Labor unions and community groups are pursuing an increasingly successful strategy to force employers to pay their workers more: minimum wages for specific occupations and industries.

The effort has resulted in several noteworthy victories recently — mandatory pay of up to $20 an hour for hotel workers in Oakland, and raises for airport employees in Denver and Houston. Organizers behind these efforts say they want to shift the debate from establishing a bare-minimum wage for workers at the lowest rung of the economic ladder to lifting more people into the middle class.

“Our goal was to keep up with rising housing costs and help people stay in their homes and communities,” said Jahmese Myres, acting executive director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, a major force behind the Oakland effort. “While we’re hoping it gets addressed comprehensively at the federal and state level, workers in Oakland can’t afford to wait,” she added.

By keeping the focus on specific industries and occupations, organizers have largely been able to bypass the partisan divide over the national minimum wage, which has been frozen at $7.25 for a decade. The House has passed legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but the bill has no chance in the Republican-controlled Senate.