Still, many states and cities are raising the minimum wage on their own. Rallies with fast-food and other low-wage workers were scheduled for 500 cities, including outside Tuesday’s televised debate of Republican presidential candidates in Milwaukee.
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A coalition of at least 30 union and social justice organizations sponsored events around California.
Workers will walk from the McDonald’s locations to Los Angeles City Hall for a protest at 11 a.m. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke to a Fight for $15 rally in Washington, D.C.to credit their movement with recent victories and reiterate his support for a $15 federal minimum wage. Demonstrations took place in Boston, NY City, Philadelphia and other cities with workers from McDonald’s, Burger King and other quick-service restaurants, as well as home care, child care, farm, FedEx and nursing home minimum-wage employees.
An effort to raise it to $13 an hour recently stalled in the state Assembly.
But the governor said his support was about a broader push to get a $US15 per hour minimum wage for all workers. Cuomo used executive authority to gradually increased NY City state workers’ hourly rate to $15 by the end of 2018. “I have every expectation that we’ll come to-whatever it may be-some kind of compromise”, Flanagan said.
Fast-food workers in 270 cities started a strike on Tuesday in their quest to receive a $15 per hour wage. “People forget we already have a wage increase to $9 an hour coming later this year that the legislature agreed to”. “I wouldn’t be able to survive with that”, said Lorry.
“It is the mother of all corporate loopholes, where they won’t pay a decent wage, so the taxpayers have to pay the subsidy”, Cuomo said. Cuomo says if the overall wages end up rising to match this that change would also be phased in over several years.
President Barack Obama has pressed Congress to approve an increase in the minimum wage, but congressional Republicans insist a dramatic increase in the minimum wage might lead to employers eliminating entry level jobs for teenagers.
If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, it would be more than $16 per hour today.
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But Cuomo as late as September, when appearing at a meeting of the state Business Council, was circumspect of the idea of raising the minimum wage for state employees.
