Vol. 79/No. 40 November 9, 2015
Under the cumulative impact of several years of rallies and marches by workers at McDonald’s and similar restaurant chains, the New York State Labor Commission raised the wages of all fast-food workers in the state — approximately 136,000 people — to $15 an hour in increments to begin Dec. 31 of this year. In New York City fast-food wages will hit $15 at the end of 2018 and in the rest of the state by mid-2021. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sept. 10 that he would introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage for all workers statewide to $15.
In northern California a coalition of fast-food and Walmart workers, unions and community groups has been meeting to organize and build the actions. Responding to protests and ballot initiatives, city governments in Oakland, San Francisco and Emeryville have raised the minimum wage.
Marches and rallies will take place in San Francisco, Fresno, San Jose and Sacramento throughout the day Nov. 10. Then people from throughout the region will gather for a rally at Oakland City Hall at 4:30 p.m. A special session of the Berkeley City Council will discuss raising the city minimum wage to $15.
Fight for $15 organizers are planning actions in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Los Angeles demonstration will gather at a fast-food restaurant, march through the garment district, where it will be joined by clothing workers; march to a downtown police station where it will be joined by protesters against police brutality; and end up at City Hall for a rally.
Los Angeles is not the only place where young people are linking the fight to raise the minimum wage and the fight against racism and police brutality. An Oct. 19 forum at the City University of New York included Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and Kendall Fells, an organizer of Fight for $15. “There is a natural intersection between what’s happening with Black Lives Matter and the Fight for $15,” Fells said, recalling how McDonald’s workers in Ferguson, Missouri, joined street protests against the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer there last year.
Young protesters gain confidence
The Fight for $15 is changing the outlook and confidence of a growing number of workers.“When I started at McDonald’s in Manhattan more than a year ago, the low pay — $8.75 an hour with no night differential — bothered me,” Edward Durham, 40, who is building the Nov. 10 actions in New York, told the Militant Oct. 27.
“People say the job is easy, but it’s not. You’ve got to be on point and you can’t be slow. If someone doesn’t come to work, I’ve got to pick up the slack,” he said. “We work holidays but get no holiday pay.”
Several of Durham’s co-workers were active in the Fight for $15, so he joined them.
“I like being part of this struggle,” he said. “Before I started working steady, I was out in the street doing a lot of nonsense. Now I’m doing something positive. I’m part of a cause. I’ve met a lot of people, and you get a different perspective.
“I didn’t realize a lot of people are going through the same thing as I am,” Durham said. “And when the police brutality protests were going on last year, they came to our marches and we marched together.”
Protests win worker’s reinstatement
“I was fired in retaliation for organizing I did in the workplace,” Shonda Roberts, a worker active in the Fight for $15 in the Bay Area, told the Militant. She was dismissed by Kentucky Fried Chicken/Pizza Hut Oct. 17. Community organizations, Roberts’ co-workers, the East Bay Organizing Committee and Fight for $15 picketed outside the restaurant and made calls to management protesting the firing. “I was reinstated with back pay and returned to work Oct. 25. Demands around hours for others and working conditions were agreed to as well.”In Florida, Fight for $15 workers have announced afternoon actions Nov. 10 in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Sarasota and Naples.
United Healthcare Workers East 1199SEIU is building rallies in New York City, Albany and Baltimore. The action at the latter gathers at the Amazon Fulfillment Center.
Some 200 workers rallied at National Airport in Washington, D.C., Oct. 21 wearing T-shirts with the slogan, “Fighting for $15 and union rights at the airport.” The gathering was part of the Oct. 19-21 first National Airport Worker Convention organized by Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union. Workers at 16 airports have joined the local over the last three years.
“As economic justice is interwoven into so many historic civil rights and now Black Lives Matter conversations, an exciting fledgling dialogue is emerging,” said an Oct. 23 Ebony magazine article. Imagine “what could happen if a campaign such as Fight for $15 fully embraced a racial equity lens and embedded in its strong pro-union messaging a greater overall concern for progressive Black struggles.” The article noted that 87 percent of low-wage workers who are Black approve of labor unions.
An April report by the National Employment Law Project titled, “The Growing Movement for $15,” said that 42 percent of U.S. workers make less than $15 per hour, including more than half of those who are African-American and nearly 60 percent of Latinos.
Ninety-six percent of fast-food workers, almost 90 percent of home care and child care workers, nearly three-quarters of bank tellers and about half of production workers in auto manufacturing receive less that $15 per hour, the report said. Over half of women workers make less than $15 per hour.
Carole Lesnick, a Walmart worker in Oakland, California, and Bill Arth, a Walmart worker in Los Angeles, contributed to this article.