Thanks to the intervention of Border Interfaith and EPISO, the City of El Paso just passed a wage raise for its lowest paid municipal workers in its budget — from $9.86 to $10.35.  This is a first step in El Paso for a larger raise in upcoming years, part of a methodical campaign to raise the wages of Texas workers.  EPISO & Border Interfaith additionally succeeded in compelling the El Paso County Commissioners to increase the wages of their lowest paid workers by 50 cents to $10 / hour.  Commissioners pledged to work with the organization to increase wages higher over the next two years.

Texas IAF organizations in San Antonio and Austin are at the forefront of living wage victories for county and city employees in Texas.  Due to the work of COPS / Metro Alliance and Austin Interfaith, the cities of San Antonio and Austin are on the verge of passing proposed budgets which would increase wages from more than $11 per hour to $13 per hour. Bexar County and El Paso County also have upcoming votes to raise the wages of county workers from $9.45 to $10 in El Paso and from $11.66 to $13 in Bexar.  Graphic to the right shows the relative impact of this wage work [Graphic credit: Mallory Busch, Texas Tribune].

Luckless at Capitol, Minimum Wage Advocates Go Local, Texas Tribune