families. b BOTTOM LINE: REMEMBER THE FRAME, HELP THE WORKING POOR No matter what, keep your arguments within the winning frame. The living wage ordinance you are supporting is the right answer to the question, What can we do to help the working poor? Remind your community that people can work full time or more, and still struggle to make ends meet for themselves and their families. Though there are many ways to help low-income people, Americans overwhelmingly support fair pay for hard work. Make sure your community knows that is what living wage ordinances are for: to help workers earn more so they can lift themselves out of poverty and build healthy families and stable communities. 49

26 CASE STUDY The Opposition s Dirty Tricks: A CAUTIONARY TALE ON HOW BIG MONEY AND BIG LIES KILLED SANTA MONICA S LIVING WAGE LAW BUT NOT THE MOVEMENT BEHIND IT By Danny Feingold, Communications Director, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) If you weren t there to witness it with your own eyes, you might think this is a make-believe nightmare dreamed up to instill fear in lackadaisical progressives. But the story of Santa Monica s living wage campaign, though stranger than fiction, is an all-too-real cautionary tale about the power of money and lies and the negative impact of spin to defeat a popular crusade for social and economic justice. Rest assured there is a silver lining. The defeat of Santa Monica s living wage law is also the story of a resilient grassroots movement that has won significant gains for the working poor and emerged even stronger than before. Background to Our Story It all started in 1999, when a coalition of residents, unions, clergy and elected officials brought a living wage proposal to the Santa Monica City Council. The proposal reflected growing concern about conditions for thousands of service workers in the city s thriving tourism industry. While Santa Monica s beachside businesses particularly its high-end hotels were profiting wildly from the city s status as a world-class tourism mecca, the people cleaning the rooms and washing the dishes were being paid poverty wages. Most had no health benefits, grueling working conditions and no voice on the job. To rectify this disparity, the diverse coalition called Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, or SMART, advanced its groundbreaking proposal. Unlike the dozens of living wage laws already on the books around the country, Santa Monica s ordinance was designed to cover private businesses that had no direct financial ties to the city. The idea rested on a compelling premise: the booming tourism industry had benefited from tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, but was paying its workers so little that many had to rely on taxpayer-funded government programs for food, health care and housing. Translation: big business profits while workers and taxpayers get screwed. The Dirty Tricks Begin When the City Council commissioned a study of the living wage proposal in January 2000, the hotel industry and other business interests sprung into action with a strategy, pulled straight from Machiavelli s playbook. A phony living wage ballot initiative was drafted, supported by an equally phony group called Santa Monicans for a Living Wage. The initiative established a living wage for a small number of service workers. Buried in the fine print was a poison pill clause permanently preventing the City Council from passing any other wage legislation without voter approval. The hotels assembled a who s who of ethically challenged consultants to qualify the initiative for the ballot and sneak it pass voters. Foremost among these was the Dolphin Group, a conservative PR firm best known for creating the infamous racebaiting Willie Horton ads that helped sink Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential hopes. Voters were deluged with glossy mailers The living wage, they warned, would cripple schools, kill jobs for youth, close libraries, devastate senior centers and generally lead to the end of civilization as we know it. touting the benefits of the fake living wage initiative. However, thanks to an aggressive media strategy designed to expose the lies and move our own message, plus a massive volunteer-driven electoral effort, Measure KK was trounced at the polls in November 2000 despite a $1 million war chest courtesy of the hotel industry. Act Two: The Lies Continue Eight months later in July 2001, the City Council passed a real living wage law covering 2,000 low-wage workers, thus setting the stage for round two. The hotels spent nearly half a million dollars to qualify a referendum on the living wage law, once again misleading voters to get their signatures on the petition. Nearly 1,000 people asked to have their named removed, but the referendum qualified, suspending the law pending the outcome of the November 2002 election. 50

27 The Opposition s Dirty Tricks, cont. In the fall of 2002, Santa Monica voters were once again pummeled by mailers. This time, rather than inventing a front group, the hotels and their right-wing henchmen recruited a small but crediblesounding roster of community leaders to appear on a series of alarmist mailers. The living wage, they warned, would cripple schools, kill jobs for youth, close libraries, devastate senior centers and generally lead to the end of civilization as we know it. On top of that, they claimed the law was discriminatory an inflammatory charge in socially conscious Santa Monica. It Gets Ugly Despite their sensationalist appeals, the anti-living wage camp found themselves behind in the polls as Election Day drew near. It was at this point that they resorted to flat-out deception. On the weekend before the election, three anti-living wage slate mailers hit Santa Monica residents. Created by notorious conservative consultants and paid for by the hotel industry, the mailers gave the impression that top Democrats, pro-choice leaders and educators were against the living wage, even though all three groups had endorsed it. Not taking any chances, the hotels then hired more than one hundred day laborers Despite the heartbreaking defeat of the living wage law, the movement in support of low-wage workers has already paid off. to stand on street corners on Election Day with anti-living wage signs. Voters would think poor Latinos opposed the law (most of the day laborers knew nothing about the campaign and were intentionally denied information about it). When the votes were counted, the living wage had lost by less than 1,000 votes. The hotels had once again spent nearly $1 million, only this time they got their money s worth. Down, But Not Out: From Defeat, a Movement Rises It would have been easy for living wage forces to take refuge in recrimination and despair. Instead, a committee was quickly formed to create a commission of inquiry charged with investigating the conduct of living wage opponents. In February 2003, the commission, whose members included some of California s top election reform experts, held a public hearing attended by nearly 200 people. Commissioners listened to three hours of testimony on the money, lies and consultants behind the anti-living wage campaign. In June 2003, they released a report that documents the abuse of the electoral system by living wage opponents and recommends a far-reaching series of reforms. The commission report offers hope that the Santa Monica living wage campaign will lead to much-needed structural changes in the electoral arena. But living wage supporters need not wait for these reforms in order to show the fruits of their efforts. Despite the heartbreaking defeat of the living wage law, the movement in support of low-wage workers has already paid off. As a result of unrelenting media coverage, political pressure, clergy delegations, street demonstrations and many other tactics, wages in the hotel industry have increased nearly $3 an hour since the start of the living wage campaign. Two worker protections laws were passed by the City Council, one hotel abandoned its union-busting campaign while another agreed to a strong union contract. And in December 2002, Loews Hotel one of the biggest contributors to the anti-living wage campaign settled a bitter two-and-a-half year dispute with the hotel workers union, signing an agreement that will likely lead to a contract for its employees. And the movement continues to gain momentum as the community applies pressure to those hotels still refusing to treat their workers with dignity and respect. SMART is considering new living wage proposals, while lending its support to ongoing organizing drives. The message to those corporations determined to protect their profits at any expense should be clear: you may have won one battle, but you will lose the war. 51

28 PART 4 b KNOW YOUR ENEMY By Max Toth, SPIN Project They confuse, distort, attempt to subvert. It must be frustrating for them that the will of the workers keeps prevailing! Despite the usual big-business suspects such as hotels, developers and local chambers of commerce, these are a few opponents about whom you should be aware. Know your enemy. NATIONAL PLAYERS Employment Policies Institute Home of the Employment Policies Institute (EPI). EPI has it out for living wage, and for ACORN in particular. They re fond of the EITC not living wage (and implicitly not both) arguments against living wage. They own such websites as (which can also be reached at through the Employment Policy Foundation. Not to be confused with the Economic Policies Institute, who are supportive of living wage campaigns. Manhattan Institute This charming organization likes to Red-bait living wage organizers and economists, referring to supportive living wage economists as Marxoids in this particular diatribe: pc.php?p=1940 National Restaurant Association Not only have their state affiliates been a leading party in most of the anti-living wage lawsuits, but they run the Coalition to Keep America Working and the Save American Free Enterprise Fund which, according to their site, has aided local and national restaurateurs in their fight against frivolous ADA lawsuits and detrimental living wage battles. Whose detriment, exactly? American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) ACCE offers some handy-dandy resources for your local Chamber of Commerce on living wage the first reference of which is the anti-living Wage Employment Policies Institute. How helpful! default.asp ENEMIES AT THE STATE LEVEL Mackinac Institute A shining example of a state-based policy institute that s been fighting living wage campaigns in Michigan. The following article is a glowing review of legislation pre-empting living wage laws, one of their main strategies: California Anti-Living Wage Political Players This group emerged as contenders during LAANE s struggle in Santa Monica. Here s a useful article from the Orange County Register that highlights the players against living wage: printme.php?&eid=40553 Harding, Larmore, Kutcher & Kozal The website bills this firm as providing an even-handed perspective on this evolving issue, while Tom Larmore (the second partner) signed the anti-living wage argument as a Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce member. James Lacy Dana Point, CA, planning commissioner, political consultant and constitutional law attorney who created the phony slate mailers against the living wage proposition, while challenging any legislation to prevent these kinds of disingenuous mailers in the future. He and his associate, William Lord Butcher, also were involved in Prop 13, a heinous piece of property tax legislation that prohibited any new property taxes on existing homeowners. It had the effect of starving California of cash for welfare, education and other social programs as the Orange County Weekly mildly put it. William Lord Butcher Mr. Butcher joined with James Lacy, see above. Both Lacy and Butcher are part of The Dolphin Group, a famously unethical campaign management outfit that has long strategized in the tradition of the disingenuous. While their site is unavailable for comment, this handy list of their campaigns at the UFW website gives you a sense of their tactics from this quote by Dolphin Group Founder Bill Roberts, in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1982: I think I ought to have the right to lie to you if I think it will help me win. For background on this organization, visit UFW at: Rick Sander A UCLA Law Professor committed to writing objective (read: despairing) pieces about living wage, underwritten by none other than the Employment Policies Institute. His definitions of objectivity leave something to be desired, we think. See: sm021019smdailypress.html for the scoop. 52

29 CASE STUDY A Matter of Basic Fairness: VALUES & LIVING WAGE MEDIA By Ken Jacobs, Labor Policy Specialist, UC Berkeley Labor Center In early 1999, the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition looked to kick off our campaign with a big media splash. The Coalition had recently hired staff and formalized a steering committee of unions and community organizations, including the IAF affiliated Bay Area Organizing Committee. The coalition made the decision early on to fight for breadth of coverage in the living wage ordinance. The ordinance would include for-profit and non-profit service contractors, workers on city property primarily the San Francisco International Airport homecare workers, and workfare recipients. All together, the ordinance covered more than 22,000 workers. This diversity was reflected in the makeup of the coalition. Along with directly funding the Living Wage Coalition, the McKay Foundation provided a grant to We Interrupt this Message, a communications consultancy that at the time was available to provide us with media training and technical assistance. We agreed at the beginning that our best frame was around the value of fairness. Anyone who works full-time should earn enough to survive and support their family. Taxpayers make up the difference when employers don t pay living wages. Working families can t make ends meet on $6 an hour. We deserve a living wage. We decided we would have the strongest impact if workers were up front telling their own stories. The organizations in the coalition identified members among their own ranks who would be covered by the ordinance and would make good public spokespeople. The idea was to embody the values of our campaign in the people who represented them. Finding the Values Messengers: An Organizing Opportunity The coalition s two staff organizers went to unorganized worksites that would be covered by the ordinance and talked to workers about their own stories. This served direct organizing purposes it helped us identify worksite leaders and it helped us identify people with strong media stories. We worked with a sympathetic member of the Board of Supervisors to organize two large public hearings at times when working people could attend. Before the hearings, we ran workshops for workers on how to tell their stories at public hearings and to the press. The Abstract Made Real: Pitching the Reality and the Values We followed up on the hearings by pitching individual reporters first print, then television on feature stories about individual workers. The campaign was no longer about an abstract right to earn a living wage versus increased costs to the city. It was about Hilda Wade, who works seven days a week in city-contracted jobs to make ends meet and has no time left to spend with her daughter. It was about Willie and Myrna Williams, who both work full-time as security guards on city contracts but live in a homeless shelter with their two children. And it was about single mother Bernadine We agreed at the beginning that our best frame was around the value of fairness. Emperador who earned $600 to $800 a week at Candlestick Park, the local sports arena, sometimes working twelve hour days, and making just enough to pay her bills. 53

30 PART 4 A Matter of Basic Fairness, cont. Additional Values and Themes Along with the message of basic fairness, we developed a second theme directed at consumers and taxpayers on quality of service. Sympathetic city contractors talked about the difficulty competing for city contracts if they pay a living wage, and the problems they face hiring and retaining workers on the low wages covered by the city. The San Francisco ordinance was written to cover more than 7,200 homecare workers. These workers provide direct care to seniors and the disabled, which allows the consumers to remain independent and stay out of more costly institutions. While homecare workers articulately described the work they do, homecare consumers told their touching stories about what the workers meant for their lives. Meanwhile, we drove home the reality of how difficult it is to hold onto good homecare workers at such low wages. Homecare workers in San Francisco are organized by SEIU Local 250 and were a regular core of the campaign. Communicating the Values to Target Audiences Working with these basic themes, we supplied reporters with a steady stream of feature stories, interviews and op-eds directed to particular audiences. Our task was to keep driving home the values. Here are specific hooks we used to communicate our message and our values to targeted audiences. The campaign was no longer about an abstract right to earn a living wage versus increased costs to the city. It was about Hilda Wade, who works seven days a week in city-contracted jobs to make ends meet and has no time left to spend with her daughter. On Thanksgiving Day we set up an interview with a worker in a family homeless shelter. It was a poignant story containing the message anyone who works in San Francisco should be able to afford to live in San Francisco on the day when everyone is thinking about home, abundance and warmth. For the Asian press we released a study showing the high preponderance of Asian workers who would benefit. We set up interviews with Filipino and Chinese workers in particular. The headlines told the story: Asian-Pacific Islanders Benefit Most from Living Wage. We submitted an op-ed to a gay community newspaper centered on the story of a gay homecare worker, and statistics on poverty and relative wages in the gay and lesbian community. Similar stories ran in the African American and Latino press, and on the ethnic television and radio stations. Archbishop William Leveda authored a powerful op-ed talking about the widening gap between the rich and the poor. When Willie and Myrna Williams moved out of the family homeless shelter with a raise we won prior to the law being passed, we had reporters covering the family s arrival in their new home. Through each of these steps, we demonstrated the daily crisis for working families and illustrated our message of basic fairness. When the Spin Becomes About Numbers: A Lesson Learned If the human stories and a valuesbased message was our greatest strength, we were on weaker ground was when the story shifted to the fiscal cost. We came out publicly with proposed legislation months before there was any completed study of what the legislation would cost the city. The other side came in quickly with astronomical numbers that grabbed the headlines. We challenged the numbers but had no estimates of our own for several months. The opposition used this to push for a delay to study the issue. We asked Michael Reich at the UC Berkeley Institute for Industrial Relations to carry out a financial study, which was very useful. The City produced a separate study with much higher numbers, of course. While we needed to keep our focus on values, we could have done more work early on to inoculate against the arguments from the other side. The Benefits of Progressive PR Help Working with a progressive media organization was vital for us. We Interrupt This Message not only helped us develop the message they kept us on it. They helped us draft the first press releases and commented on later ones. They helped us think through pitches to particular reporters which we roleplayed repeatedly. Often the strategy was on the fly. A reporter would call with a story that came from the other side. We would 54

31 A Matter of Basic Fairness, continued probe the reporter for as much information as we could get, and call We Interrupt This Message for advice before responding to the reporter. Rather than letting the reporters define the issue, we would work on our spin and find the best person to deliver our message. Down to the Wire: Taking The Values to Heart In the end, the San Francisco living wage ordinance came down to negotiations with the Mayor s Office and the business community. As the negotiations were dragging we prepared to go to the ballot. We carried out a poll demonstrating strong support for living wage throughout the city. When we reached our final agreement that avoided going to the ballot, a representative of the businesses community told us that they had done their own polling with the same results. San Francisco now has living wage protections and the people of this city took our values to heart. There is little doubt that our casting the story about basic human values, with real human faces, had a lot to do with those results. FOCUS ON THE WORKPLACE: Living Wage Takes Off at the Airport While Security Guards Near City Hall Become Empowered By Ken Jacobs, Labor Policy Specialist, UC Berkeley Labor Center Two organizing opportunities became important campaign touchstones for us in San Francisco as we developed strategy for moving our measure forward. Security screeners at the San Francisco International Airport and security guards near City Hall became indispensable spokespersons who embodied the values of our message. Both are case studies in how all the pieces labor, organizing, media, values, campaign strategy came together. The San Francisco International Airport quickly became a central focus of our campaign s organizing because it had one of the largest groups of workers, and because a multi-union organizing drive was getting underway. Airport security became a major focus of our media message, even two years before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Prior to 2002, airlines had responsibility for security. They outsourced screening operations to private contractors. Screeners in San Francisco earned less than $7 an hour. The airport administration had become concerned about the high turnover rate among screeners the average person stayed on the job for three months and about finding screeners, many of whom worked multiple jobs, asleep in the stairways between shifts. We had begun to organize a team of airport screeners and skycaps into the campaign (who went on to play major roles in the union organizing drive). Before all of the heightened security it was easy to go up to the checkpoints and talk to the screeners between flights. Several agreed to come forward and talk to the press. We pitched a TV reporter on an exclusive and set up two interviews. Rafael Pendon told his story on camera: I start my shift as a screener at 10pm. I get off at 6am, change my clothes and eat breakfast. I start my second security job at 7am and work until 3pm. I arrive home at four then I sleep for two to two and half hours then I wake up and prepare my food again and go back to the airport. A second screener who chose not to give his name and had his face blacked out on camera talked about how hard it was to stay awake on the job. We were helped significantly by our support from the airport administration in making our public case. After wages were raised for the screeners in April 2000, turnover fell by 80 percent. Meanwhile, closer to City Hall, another front opened up for us. San Francisco contracts out security guards for health and human services, the vast majority of which are located within blocks of City Hall. These workers were unorganized at the time the campaign began. We were introduced to one of the guards through a social worker a union member working in the same building. Together, we began visiting the worksites and talking to the guards and asking them about their stories. We inquired if any were willing to speak to the press. One appeared in an early feature story in the San Francisco Chronicle and a week later in a TV news feature. She played a central role in organizing a committee of the security guards that became heavily involved in the campaign. Whenever living wage stories broke we had a group of media-trained workers close to City Hall who could quickly be prepped to do interviews on their next break or after they finished work. Through our media and organizing efforts, we were able to keep the media focused on our message and communicate our values as told in the stories of those most affected. 55

32 SAMPLE PRESS CLIPPING 56 PART 4 The following article, from the Sing Tao Daily in San Francisco, highlights how one campaign made sure ethnic media was in the mix for their media plan.

33 PART 4 SAMPLE PRESS CLIPPING The following article, from the Sing Tao Daily in San Francisco, highlights how one campaign made sure ethnic media was in the mix for their media plan. 57