Thousands in U.S. rally for $15 minimum wage
Campaign has resonated because of clear demands, personal stories of workers
WASHINGTON— Tuesday was Letonya Wilson’s “anniversary.” Ten years at McDonald’s.
She had a doctor’s appointment on Monday. The doctor prescribed lupus medication. Then she pointed out that Wilson couldn’t afford to pay.
She said she would give Wilson free samples. Wilson accepted reluctantly. “I’m like, ‘Wow. That’s just sad,’ ” Wilson said that afternoon. “I’m a hard worker. I work every day. And I can’t afford my own medication.”
Wilson started at McDonald’s at $7.25 (U.S.) an hour. Ten years and two days later, she makes $8.25 an hour as a crew trainer on the 5 a.m. shift.
At about 15 hours a week, down from the 25 she used to get, she said she took home less than $7,000 in 2014. Not enough to get by without public assistance, not with a teenage daughter and car insurance and a husband making $8.65 an hour as a dishwasher.
“I mean, 10 years. Really?” said Wilson, who works at a franchise in Richmond, Va. “I know my store has grossed millions of dollars. And all you can afford to pay me is $8.25? I’ve worked with some people who have been there 20 years, and they’re making $8.25 too. That’s a disgrace.”
Wilson has never been an activist. But when she saw a “Fight for $15” petition on Facebook two months ago, she added her name.
An organizer got in touch. On Wednesday, the biggest day in the short history of the thriving movement, she spent the evening of her 41st birthday attending her second protest, a gathering at a Richmond park.
Thousands of fast-food workers in more than 200 U.S. cities, and thousands more in other countries, including Canada, participated in a global show of force in support of the central demands of Fight for $15: “$15 and a union,” a $15-per-hour minimum wage and the right to unionize.
The movement has expanded rapidly. The restaurant employees were joined by thousands of low-wage peers from other sectors, including retail, child care, and home health care.
“No $15, no peace,” home health aides chanted at a small rally at the memorial to Martin Luther King in Washington, D.C., where they launched a ballot initiative for a $15 citywide minimum wage.
The campaign has made remarkable gains in the two years since its first act, a walkout by just 200 fastfood workers in New York City. Twenty states raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year, the most ever to do so at one time. Seattle and San Francisco have adopted a $15-per-hour local minimum wage. Chicago’s will rise to $13 by 2019.
McDonald’s announced two weeks ago that it would give workers at its company-owned restaurants — about 10 per cent of all McDonald’s outlets — an hourly wage increase of at least $1 over the local minimum. Walmart said its employees would get at least $9 an hour, $10 an hour by next year.
The sudden corporate generosity may have had more to do with the tightening labour market than the pressure from Fight for $15.
But the campaign, backed by organizational expertise and millions in spending by the Service Employees International Union, has succeeded in making the needs of impoverished non-unionized employees a pressing political and public-relations concern even as the membership and influence of U.S. unions continues to wane.
The demand for precisely $15 was arbitrary — the first group of New York workers thought $10 was too low, $20 too outlandish — and questionably ambitious given that the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
But the decision to set the bar high has paid off, said Janice Fine, a professor in the labour studies and employment relations department at Rutgers University.
Governments that would probably have settled for slow and incremental minimum-wage increases, Fine said, have now been forced to think bigger.
“What Fight for $15 has done is alter the terms of debate,” she said. “Not unlike Occupy put the discussion of inequality on the table.”
Fine said the campaign has resonated in part because of its simple, clear demands and in part because of organizers’ shrewd decision to let workers such as Wilson speak for themselves. “It’s really hard for that empathy to kick in it when it’s advocates speaking on behalf of people.”
McDonald’s has minimized the significance of the movement. In an emailed statement, the company called the demonstrations “staged events” and claimed that only “10-15 actual McDonald’s workers” have participated in Fight for $15 actions in the past.
McDonald’s described the wage hike at company stores as “an important and meaningful first step.”
It denied any responsibility for wages at its 3,000 franchises, saying those restaurants are “independently owned and operated by franchisees who set wages according to job level and local and federal laws.”