The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 77/No. 30      August 19, 2013

 
Fight for big minimum wage raise!
(editorial)
 
The protests by fast-food workers from New York to Chicago and beyond, demanding $15 an hour and unionization, deserve the support of the entire labor movement. These demands have won widespread sympathy from working people, who in their great majority face a relentless push by the bosses to cut jobs, speed up work, lower wages and minimize hours and benefits. These attacks are driven by the deepening crisis of world capitalist production and trade.

Four years into the “recovery” from the 2007-2009 recession, only 47 percent of the U.S. adult population have full-time jobs. Meanwhile, provisions of Obamacare promise only to exacerbate the expansion of part-time work.

The protests highlight the need for a nationwide fight for a big raise in the federal minimum wage. Such a campaign is not only necessary for millions of workers to get by. It would also strengthen working-class unity, self-confidence and combativity, and put us in a better position to effectively organize, resist and set a course toward independent working-class political action.

Wages under capitalism are set from the bottom up. When the bosses are able to hold down the minimum wage, it drags down the wages of all.

The propertied rulers’ always play on divisions, often scapegoating the very sections of the working class to whom they pay the lowest wages, including workers without “proper papers.” And they peddle lies to convince us that a higher minimum wage is not in the interests of all workers — from empty threats that they can simply replace us with machines to debunked theories that rising wages contribute to inflation.

In addition to fighting for a big raise in the minimum wage, the labor movement should campaign for a massive government-funded public works program to put millions to work — lessening the competition fostered by high unemployment — and mount a major effort to organize unions and bring union power to bear that could draw millions into action.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home