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Protesters across USA demand $15 minimum wage...

 

 Fight for $15 protesters across US demand living wage in day of action

 

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California and New York may have won battle but workers in more than 300 cities will march and demand a rise in minimum wage and the right to unionize

 


Billboards in Times Square shone bright on Thursday morning as hundreds of workers huddled in front of a nearby McDonald’s.

 

The early hour of 6am was not enough to dim the joyous feel of this gathering, taking place just weeks after California and New York became the first states to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.

 


The fight, however, is far from over, say workers whose goal is to secure a $15 minimum wage for all Americans. On Thursday, workers in more than 300 cities across the US were expected to protest to demand a rise in the minimum wage and the right to unionize, which they hope will lead to better working conditions.

 

LA unions call for exemption from $15 minimum wage they fought for

 

The protest is being billed by organizers as the largest one to date, yet the crowd that gathered in Times Square was about half as large as last year’s day of action in Brooklyn.

 


One of the workers joining the crowd in Times Square was Naquasia LeGrand, who works as a manager at a McDonald’s in North Carolina. When she started working, she was paid $7.25 an hour.

 

She was recently promoted to a manager and saw her pay go up to $8 an hour, then to $8.15 an hour. Yet still, she says, “it’s not enough to make ends meet. I am still $400 short at the end of the month.”

 


It’s why on this day of action she made it back to New York, where in 2012 while working at KFC she helped kick off the Fight for $15 movement.

 


“Right now I am in the South trying to help out and make sure that they win $15, because not only New York and California deserve it. We all deserve it,” she said.

 


Rebecca Cornick, 61, said she had to be in Times Square to keep fighting for workers across the US.

 


“I am here to support all workers. One by one we are going to knock down every state until they win $15 like we did,” she said.

 


Cornick works at Wendy’s making salads and manning the grill. She works full-time and makes $10.50 an hour, but still struggles to make ends meet.

 


“When I get to $15, it will be enough to make ends meet, but until then it’s a struggle,” she said. Since she lives in Brooklyn, she should see her minimum wage go up to $15 an hour by 2020.

 

“It feels far away, but the success has given me a little gas to go on. I am really thrilled to have won that fight. I have a lot of hope for the future.”

 


In addition to fighting for a higher minimum wage in other states, Cornick said she would like to see McDonald’s workers unionize.

 


“I will fight for that every day,” she said on Thursday. “It’s important for us to have dignity on the job. Before we won the $15, I didn’t think it was possible, but when we won, that boosted my self-confidence and it made me want to fight even more for the union.”

 

As the workers marched from McDonald’s down Broadway, they passed by Forever 21 store where workers danced in support.

 


“No matter where we work, McDonald’s still affects our lives,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, who works at a Forever 21 in the Bronx. According to her, McDonald’s sets the standard for every major corporation. “I am a member of the Fight for $15 because it’s all about workers – about creating an economy that works for us all.”

 

The workers also stopped by a nearby Verizon store, where workers who went on strike over contract negotiations on Wednesday led them in a chant: “What do we fight? Corporate greed. What do we want? A union job.”

 


Labor unions across the US have been a significant part of the Fight for $15 movement.

 


“New York is where the Fight for $15 started, and New York is now the site of a monumental victory that now extends beyond fast-food cooks and cashiers who won their minimum wage of $15 an hour to millions more New Yorkers,” Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU international, a labor union that has helped fund the movement, said earlier this month.

 


The US federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since July 2009. In 2014, about 1.3 million workers earned $7.25 an hour while another 1.7 million people earned less thanks to the tipped minimum wage.

 

Tipped minimum wage for workers, such as servers and bartenders, is $2.13 and has not been raised since the 1990s.

 


Increasing the minimum wage has been on Barack Obama’s agenda for a number of years, but thanks to the Republican-held Congress and the opposition from some corners of the business community, there has been little movement on the issue.

 


“In the absence of congressional action, he has been supportive of states like California and New York that are raising their wages,” deputy US labor secretary Chris Lu told the Guardian.

 

“While we are encouraged by what is happening around the country, we still need to raise the federal minimum wage, which is an important floor particularly for the states for which there is no state minimum wage.”

 

Five months ago, the Fight for $15 movement held another day of action this time to get the attention of the presidential hopefuls. Their message? Come get our vote.

 

His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton has previously said that people should not have to march in the streets for a living wage, but has yet to support $15 federal minimum wage. Instead, she has come out in support of raising it to $12 an hour by 2020, as proposed by Democrats in Congress.

 


Labor leaders have warned politicians not to turn a blind eye to the Fight for $15 movement.

 


“Both those who have won wage increases and those who haven’t are going to bring their power to the ballot box this November to make sure candidates respond to their demand for $15 and union rights,” said Henry, of SEIU.

 


 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/14/fight-for-15-protests-fair-minimum-wage

 

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http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8

 

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How do the protestors justify the same minimum wage for all areas of the US? I don't understand it,

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13 hours ago, vibranium said:

How do the protestors justify the same minimum wage for all areas of the US? I don't understand it,

That is exactly why it is called a minimum wage, people living in high cost areas are expected to earn over the minimum wage.
 

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There has to be a correlation between the minimum wage and average expenses, and expenses are different in different places. E.g rural vs urban, East Coast vs Mid-West

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