By Shivank Taksali and Rowan Walrath, news staff
Nine people sitting with banners and signs proclaiming “Whatever It Takes!” and “#StrikeFastFood” were arrested at the crossroads of Congress and State Streets on Sept. 4. They were protesting to increase the minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 per hour as part of the nationwide Fight for $15 movement.
Fight for $15 is a grassroots movement led by fast food employees in over 150 cities across the nation. Boston’s fast food workers, including employees from McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King and Popeyes, began organizing locally last August. Since then, they have staged five rallies, including the protest last week.
“Eight of [those arrested] were workers,” Melonie Griffith, organizing director at Massachusetts Jobs With Justice (JWJ), said. “One was a community organizer who worked at Jobs With Justice with me. He was willing to stand up with the workers, particularly because it’s a really big thing to be willing to risk arrest, and for many of these workers who were a little bit younger, 18 to 25, it was their first time doing it. All of them were workers of color. The charge to do this came from them.”
The workers began by holding a sit-in outside the downtown McDonald’s at the intersection of Milk and Washington Streets. After police took no action, they moved to the corners of Congress and State Streets, according to Reginald Zimmerman of MassUniting, a coalition of labor, faith and community groups who are working with the fast food employee movement.
“It was an act of civil disobedience which was in concert with other cities across the country,” Zimmerman said. “Boston fast food workers joined other fast food workers from across the country at a convention in Chicago, where they made a vow to do whatever it takes to make fast food companies let them know that they’re here and not invisible and that they’ll keep fighting to get $15 an hour.”
President Barack Obama addressed the issue in a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee.
“All across the country right now, there’s a national movement going on made up of fast food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity,” Obama said. “If I were busting my butt in the service industry and wanted an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, I’d join a union.”
Even fast food employees who did not protest on Sept. 4 understand the fight for a living wage. Although the current minimum wage in Mass. is $8, some workers do not even earn that much.
“Let me tell you, down the street at Domino’s, they make $3 an hour,” Mahfoud, a Boston Papa John’s worker who wished to keep his last name anonymous, said. “The person owns 16 stores, he just bought a new one, and he pays $3 an hour. He also charges customers a $2 delivery fee and gives the drivers 50 cents. Can you imagine making $3 an hour?”
However, other workers disagree with the movement’s goal, maintaining a more Puritan standpoint that emphasizes hard work more than it does comfortable living.
“I would love $15 per hour, that would be delightful, but I don’t think what I make [is unfair],” Jordan Curran, a Boston Subway employee, said. “I think you earn the wage you get for how hard you work, and that reflects the kind of person you are. I think that if everyone got paid the same amount, the people who did nothing would continue to do nothing.”
In June, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill to increase the state’s $8 minimum wage to $11 by 2017.
“I know the minimum wage is going up soon, so that’s good,” Curran said.
Although a $3 increase is a victory for those who have fought for it, the value is inherently flawed. It is not indexed – it is not attached to the cost of living. Without indexing, there is a possibility that raising the minimum wage will only increase the cost of living along with it.
“Knowing what I know about the system… I think you need to keep [indexing] there as part of the conversation,” Griffith said. “If [the cost of living] is connected to wages, it won’t rise as much.”
At the moment, Boston’s cost of living is high. There is no correlation between the minimum wage, either at $8 now or $11 in 2017, and the price of maintaining the satisfaction of basic needs.
“While the cost of living goes up, the wage has stayed the same, so you have whole groups just falling behind,” Zimmerman said. “Just as an example, the cost of living in Boston for a single parent with one child was $25.94. The minimum wage has been stuck at $8 since 2008. The cost of goods is going up, but people’s wages are staying the same. It’s really causing an income equality gap. $15 an hour would help give greater financial stability to people who are struggling to make ends meet.”
In addition to stabilizing individual families, increasing the minimum wage would boost local economies.
“A lot of people think that it’s going to lead to job cuts, but the thing is this: if you give more people more money to spend, they’ll spend that money locally and put that money back into the local economy and help that economy grow,” Zimmerman said.
Another fear voiced by opponents of the Fight for $15 movement is that of a potential increase in the price of everyday goods. However, this fear has been debunked as invalid.
“You hear the argument that a Big Mac is going to be $10,” Zimmerman said. “But I’ve seen reports where to cover the raises, you would raise the cost of a Big Mac maybe 10 cents.”
While the protesters who were arrested last week were mostly young workers, a great deal of the fast food industry is powered by adult employees, many of them single parents. In the past, it was possible for a teenager to work a summer job at a fast food restaurant to save up money for college or a car. This is no longer the case.
“The average fast food worker is 28-29 years old and is most likely a parent,” Zimmerman said. “Even the younger fast food workers are looking to go to college, and they just can’t on these wages. Not only be able to have money to put back to buy food and buy things and put it back through the local economy, but also higher education and trying to better yourself and get skills to benefit society.”
Fast food workers form the foundation of the Fight for $15 movement. At its core, it is a workers’ rights movement: the right to earn enough money to live comfortably on a day-to-day basis.
“We’re really noting how much courage it takes for folks to do this and how much leverage you really have,” Griffith said. “This is a grassroots-level movement – that’s really what we need right now.”
Photo courtesy Garrett Quinn, MassLive.com
