Americans are tired of working at minimum wage jobs which do not reflect the state of the economy. According to Today News Gazette published yesterday, people in the fast food industry staged a major strike in New York City on Thursday. They want a raise in the minimum wage. These workers are not unionized. They are only loosely connected with The New York Communities for Change. Furthermore there are more workers in the food service and related fields than any other type of job.
According to Yahoo! News the walkout was organized by Fast Food Forward, a coalition backed by labor, religious and community groups. It was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was shot and killed in Memphis where he had been supporting a strike by low-paid sanitation workers.
“They were actually demanding the same things workers were demanding today: living wages and the right to organize,” Jonathan Westin, the director of Fast Food Forward, told Yahoo News.
Employees are demanding to be paid at least $15 an hour—or roughly double the $7.25 minimum wage that most fast-food workers in the city are paid. At least 60 restaurants were affected, according to Fast Food Forward.”
These workers are trying to make ends meet on $7.25 an hour. Many of these workers are women trying to raise a family. Women are finding it harder and harder to find a job that will give them a decent salary to raise their children.
The federal government is looking at increasing the minimum wage. According to reason.com, “The latest Reason-Rupe poll finds two-thirds of Americans favor President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 an hour. However, support plummets to 37 percent if raising the minimum wage causes employers to lay off workers.”
Reason.com goes on to say, “Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour by a margin of 58 to 39, Democrats favor it 88 to 10 as do Independents 62 to 35. However, if doing so caused businesses to lay off workers, Independents' support drops to 36 percent and 57 percent oppose. A majority of Democrats would favor raising the minimum wage even if it caused employers to lay off workers.
Strong majorities of all racial and ethnic groups favor raising the minimum wage. However, whites and Latinos oppose upwards of 60 percent if doing so raised unemployment, while a majority of African-Americans would continue to support the proposal.”
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