I think they could impart invaluable insights into strategies for success in today’s new world order and answer the question: “What World Are You Living In?”
Standing with other protesters on Chicago’s storied State Street, Charde Nabors, 21, said she’s fighting for better pay and more opportunities for workers like her.
Nabors said she earns $9 an hour at Sears and would like to work full time, rather than her current 20 hours a week. She relies on food stamps to help feed her two children, ages 2 and 5 months.
“Food stamps help but they don’t pay the rent,” Nabors said, acknowledging the difficulty of searching for work and taking public assistance. She and other fast-food and retail workers flocked to downtown Chicago on Wednesday to make a public pitch for higher wages. Their “Fight for $15 campaign” seeks $15 an hour for employees. It is supported by a coalition of local community, labor and faith-based organizations — including the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, a group of downtown fast-food and retail workers that launched in November.
The group has been working with others to stage protests and push for a boost in Illinois’ minimum wage, which has remained at $8.25 since 2009.
Wednesday’s action came just weeks after hundreds of fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City, also in a push for higher wages. Late last year, Wal-Mart workers in select cities staged protests, seeking higher wages and benefits as well as pushing back against the retailer’s decision to open on Thanksgiving.
The protests have been gaining steam in the fast-food and retail sectors — which have generated the most jobs since the recession, labor experts said, but are among the lowest paid.
The rolling protests began at 5:30 a.m. as workers walked off the job at some McDonald’s restaurants and Dunkin’ Donuts, organizers said. The protesters, who were scattered around several Loop locations, continued the day with a rally at St. James Cathedral.
“I’m fighting for 15,” Robert Wilson Jr., 25, who makes $8.60 an hour at McDonald’s at Navy Pier, told the crowd. “I don’t see the point of people having full-time jobs that don’t pay enough to cover their basic needs.”
Katelyn Johnson, executive director of Action Now, one of the rally’s organizers, said the idea for the event was borne out of protests last year over CTA fare hikes. Johnson said conversations with protesters there revealed the bigger priority of low wages.
Conversations with protestors revealed the bigger priority.