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| Boston University student Patrick Johnson, center, holds a sign as he joins with other protesters, including students, fast-food restaurant employees and other workers, as they march Tuesday, April 14, 2015, in Boston. Organizers of the event are calling for the nation's lowest paid workers to earn at least $15 per hour. |
NEW YORK (AP)
-- The Fight for $15 campaign to win higher pay and a union for
fast-food workers is expanding to represent a variety of low-wage
workers and become more of a social justice movement.
In
New York City on Wednesday, more than 100 chanting protesters gathered
outside a McDonald's around noon, prompting the store to lock its doors
to prevent the crowd from streaming in.
Demonstrators
laid on the sidewalk outside to stage a "die-in," which became popular
during the "Black Lives Matter" protests after recent police shootings
of black men. Several wore sweatshirts that said "I Can't Breathe," a
nod to the last words of a black man in New York City who died after he
was put in a police chokehold.
Timothy Roach, a
21-year-old Wendy's worker from Milwaukee, said the police brutality
black men face is linked to the lack of economic opportunity they're
given. He said the protests were necessary to send a message to
companies.
"If they don't see that it matters to us, then it won't matter to them," Roach said.
Organizers
said demonstrations were planned for more than 230 U.S. cities and
college campuses, as well as dozens of cities overseas. Among those who
joined the latest day of protests were airport workers, Walmart workers
and adjunct professors.
The campaign began in
late 2012 and is being spearheaded by the Service Employees
International Union, which represents low-wage workers in areas like
home care, child care and building cleaning services. Mary Kay Henry,
the SEIU's president, said the push has already helped prompt local
governments to consider higher minimum wages, nudged companies to
announce pay hikes and made it easier for SEIU members to win better
contracts. Those results are inspiring other groups of workers, she
said.
"It has defied a sense of hopelessness," she said.
In
Jackson, Mississippi, around 30 people protested in a McDonald's before
being kicked out, with one of the demonstrators being arrested for
trespassing. Protesters also gathered outside McDonald's restaurants in
cities including Denver, Los Angeles and Albany, New York.
Even
if fast-food workers and others never become union members, winning
higher pay for them would benefit the SEIU by helping lift pay for its
members, said Susan Schurman, dean of Rutgers School of Management and
Labor Relations.
"By raising the wage floor, it really benefits everyone," she said.
Ann
Hodges, a professor of labor employment law at the University of
Richmond, said engaging different types of workers also broadens the
appeal of the movement by increasing the chances people know someone
who's affected.
And the push to make Fight for
$15 more of a social justice movement makes those who might have
negative perceptions about unions more likely to join, she said.
"It becomes easier to organize workers if they view it as something positive and socially desirable," Hodges said.
In
the meantime, McDonald's said this month it would raise its starting
salary to $1 above the local minimum wage, and give workers the ability
to accrue paid time off. It marked the company's first national pay
policy, and indicates McDonald's wants to take control of its image as
an employer. But the move only applies to workers at company-owned
stores, which account for about 10 percent of more than 14,300
locations.
McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's
say they don't control the employment decisions at franchised
restaurants. The SEIU is working to upend that position and hold
McDonald's responsible for labor conditions at franchised restaurants in
multiple ways, including lawsuits.
In a
statement, McDonald's said it respects the right to "peacefully
protest." In the past, it said only about 10 to 15 McDonald's workers
out of about 800,000 in the U.S. have participated.
In
a recent column in The Chicago Tribune, McDonald's Corp. CEO Steve
Easterbrook described the company's pay hike and other perks as "an
initial step," and said he wants to transform McDonald's into a "modern,
progressive burger company."
But that
transformation will have to take place as labor organizers continue
pressuring employers over wages. Ahead of the protests this week, a
study funded by the SEIU found working families rely on $153 billion in
public assistance a year as a result of their low wages.
