Minimum Wage

Low Wage Workers: “We Can’t Breathe”

December 7, 2014 Richard Long and Robert Borosage, www.ourfuture.org Resist! Class war, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Police abuse, Racism

As powerful protests of the New York Eric Garner grand jury decision – We can’t breathe – swept across the country, low wage fast food and retail workers walked off their jobs in some 180 cities, demanding a living wage and the right to organize. People are stirring, no longer willing to put up with an economic and political order that gives them no way to breathe. The Garner demonstrators are not looking for a technical fix – putting cameras on police, retraining them, de-militarizing them. They are demanding justice. The fast food and retail workers are also protesting injustice – an economic order in which they have no way to breathe. Their stories are heart-rending. They work for years at a minimum wage that forces them to rely on taxpayer subsidies for food and medical treatment. They are forced into part-time work with no routine schedules, making it impossible to do the planning needed to raise a child or hold the two or three jobs needed to support a family. They lose hours and lose their apartments. Their children live on edge of desperation. Any attempts to organize are crushed. They are disposables in multi-billion dollar chains where CEOs are paid – as the CEOS of McDonalds and Starbucks are paid — $9200 an hour. They cannot breathe.

Newsletter: People Power Grows, Demands Justice

December 6, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Fracking, Minimum Wage, Net Neutrality, Police abuse, Racism, TPP

This week tens of thousands of people in the United States flooded the streets to demand racial justice. It is one of many issues that has been building for years, reaching the tipping point and seeming to explode in a national awakening. We also saw that in the last two weeks with national protests for living wages. Four years ago when we organized the occupation of Washington, DC at Freedom Plaza, we listed 15 crisis issues that the country needed to face, poverty wages and the injustice in criminal enforcement, including racially abusive police practices, were two of them. None of these 15 core issues has been adequately dealt with. In each there are people working to build support for their cause; each has the potential to explode on the national scene – some already have. This newsletter highlights five current campaigns and mobilizations that are demanding social, economic and environmental justice.

Fast Food Workers Plan Nationwide Strike For Dec. 4

November 30, 2014 Ned Resnikoff, www.america.aljazeera.com Organize! Fast Food, Fight for 15, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Fast food workers in at least 150 cities nationwide will walk off the job on Dec. 4, demanding an industry-wide base wage of $15 per hour and the right to form a union. Workers unanimously voted on the date for the new strike during a Nov. 25 conference call, held shortly before the second anniversary of the movement’s first strike. The first of the recent fast food strikes took place on Nov. 29, 2012, in New York City. Two hundred workers from various fast food restaurants around the city participated in that strike, making it the largest work stoppage to ever hit the fast food industry. Since then, the size of the movement has ballooned several times over: With the backing of the powerful service sector labor union SEIU, the campaign has come to include thousands of workers in the U.S. The National Worker Organizing committee, a nationwide steering group of 26 fast food workers around the country, approved the Dec. 4 strike date before it was proposed to the rest of the workers. Workers from all 150 cities involved in the campaign were then invited to vote on the date over a Nov. 25 conference call. The proposal for a strike date was put forth by Burger King and Pizza Hut employee Terrence Wise, a leader in the Kansas City, Missouri branch of the committee.

Black Friday Strikes Escalate At Walmart Stores In DC

November 29, 2014 Resist! Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Walmart, Worker Rights and Jobs, Worker's Rights

Three years ago it would have been unthinkable for a Walmart employee to walk off the job, especially on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. They would have been administratively disciplined or worse, terminated. But that is what happened on November 28 at the H Street Walmart in Washington, DC when several workers did not report to work, saying they were fed up with low wages, irregular schedules, reduced hours, and economic hardship. unnamed (11) “I worked 40 hours a week but was classified as a part time employee even though I was working full time,” said Glova Scott, a Walmart employee at the H Street location. She said her classification prevented her from qualifying for company benefit programs. Early Friday morning, several hundred supporters from the advocacy group Our Walmart, the AFL-CIO, and other labor groups marched with strikers to the H Street Walmart in northwest Washington to tell managers they wanted better pay and regular hours

Walmart Black Friday Protests Sweep The Nation

November 28, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Walmart

At Walmart, this year's Black Friday protests will be the widest-reaching ever, organizers say, with pickets and strikes planned at 1600 stores in 49 states to remind shoppers that the people serving them often can't afford to feed themselves. "I have to depend on the government mostly," says Fatmata Jabbie, a 21-year-old single mother of two who earns $8.40 an hour working at a Walmart in Alexandria, Virginia. She makes ends meet with food stamps, subsidized housing, and Medicaid. "Walmart should pay us $15 an hour and let us work full-time hours," she says. "That would change our lives. That would change our whole path. I wouldn't be dependent on government too much. I could buy clothes for my kids to wear." The nation's largest employer, Walmart employs 1.4 million people, or 10 percent of all retail workers, and pulls in $16 billion in annual profits. Its largest stockholders—Christy, Jim, Alice, and S. Robson Walton—are the nation's wealthiest family,collectively worth $145 billion. Yet the company is notorious for paying poverty wages and using part-time schedules to avoid offering workers benefits. Last year, a report commissioned by Congressional Democrats found that each Walmart store costs taxpayers between 900,000 and $1.75 million per year because so many employees are forced to turn to government aid.

More Than 2,250 Walmart Stores Set To Strike

November 27, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Strikes, Walmart

For the third Black Friday running, America’s largest retailer is expected to face labor protests at locations across the country. Workers and supporters affiliated with the union-backed labor campaign OUR Walmart say this Friday will be their biggest strike yet. OUR Walmart first burst onto the scene two years ago, when it used Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, to launch an unprecedented, nationwide strike against Walmart. The group originally demanded that Walmart pay all employees a base salary of at least $25,000 per year, but has since joined with striking fast food workers in demanding at least $15 per hour. Workers affiliated with OUR Walmart claim the retailer pays so little that some employees don’t even have the means to feed their families.

Black Friday Strikes: Walmart Workers Begin Walking Off Jobs

November 26, 2014 OUR Walmart, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Walmart

Walmart workers—members of OUR Walmart—started striking today in cities across the country, saying they couldn’t wait until Black Friday to protest the company’s disregard for their rights to speak out for jobs that will let them feed their families. The strikes, which will continue through Black Friday, come days before what are expected to be the largest strikes and protests ever at 1,600 Walmart stores. The news comes as Americans nationwide are standing up against the vast injustices created by powerful people and institutions. Last night in Washington, DC, hundreds of protestors marched through the city—including peacefully entering Walmart’s new store on H Street. Workers in Virginia and Washington, DC are on strike for the first time today and are joined today by workers walking off the job in cities and towns in Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, Maryland, Oregon, Minnesota, California, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. “I know I’m risking a lot by going on strike,” said Glova Scott, who is paid $10.90 working at the company’s new Washington, DC store. “But we cannot continue to let the Waltons and Walmart retaliate against us and ignore our rights when we are calling for wages and hours that will let us feed our kids. Walmart needs to treat us with respect and dignity.” Even as Walmart brings in $16 billion in annual profits and Walmart’s owners build on their $150 billion in wealth, the majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year. The workers and their supporters have been calling on the company to pay workers a minimum of $15 an hour and provide consistent, full-time work.

28 Arrested At First Walmart Sit-In

November 14, 2014 Our Walmart, www.popularrresistance.org Resist! Minimum Wage, Walmart, Worker Rights and Jobs

Twenty-eight people—including members of the clergy, community members and striking Walmart workers—were arrested outside a Walmart store in Los Angeles today calling on the company and its owners—the Waltons—to end the illegal threats to and retaliation against workers calling for $15 an hour and consistent, full-time work at the country’s largest private employer. The group was joined by hundreds of Californians who rallied outside the store in Pico Rivera, the site of the first Walmart strikes in 2012. Since earlier today, when striking workers held the first-ever sit down strike in company history in a Crenshaw, CA store, more workers have walked off the job. As a second sit down strike continued in the Pico Rivera store, the group of Californians said America’s largest employer and richest family are driving the income inequality problems that are holding the country back.

$15 Per Hour Is Not An Accident

November 9, 2014 Jack Temple, www.fightfor15.org Organize! Minimum Wage, Worker's Rights

An estimated 609,000 low-wage workers won pay raises Tuesday night as voters in Arkansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Alaska overwhelmingly approved measures to raise the minimum wage. The New York Times editorial board wrote Wednesday that the 100 percent success rate for the initiatives makes clear that opponents of higher pay “could pay a price in the 2016 elections, when lower-wage workers and those who support them could turn out in higher numbers.” Oakland joined San Francisco in approving a substantial pay raise for low-wage workers, voting in favor of a measure to increase the city’s minimum wage to $12.25 per hour by next year. Voters in Illinois and counties throughout Wisconsin also approved advisory initiatives in support of raising the state minimum wage. More than 140,000 workers in San Francisco won a pay raise to $15 per hour Tuesday as voters approved a ballot measure to increase the city’s minimum wage. The victory in San Francisco is yet another sign of how fast-food workers have set the standard for a living wage across the country: as Businessweek noted, “That $15 figure isn’t an accident. It’s been a rallying cry of fast-food workers and other low-wage employees who’ve staged a series of high-profile strikes, beginning with a one-day walkout in New York two years ago this month.”

ADAPT Protests Goodwill For Equal Pay

November 9, 2014 ADAPT, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Minimum Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

Buffalo, NY - On Friday, November 7, 2014, roughly 25 disability rights activists with New York ADAPT protested the headquarters of Goodwill Industries WNY located at 1119 William St., Buffalo, NY 14206. Activists chanted in the lobby , spoke with local news stations and met directly with the President and CEO of Goodwill Industries WNY. Goodwill of WNY CEO Thomas Lynch stated he is not willing to give up their 14(c) certificate. He believes people with disabilities should be paid sub-minimum wage. He also refused to write a letter to be faxed to Goodwill International calling for all Goodwill chapters to stop paying people with disabilities sub-minimum wages. One activist said, "We are actually people who live it and you're not."

Maximum Progress On The Minimum Wage

November 7, 2014 Amy Goodman, www.truthdig.com Organize! Citizens United, Environment, Fracking, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

Beyond the hyperbole, beneath the pronouncements of pundits, strong currents are moving, slowly shifting our society. One movement that shined through the electoral morass demanded an increased minimum wage. It prevailed, even in some of the reddest of states. Going against partisan trends, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota approved ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage, as they did in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. In Illinois and several Wisconsin counties, both states that elected Republican governors, significant majorities passed nonbinding ballot proposals to increase the minimum wage. Since the Republicans (and some Democrats) in Congress have consistently blocked an increase in the national minimum wage, people are taking control of the issue in their communities, and finding resounding support across the political spectrum.

‘Not On The Menu’ Rally – Sexual Harassment & Low Wages

October 16, 2014 Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, www.rocunited.org Resist! Human Rights, Labor Rights, Minimum Wage, Restaurant Industry, Women's Rights

New York, NY — Yesterday, dozens of restaurant workers, women’s rights activists, and supporters gathered for a rally calling for the elimination of the subminimum wage and requiring the restaurant industry to pay one, fair wage directly to their employees. Last week, a report released by ROC United and Forward Together, The Glass Floor, revealed that nearly all female restaurant workers — up to 90% — report experiencing some form of sexual harassment, with tipped workers being the most vulnerable. “I was a restaurant worker over 30 years ago, and here’s the tragic story: absolutely nothing has changed,” said Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising. “The wage hasn’t changed, the sexual harassment hasn’t changed, the outfits I was forced to wear hasn’t changed, the abuse hasn’t changed. . .

Breaking: De Blasio Signs Executive Order For Higher Wage

September 30, 2014 Shantel Walker, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Minimum Wage, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Nearly two years ago, 200 fast-food workers in New York City walked off our jobs, calling for $15 and union rights. Our demand may have sounded crazy at the time, but more and more, $15 is becoming a reality for workers across the country. As we've gone on strike again and again and a movement that started here in New York has spread to 150 cities, $15 suddenly doesn't seem so impossible. From Seattle to Los Angeles to San Francisco, and now, New York, cities are raising wages so we don't have to rely on public assistance to support our families. "While he works with Gov. Cuomo to raise wages for all New Yorkers, Mayor de Blasio's move today to put workers at city-subsidized projects on a path to $15 is a sign that we are winning.

Update From Fight For Fifteen

September 27, 2014 Fight For 15, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Minimum Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

USA Today reports on a new study by NPD Group, a market research firm, which finds that stagnant incomes are cutting into fast-food industry sales revenue and that “restaurants like McDonald's are losing customers who are feeling the pinch of the tough economy.” Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant industry analyst at NPD, states that, "this is the type of thing that keeps restaurant executives up at night. The middle class is shrinking." On the heels of recent news that McDonald’s posted the worst sales decline in more than a decade last August, Rick Munarriz in USA Today cites the fast-food workers’ movement as one reason why “McDonald’s is falling apart,” noting that “a lot of people think it's not just the food that's cheap at McDonald's.”

L.A. City Council Approves Minimum-Wage Hike

September 27, 2014 David Zahniser, Emily Alpert Reyes, www.latimes.com Organize! Labor Rights, Los Angeles, Minimum Wage

Big hotels in Los Angeles will soon be required to pay at least $15.37 an hour to their workers — one of the highest minimum-wage requirements in the country. The City Council voted 12 to 3 on Wednesday to impose the higher wage on large hotels, delivering a huge victory to a coalition that included organized labor, more than a dozen neighborhood councils and the ACLU of Southern California. Lawmakers cast their vote despite warnings from business advocates, who said the measure would trigger job losses at hotels stretching from Harbor Gateway to the San Fernando Valley. Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, predicted that other cities would follow L.A.'s lead, much as they did after passage of the city's landmark 1997 "living wage" ordinance mandating higher pay for employees of many city contractors.

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