Barry Hermanson

Background and education

Both of Hermanson's parents were Presbyterian ministers. His mother was also a social worker, teacher, church organist and choir director. He reported that his first job was working part-time in a hospital kitchen during high school, washing dishes and taking food trays to different areas of the hospital. Hermanson received a Bachelor of Science degree from California State University at Los Angeles in 1972 and a Masters of Divinity (MDIV) from the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1975. From 1980 to 2005 he was the owner and operator of Hermanson's Employment Services, a business he started in San Francisco to address the exploitation of workers in the temporary employment industry. At the time, most workers were paid 50% to 60% of client billing rates. Hermanson paid 80 to 85%. Unlike his competitors, all billing and pay rates were printed on employee paystubs. He also offered his clients and employees a no-fee temp-to-perm policy.

Politics and public service

In 1999 and 2000, Hermanson was Co-Chair of the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition which brought together labor, community and religious organizations to craft, negotiate and pass legislation raising wages for 20,000 people working on City contracts. He served as Treasurer for Eileen Hanson's campaign for District 8 Supervisor in San Francisco in 2000. In 2002 he ran for District 4 Supervisor, earning the endorsement of almost every progressive organization in San Francisco.

In 2003, Hermanson, along with Alexis Gonzales, was the proponent of the Proposition L Campaign in San Francisco. It raised the minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50 and included indexing. By 2014, the minimum wage in San Francisco was $10.74, an amount the federal minimum wage would be if it had been indexed to inflation since 1968. Prop. L passed with over 60 percent in its favor and raised wages for an estimated 50,000 workers. Hermanson contributed most of the funding for the campaign, spending more than $100,000. The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley recently documented that the economic benefit to those workers was equal to $1.2 Billion. Hermanson likes to say that “The social return on that investment is greater than anything you can get on Wall Street”. John Eller, of San Francisco ACORN praised Hermanson's role in the Prop. L campaign, stating, "There is no way we could have qualified for the ballot and won in November without Barry's support."

In 2004, at the request of San Mateo Green Party activist, Pat Gray, Hermanson agreed to run for Congress against Tom Lantos. The contested primary brought significant attention to the Green Party, and Gray, who had already been campaigning for a year, won the primary. In 2006 Hermanson ran for California State Assembly, District 12, on a campaign-finance-reform platform and lost to Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco. In 2008, Hermanson ran again for Congress against Tom Lantos. When Lantos died that Spring, he decided to continue campaigning against the eventual winner, Jackie Speier. The San Francisco Bay Guardian endorsed Hermanson for his April 8, 2008 Special Election run and lauded him for his proposal to dramatically cut defense spending. Hermanson became known for a popular informational card with graphic illustrations of amounts of the US budget dedicated to the Pentagon and Iraq war. When interviewed about it for local news coverage in 2008, Hermanson stated:

You have Democrats in Congress who are falling all over themselves to endorse this [budget for war], but I've talked to 4,000 people since last summer, and I've found one person — one — who thought we ought to be spending more on this. The bottom line is, there's a stark separation between the will of the people and what Congress does.

In 2012 Hermanson ran for United States House of Representatives, District 12, a seat held by Nancy Pelosi. And in 2012, Marc Norton, of the Fog City Journal, wrote of Hermanson:

I have another reason for supporting Barry – he has been on the picket line at Hotel Frank again and again and again. He doesn’t do this because he is trolling for votes at our small hotel. He does it because he supports workers’ rights, just like he did when he co-authored San Francisco’s landmark minimum wage law, and co-chaired the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition. I haven’t seen Pelosi anywhere near the Hotel Frank picket line. I don’t remember her getting down in the trenches and fighting for increased wages for the lowest paid workers in this city.

2012 campaign for California's 12th Congressional District

Hermanson ran in the 2012 election to represent California's 12th congressional district. In the open primary on June 5, 2012, he received 6,398 votes for 5.4 percent of the vote.

2014 campaign for California's 12th Congressional District

Two years later, Hermanson ran as a Green Party candidate in California's blanket primary on June 3, 2014, seeking to represent California's 12th congressional district. He received 4,435 votes for 5.5 percent of the vote. He did not advance to the November election.

Hermanson advocated a living wage, Medicare for all, interest free student loans, bringing US troops home from abroad, eliminating homelessness in America, labeling GMO foods, taxing carbon emissions and removing money from politics, among other positions. He opposed drone warfare, mass surveillance by the U.S. government, the Keystone XL pipeline, and fracking, among other issues.

Awards

The San Francisco Bay Guardian awarded Hermanson the Local Hero Award in 2006.