While my liberal friends remain fixed on the idea that Jim McDermott represents the future because he has union support, recent events suggest that sunny Jim’s time has run out because Seattle is no longer a union town.
Jim’s well meaning supporters may not have noticed but redistricting has cut most of what was left of Seattle’s union workers out of Jim’s seventh CD. The new Seattle is made up of well paid Amazonians living in company owned podments.
These new Seattleites are not pro union or anti union, they just do not care. While pushing for a $15 minimal wage for workers who never will not be able to live here, only a few dozen people showed up to support a local protest in support of a strike by Amazon’s dissatisfied German workers. Seattle, apparently, is not as union friendly as Germany.
In the meantime, while Sunny Jim basks in thefine points of trade with India, a judge has ruled that the $15 minimum wage in SeaTac does not apply to its targets … the workers at the airport because, according to this Judge, the airport functions as its own municipality, a place where there are no resident to vote, work is all done from outside, and wages are set by the Seattle Port commission.
I think Jim’s vision of Seattle as a union stronghold is as obsolete as China’s effort to preserve Mao’s heritage in its last commune, the Nanjiecun Noodle Commune. Given Jim’s strong ties to the local Indian business community, maybe he should consider becoming a lobbysit representing Delhi? One Indian group has created a petition for Jim to be the next ambassador to India,