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Fight for 15

Atlanta Fought For $15 And Won

June 29, 2017 Joel Mendelson, www.jwj.org , , ,
By Joel Mendelson for Jobs with Justice - People working for the city of Atlanta received welcome news as the City Council unanimously passed a budget raising their wages. Starting on July 1, 2017, base pay for city employees will rise from $10.10 to $13 an hour. Even better news? By mid-2019, all city employees will earn a minimum of $15 an hour. Now more than 1,000 people who sweep the city streets, maintain local parks, and put out fires will have a better chance at making ends meet. And this raise happened thanks to Atlanta Jobs With Justice. The coalition of labor unions, community groups, faith-based organizations, student organizations, and individuals is on the front lines of organizing Atlantans to achieve economic and social justice. In 2013, Atlanta Jobs With Justice held the city’s first Fight For $15 rally in support of brave men and women in the fast-food industry who went on strike to speak up for family-sustaining jobs. The event launched the coalition’s community-wide efforts to secure a long-overdue raise for those who make Atlanta work. The wage increase is a notable development given that a study released this month showed a working person in Georgia needed to earn at least $16.79 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. The poverty rate of neighborhoods a stone’s throw from Atlanta’s City Hall approaches 70 percent.

Fight For $15 And Movement For Black Lives Join Forces On Anniversary Of MLK’s Assassination

April 8, 2017 Maha Ahmed, www.inthesetimes.com , ,
By Maha Ahmed for In These Times - Protesters rallied at three locations in Chicago: Federal Plaza, a McDonald’s at the intersection of Adams Street and Wells Street, and the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing policy research organization, located in the heart of the financial district. At each place, members from Fair Economy Illinois, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Chicago, Fight for $15 and a community advocacy group called ONE Northside spoke about the history and legacy of King’s assassination in the context of current organizing. Among those who shared their stories were fast-food workers and faith leaders. In addition to targeting President Donald Trump, the Chicago action also specifically called out Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Fast Food CEO Andy Puzder Has No Business As Labor Secretary

January 13, 2017 Fight for $15, www.PopularResistance.org , ,
By Staff of Fight for $15, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s cooks and cashiers will lead marches and rallies, holding signs that read, “Meet Andy Puzder: CEO of the rigged economy” and “Puzder gets rich while keeping workers poor.” “Andy Puzder represents the worst of the rigged economy Donald Trump pledged to take on as president,” said Terrance Dixon, a worker at Hardee’s from St. Louis, who is paid just $9.00/hr. “If Puzder is confirmed as labor secretary, it will mean the Trump years will be about low pay, wage theft, sexual harassment and racial discrimination instead of making lives better for working Americans like me.” According to CKE’s latest financial disclosures, Puzder has made between $4.4 million and $10 million in recent years, which means he makes more in one day than he pays his minimum wage workers in any given year. Despite this, he has been an outspoken opponent of minimum wage hikes that would allow his workers to meet their basic needs. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found in 2013 that fast-food CEOs like Puzder cost taxpayers $7.3 billion per year in public assistance by holding down pay for their employees.

Low Wage Walk Off Jobs In 300 Cities

December 1, 2016 Sam Sacks, www.districtsentinel.com , ,
By Sam Sacks for The District Sentinel - Low-wage workers across the country walked off the job on Tuesday to agitate for an increase in the federal minimum wage, in what were the first major labor actions launched since the election of Donald Trump. Organized by the “Fight for 15” campaign, McDonalds employees in more than 300 cities rallied for better pay. They were joined by other fast-food workers, home health care workers, and Uber drivers. In addition, baggage handlers and cabin cleaners at nearly 20 airports nationwide, including Chicago’s O’Hare, participated in the day of action.

Fight For $15 Plans National Strikes As Uber Drivers Join

November 29, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - A nationwide day of action and disruption is set to take place on Tuesday, as workers from around the country and across industries are set to take part in strikes to show their refusal to back down in the face of an incoming rightwing political agenda. The actions, organized by the Fight for $15 collective, will see airport baggage handlers, Uber drivers, fast-food cooks, cashiers, hospital workers, and others strike to disrupt the U.S. service economy.

Workers Protest Sexual Harassment In More Than 30 States

October 9, 2016 RT, www.rt.com , ,
By RT. Female workers at McDonald’s are sick of being treated like meat. They are accusing the Golden Arches of not protecting employees against sexual harassment. Backed by the minimum wage campaign “Fight for $15,” workers are taking to the streets to demand better treatment. McDonald’s claims to have a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment, but over a dozen sexual harassment complaints against the fast food giant paint a different story. In the past month alone, 15 different sexual harassment complaints have been filled with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against McDonald's. As a result, workers in 30 US cities joined in a lunchtime protest to draw attention to what some believe is a widespread problem. Protesters held demonstrations outside of the restaurant.

Newsletter: Labor Day Time To Build Worker Power

September 4, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Private-sector workers who are members of a union have fallen from 1 in 3 workers in the 1950s to about 1 in 20 today. Politics is about power and the loss of organized worker power has meant a loss in political power for all workers and a loss of wealth, income and benefits. In recent years, there have been strong signs that labor is getting more organized and militant in fighting for worker rights. They have linked worker issues to other issues, e.g. racial injustice, climate change and creating stronger communities; and are showing signs of resurrection. Recent years have seen aggressive attacks against workers: pension funds are raided, health benefits are cut or ended, the right to collective bargaining is destroyed and social services are cut. This is dramatic and needs to be reversed.

Newsletter: #NoHoneymoon, A Presidency Of Protest

August 20, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The task of the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice is much bigger than the presidential election. Our job is to build people power to ensure that no matter who is the next president, the people’s voices are heard and our demands are part of the political agenda. We urge organizers and advocates across the nation to begin to plan a campaign beginning in early 2017 and carrying on through the inauguration to ensure that right from the beginning the people’s voices are a dominant narrative. The #NoHoneymoon campaign will take various forms in communities across the country. Talk to your networks of activists and plan what would work best in your community. The creativity and energy that comes from diverse leadership has surprised the nation before and can do so again.

Fight For $15 Organizers Tell SEIU: We Need $15 And A Union

August 20, 2016 David Moberg, www.inthesetimes.com ,
By David Moberg for In These Times - The start to this weekend’s Fight for $15 convention didn’t go as planned. As roughly 10,000 conference goers gathered in Richmond, Va., to talk about unions and low-wage work, organizers behind the nationwide campaign demanded a union of their own. On Friday, Jodi Lynn Fennell, a child care worker organizer from Las Vegas, attempted to deliver a letter from a Fight for $15 organizers asking the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to acknowledge it was their employer and to give them the right to organize.

Newsletter: On To The General Election, Create Surprises

July 30, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The make-up of elections are almost complete with only a few primary races and the Green Party National Convention (August 4-7 in Houston), where Jill Stein's running mate will be announced, remaining. Otherwise we know the candidates that will be with us for the next three months and the potential presidents who will almost assuredly be the focus of mobilizations for the next four years. While Bernie Sanders is no longer running for office and has shifted his energy to working to elect Hillary Clinton, many in the Bernie or Bust Movement have shifted to Jill or Bust, with the initial goal to get Jill Stein into the highly restrictive (and anti-democratic) debates.

Meet The 25-Year-Old Fighting For A $15 Minimum Wage

May 16, 2016 Katie Johnston, www.bostonglobe.com ,
By Katie Johnston for Boston Globe - Darius Cephas didn’t realize he was about to help spark a revolution when a labor organizer walked into the Dorchester McDonald’s where he worked and told him about a campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and form a fast-food industry union. Cephas, now 25, was ready for a fight. Working low-wage jobs since he was 14 to help his mother, he had dropped out of trade school to take care of her when she had a stroke. He and his McDonald’s co-workers had just been talking about how little they were paid, with many trying to support families on $8 or $9 an hour.

Burgerville Workers Aim To Take Fight For $15 To Next Level

May 11, 2016 Shane Burley, www.wagingnonviolence.org ,
By Shane Burley for Waging Nonviolence - Dressed in his work uniform, Jordan Vaandering looked like any other fast food employee heading into another long shift. But that day, April 26, was far from ordinary for the 25-year-old Burgerville employee. Since Vaandering makes under $10 per hour working at the drive-through, he had decided to come forward as a voice for a growing contingent of workers who want to see a real change in their workplace. Addressing the small crowd of supporters gathering down the street from Burgerville’s corporate headquarters in Vancouver...

Newsletter: Living In A Post-2011 World

May 7, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. The 2016 election has deepened the understanding of how out of step the establishment political parties are with the people of the United States. The parties have reinforced the rationale for the Occupy uprising, and the uprisings on racism, inequality, poverty wages, mistreatment of students and more that have occurred since 2011; and they have increased national consensus on the dysfunction and corruption of government, the unfairness and inequity of the economy and the lack of concern for the environment and climate change.Don't Represent US In order to understand the election's relationship to the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice, we need to understand that the roots of this election come from the uprising of 2011. As Paolo Gerbaudo wrote in ROAR Magazine: "The 2011 protest wave will forever be associated with the slogan 'they don’t represent us' — a clear indictment of the present form of representative politics and the existing political class."

Fight For $15 To Verizon Strike: We Must Protect Workers’ Right To Walk Out

April 21, 2016 Alex Gourevitch, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Alex Gourevitch for The Guardian - Given the new politics of inequality, there is every reason to think that strikes will become more common. So long as the economy is as radically unequal and oppressive as it is, workers have a right to go on strike. This is an uncomfortable thing to say because of what it means to defend that right. The 40,000-person, Verizon strike on Wednesday and the Fight for $15 strikes on Thursday are just the latest examples of worker walkouts.

Newsletter: The Corruption Of Money

April 16, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. As tax day approaches, there will be numerous reports about how US oligarchs – wealthy individuals and major corporations – do not pay their fair share in taxes. A GAO report released this week found “at least two-thirds of active U.S. corporations paid zero federal income taxes between 2006 and 2012. The report also found that large, profitable corporations only paid 14% of their profits in federal income taxes on average from 2008 through 2012, while approximately one-fifth of them paid nothing at all.” This is not only due to tax laws that provide corporations with a wide array of loopholes to lower their taxes, but is also due to the intentional hiding of money off-shore. A 2015 report found that nearly 75% of Fortune 500 companies tucked away $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid paying US income taxes.
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