Demonstrators say they vow to make a $15 an hour minimum wage and the right for workers to organize an election issue in 2016.
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Workers in almost 300 cities are staging protests at numerous restaurants.
The hike will be phased in over a number of years: For about 1000 state workers in NY City, the raise would reach $US15 per hour on December 31, 2018.
Cuomo argued Tuesday that NY is subsidizing workers who are employed at companies who don’t pay a higher minimum wage. That hike will be phased in over a three-year period for NY City residents and six years for the rest of the state. “Yet millions of families nationwide continue to be left behind by an insufficient minimum wage – and it’s time that changed”, Cuomo said in a prepared statement. The rallies were underscored by the launch of a five-point “Fight for $15 Voter Agenda”, which calls for affordable child care, long-term care, a focus on race relations, and immigration reform, in addition to the $15 wage.
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that his administration is raising the minimum wage for state workers to $15 per hour.
In addition to NY City, workers began a walkout of their jobs starting at 6 a.m.in cities Chicago, Atlanta and Kansas City, among others.
Outside NY City, it will increase to $9.75 an hour at year’s end and increase by a dollar an hour until it hits $15. “If I had to live on my own, I wouldn’t be able to do it”, she says. Others chanted more typical choruses of “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union!” and “What do we want?”
If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, it would be more than $16 per hour today. Protestor’s chanted for “more pay”, followed up by the chant, “I believe that we will win”.
Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers and a Mexican-American icon, joined activists in Milwaukee who are not only demanding a better minimum wage, but also protesting the Republican presidential debate happening last night in that city.
The action came as workers across the nation staged rallies demanding a $15 wage for fast-food jobs.
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Asked about that piecemeal approach, Cuomo said, “There’s nothing that a substitute for passing a law that affects everyone everywhere, there’s no doubt about that”.
