Nearly 2 million people who are employed through federal contractors earn less than $24,000 a year. That’s more low-wage workers than any private company, including Walmart and McDonald's, combined. At the 43rd annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's recent Legislative Conference, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) moderated a panel discussion on those low-wage workers and ways to improve their wages and working conditions.
To many people, it is almost obscene that the CEO of McDonald’s, for instance, gets a compensation package worth $13.8 million a year; a giant raise from his 2011 pay of $4.1 million , a pay level that equals 915 full-time, full-year minimum wage workers at McDonald’s. If pay truly reflected the productivity of workers, then presumably if 915 McDonald’s workers went on strike, he would be able to fill in and do their work.
Yesterday, as fast-food workers participated in the largest strike the industry has ever seen , former Labor Secretary Robert Reich released a new video and petition , along with MoveOn, calling on McDonald's and Walmart to pay their workers a decent wage. In the video, he breaks down what steps are needed to make sure workers get a fair share in the current economy, where jobs are coming back, but most of them are paying less than they were before the recession.
Fast-food and other low-wage workers in more than 60 cities—from major metropolises like New York City to smaller cities such as Missoula, Mont .—walked off the job Thursday as the fight for a living wage and the right to join a union without retaliation continues to grow. Shaniqua Davis, who works at a Bronx McDonald’s and is the mother of a two-year-old, told the New York Daily News :
I’m not going to stay quiet. I’m going to continue to fight....I’ve got a daughter to take care of. I struggle to make ends meet.
On Thursday, fast-food and other low-wage workers in more than three dozen cities will boost their campaign for a living wage and justice with a nationwide one-day strike. The workers and the faith, community and labor groups that back them are calling for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.
Most fast-food and other low-wage workers are back on the job after a series of rolling strikes earlier this month demanding a living wage and the right to join a union without employer retaliation. More strikes are planned around Labor Day. But the struggle continues for economic justice for the workers who earn the minimum wage ($7.25) or just above.
Two articles you may have missed show that boosting the workers' pay to $15 an hour just might not cut into the profits of companies like McDonald's or cost consumers much more for their favorite burger.
Thousands and thousands of fast-food and other low-wage workers this week have walked off the job in a series of one-day strikes in cities across the country. They are demanding a living wage, no retaliation for striking and the right to join unions. Those strikes are continuing today and likely into next week too.
In the biggest strike yet in the growing fast-food/low-wage workers’ actions demanding a voice, thousands of workers making the minimum wage or just slightly more walked off the job in several cities today, demanding a living wage, no retaliation for striking and the right to join unions.
Mark Bittman never steers you wrong when it comes to ideas and advice on food. Now the with a strike by fast food and other low-wage workers set for Monday in several cities, Bittman, Time magazine’s lead food columnist and a New York Times columnist has a question for politicians and corporate execs who oppose paying workers a decent wage and some advice for the rest of us. He’s on the money with both.
The median age of today’s fast-food worker is over 29, and many are trying to support families. One estimate claims that a family of four needs nearly $90,000 a year to get by in the nation’s capital. That’s six minimum wage jobs. Explain to me, please, how you can be pro-family and anti-living-wage simultaneously? (Many Republicans in Congress seem to manage.)
Low-wage workers in seven cities Monday will walk off their jobs in several prominent fast food chains and retail outlets to demand a living wage, the right to form unions and an end to what they say are unfair labor practices.
The strike will come on the heels of a new report released by the National Employment Law Project ( NELP ). The report says although companies claim these low-wage jobs are a step toward good careers, opportunities to advance are limited for front-line workers in the fast-food industry.
industry.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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