Massachusetts Kicked Off the Largest Ever
Global Mobilization of Underpaid Workers Protest on Six Continents;
Adjunct Professors, Home Care, Child Care, Transportation, Fast Food, Janitorial, and Walmart Workers to Rally Coast to Coast.
Thousands of underpaid workers frustrated by low wages rallied, walked out in strike, and marched throughout the city of Boston yesterday to call for higher wages and to kick off a global wave of protests against wage inequality. Two-and-a-half years ago Boston was one of the first cities in the Fight for $15 calling for higher wages for fast food workers. The growing movement has spread across the country, and around the world, and now includes low wage workers from various occupations like home healthcare workers and adjunct professors. Boston became the launching point for the largest ever global mobilization of the underpaid when workers, students, and their supporters took to the streets on Tuesday.
(Time Lapse Video of March by @SEIU)
AMAZING time lapse video of Boston #FightFor15 march this afternoon. #WageAction pic.twitter.com/ohpe1nzMEz
— SEIU (@SEIU) April 15, 2015
The two-and-half-year-old Fight for $15 has continued to grow on local college campuses as well. Students from Boston University, Northeastern University, UMass-Boston, UMass-Amherst, Roxbury Community College, Harvard University, Emerson College, Tufts University, Clark University, Lesley University, Boston College, and Brandeis University joined with low wage workers to rally for higher wages.
Today’s #FightFor15 rally was glorious! Proud of our @NUSL {Northeastern University School of Law} contingent. #WageAction #worker #power pic.twitter.com/o7Bs0UwwU4 — Sarah DH (@sdavidh) April 15, 2015
College students are not the only ones who are feeling the pain of low wage jobs, many of the adjunct faculty at these colleges are paid just above minimum wage and are forced to live in poverty. In May of 2014 the Boston Globe reported:
“Nearly 15,000 contingent and adjunct faculty teach in greater Boston. Many work at multiple schools, trying to make enough to support themselves and their families on low pay with no benefits. All have advanced degrees, and many live at or below the poverty level.”
This is why adjunct professors from across the city joined the march and spoke out for higher wages. “We are supposed to be the college professors raising up the next generation,” said one adjunct professor in the video posted by Faculty Forward.
Happening now! #wageaction #FacultyForward pic.twitter.com/oGS06QPilX — Faculty Forward (@FacultyForward) April 14, 2015
A recent Brookings Institution study shows that Boston is the third most inequitable city in the nation, with the top 5 percent of households earning 15 times what the bottom twenty make. Massive income disparity is badly hurting this country and on April 14, low wage workers and their allies will take action to address the growing wage inequality crisis.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts is leading the nation with three groundbreaking pieces of legislation intended to lift up low wage workers.
Home care workers bill
- Provides $15 an hour to nearly 20,000 workers who provide home care to seniors and people with disabilities through “agency” home care employers.
- Requires annual cost reporting from home care agencies, including detailed financial disclosures of executive compensation and overhead costs.
Fast food and big box retail workers bill
- Requires big box retail and fast food corporations to pay their employees at least $15 an hour by 2018.
- Applies to hourly wage workers at corporate fast food chains and Big Box stores over 25,000 square feet and with 200 or more employees in Massachusetts.
Tipped wage bill
- Gradually eliminates the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
- Mandates that after 2022, tipped employees would have the same hourly minimum wage as workers in all other industries in Massachusetts.
Following the global kick off event in Boston on April 14, protests will stretch around the globe the next day, with demonstrations expected in more than 200 U.S. cities, 100 international cities, in 40 countries, and on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo. Follow the worldwide events on twitter at the #FightFor15 hashtag.
Below are images from yesterday’s rally in Boston, provided by SEIU 1199 Massachusetts. All images were taken by Rose Lincoln, 1199SEIU. More images and tweets of support for Massachusetts workers can be found on the #WageAction hashtag and on Youtube.
Click to view slideshow.The post Over 5,000 Rally In Boston In The #FightFor15, Kicking Worldwide Day Of Action On Wages And Inequality appeared first on NH Labor News.
