Workers seek $15 wage, union rights in protests in many cities

Show Caption Hide Caption CVS to raise minimum wage of workers Drugstore chain to use corporate tax windfall to boost hourly pay. Angela Moore reports.

Several thousand fast-food and other low-wage workers in nearly 50 cities took part in demonstrations Monday to renew their demand for a $15 minimum wage and the right to join a union.

The protests in Boston, Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, St. Louis and other cities marked the 50th anniversary of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, the centerpiece of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. The workers sought civil rights and better working conditions after two of their co-workers were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck.

Most of Monday's demonstrations occurred during the lunch hour at fast-food restaurants, but in Memphis they culminated in a late-afternoon march from Claiborne Temple to Memphis City Hall – the same route the sanitation workers walked a half-century ago.

More: Minimum wage hikes: 18 states, 20 cities to lift pay floors Jan. 1

More: What living on an $11 minimum wage looks like

More: Worker-friendly rule overturned by NLRB

Nationwide strikes organized by the Fight for $15 worker movement since 2012 have led to minimum wage hikes across the country and mandates for a $15 base pay within a few years in New York, California and cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. The efforts have been funded by the Service Employees International Union.

But the workers have been stymied in their push to form unions and a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board under President Trump reversed strides made during the Obama administration.

In Memphis, more than 100 activists seeking a higher minimum wage rallied outside a McDonald's in midtown Memphis on Monday, one of several events meant to highlight economic disparity. The activists, organized by the national Fight for $15 campaign, briefly closed Union Avenue at about noon as they marched down Florence and then stood in front of the restaurant on Union waving placards and chanting "If we don't get it, shut it down!"

Seeing the rally nearby, 28-year-old Burger King employee Robin Curtis said she made a split-second decision to walk out on her job of about six months, telling her manager, "Time for a change."

"To make a change, if I have to quit, I will," said Curtis, who is working multiple jobs as she raised two children in south Memphis.

The events followed a Sunday filled with MLK50 events commemorating the historic upheavals in Memphis and the nation in 1968, when King was assassinated.

The Rev. Liz Theoharis, who runs a ministry in New York City and is national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, said the activists flooding Union Avenue hoped to finish some of King's "unfinished business."

"Our society has really failed that dream of opportunity and equality for everyone," she said.

Activists chanted "Power!" as they hoisted signs saying "Show me $15 & a union," "The Poor People's Campaign" and "I AM a woman," among others. As he marched, James Putnam, a 27-year-old MacDonald's employee and Whitehaven resident, said a higher wage will help him now — but it will be even more important as his cost of living rises.

"It's important because we need more money to take better care of ourselves, our children and our future," he said.

In Detroit, fast-food workers, janitors and hospital workers walked off their jobs around noon Monday and rallied at Detroit's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park to fight for a $15 minimum wage, the right to unionize and civil rights.

Local politicians, community activists, religious leaders and workers stood alongside one another holding up red "Fight for 15" signs, and speakers shared stories about making ends meet on minimum wage.

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Mary Sheffield stood with Service Employees International Union Local 1 at the rally. She led the crowd in call-and-answer chants: "No justice! No peace! ... No good paying jobs! No peace! ... Fight for 15? Yes! ... Overworked! Underpaid."

"There is no reason that people should have to work multiple jobs," Sheffield said. "Hardworking people. And let me just say, not lazy people."

Sheffield told the crowd that they have a voice on the city council and they should continue to come together. "You guys continue to demand that we have a living wage. Corporations can afford it. You all deserve it," she said.

Antwan Williams, 29, who works at Captain Jay's Fish and Chicken while also studying business management at Wayne County Community College, was among the workers who attended. Williams said he's experiencing the same struggles Memphis sanitation workers endured half a century ago. Williams, who earns $9.25 an hour, said he'd like to get his own apartment but can't on minimum wage.

The rally was followed by a march and protest at a local McDonald's.

Reached for comment, Michigan Restaurant Association CEO Justin Winslow issued a statement in which she said she saw the protests as counterproductive.

“We are proud of the fact that one in three Americans have the restaurant industry to thank for their first job and that half of all adults have worked in the industry at some point in their lives," she said. "These protests, well-intentioned as they may be, only serve to limit these opportunities for the very people they are claiming to help" by discouraging hiring.

In Milwaukee, Fight for $15 representatives scheduled a rally at Mitchell International Airport to call for concessions workers to get pay standards similar to those at the Bradley Center, where the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks have committed to paying a $15 per hour minimum wage by 2023.

On Friday, the Bucks and the Alliance for Good Jobs announced the creation of the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization, which will recruit, train and place workers in jobs in and around the new Bucks arena. In addition to the minimum wage commitment, the Bucks agreed that half of the jobs in the arena district will be filled by people living in parts of the city hit hardest by low wages and high unemployment.

The fast-food workers also plan to join the Poor People's Campaign in six weeks of protests and civil disobedience at state capitols across the country starting Mother's Day.

Contributing: Aleanna Siacon of the Detroit Free-Press; Rick Romell and James B. Nelson of the (Milwaukee) Journal Sentinel