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Workers in fast food chains in 15 cities across the United States went on strike Tuesday to demand an increase in their minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
Workers at McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s, joined by home care and nursing home workers, have taken action as the Biden administration tries to lower the federal minimum wage from $ 7.25, which would be the first increase since 2009..
Strikes have taken place in Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago; Flint and Detroit, Michigan; Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina; Houston; Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida; Saint Louis; Oakland, Sacramento and San Jose, California; and Milwaukee.
Since 2012, the Fight for $ 15 movement has organized low-wage workers in the United States to push for state and local minimum wage increases and to raise the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
“We hear you applaud the essential workers. We see the great show that you do to thank us. But to be honest, it didn’t translate into any changes in my life. We were living on a razor’s edge long before Covid-19 hit South Carolina. And we still live on it, ”said Taiwanna Milligan, a McDonald’s employee in Charleston who earns $ 8.75 an hour after working in the restaurant chain for eight years, in a recent editorial calling for a federal minimum wage of $ 15. $ per hour. increase.
Workers are leading strikes as a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour by 2025 is included in the coronavirus relief package that House Democrats plan to pass and send out in the Senate over the next two weeks.
In the Senate, the legislation still faces potential hurdles, including Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona who opposed the inclusion of the bill in pandemic relief, and the possibility that the parliamentarian of the Senate decides on a minimum wage measure cannot be included in the relief bill.
Ieishia Franceis has worked at Freddy Frozen Custards in West Durham, NC since July 2020 and earns $ 9.20 an hour. She was one of many workers who went on strike on Tuesday.
“A minimum wage of $ 15 would allow me to do a lot of things. My main goal is to be able to save enough money to put down a down payment on a house and become a homeowner. This would allow me to start this process. It would allow me to have money from one paycheck to another, to better provide for my family’s needs for food, and to move around so I don’t have to take the bus ”, she says.
In October 2020, Franceis and his colleagues went on strike after their requests for paid sick leave for quarantine and testing for Covid-19 were initially rejected. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act passed in March 2020 exempted employers with more than 500 employees from giving employees two weeks’ pay if they needed to quarantine or recover from Covid-19. Now Franceis and her colleagues are fighting for a minimum wage of $ 15, a risk premium while they continue to work during the pandemic, health benefits and ultimately a union.
“Sometimes companies get so wrapped up in business that they forget who is running their business. We will continue to fight and we will not stop until we have obtained all the equality for which we are fighting, ”added Franceis. “Congress needs to put our money where it is. During their campaigns they said they were going to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour. Live up to what you have said. We shouldn’t have to wait until next year or next year. The bill is there. Adopt it and end it.
According to a recent analysis by the Brookings Institution, 47% of essential workers work in occupations where the median wage is currently below $ 15 an hour. Raising it gradually to $ 15 an hour would raise the wages of 32 million workers in the United States, including 59% of workers whose total family income is below the poverty line. With the increase in the federal minimum wage, 31% of black workers and 26% of Latino workers in the United States would receive a raise.
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