Missouri Jobs with Justice (MOJwJ) is celebrating a tremendous win with the passage this this November Proposition A, a ballot measure initiative which increases the minimum wage in the state to $15 from $12.30 and extends sick leave protections to hourly workers and those employed by small businesses.
58% of Missouri voters approved the measure, and this minimum wage bump will benefit as many as one in four workers in the state, according to the Missouri Budget Project.
“We deep canvassed on the issue for two years, and it paid off,” said Kai Sutton, an organizer for MOJwJ.
To win Proposition A, MOJwJ gathered more than 100,000 of the 210,000 signatures submitted to get Prop A on the ballot. MOJwJ also joined forces with Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, a coalition supported by the Fairness Project, which brought together over 150 labor, community and faith-based organizations, including the NAACP, AFL-CIO, UAW, ACLU and the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri with more than 500 business owners to support the measure.
The victory points to the way organizers can cut across issues that affect working-class people in every community, even in a politically polarized environment.
“We saw 500,000 people vote for Trump and Prop A,” said Kai Sutton from Missouri Jobs with Justice (MOJwJ). “So while we’re disappointed in federal and state elected official outcomes, we remain curious about how to reach this overlapping set of people and bring them into power building and organizing that actually improves their lives.”