A Historic Day in the Fight for Fair Wages

seiuHome care workers join call for $15 and a union.

Fast Food workers raise stakes in acts of civil disobedience.

In 150 cities from coast to coast, thousands of working people today demonstrated  at fast food restaurants as part of a “history-making,” growing movement to get our economy moving again by improving wages.

“We’re a movement now… We know this is going to be a long fight, but we’re going to fight it till we win,” Latoya Caldwell of Kansas City, Mo., said in a news story chronicling the many victories for working people that brave fast food workers have won in their fight so far.

At the crack of dawn, 52 fast food workers in Detroit and 21 fast food workers in New York were arrested during sit-ins calling on McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and others to raise their pay. Additional arrests came soon after everywhere from Chicago to Little Rock.

In Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland and Detroit, home care workers – both nonunion and SEIU members – joined fast food workers in their call for $15 an hour and the right to unite in a union.

“Earning $15 would make a huge difference,” LaTonya Allen, a home-care aide in Atlanta who earns $9 an hour, told the New York Times. “It would really help me and my husband pay our bills. It would enable us to do more things together as a family. All we do now is work, work, work.”

Originally appeared in SEIU Blog on September 4, 2014. Reprinted with Permission. http://www.seiu.org/blog/

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Email
Tracking image for JustAnswer widget
Tracking image for JustAnswer widget
Scroll to Top

Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.