Areas with Poorest Wages

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An Oxfam America report details the congressional districts with the poorest wages, with maps by district that show the greatest needs are in the South. The average district shows that 19 percent of workers earn less than $10.10 an hour, the proposed federal minimum wage.  Click here.

Oxfam’s site has this more personalized look here.

 

Housekeeper Maria Antonieta prepares a room at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, Fla. Nearly a million people work as maids and housekeepers in the US, with a median hourly wage of under $10, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images Housekeeper Maria Antonieta prepares a room at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, Fla. Nearly a million people work as maids and housekeepers in the US, with a median hourly wage of under $10, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

By Mary Babic, regional communications officer for Oxfam in the US.

Slicing cheese at a grocery store, scrubbing toilets in a dorm, making copies in a real estate office, walking dogs, changing diapers, cleaning houses… yes, I’ve worked my share of low-wage jobs. For days, weeks, months. Clock in, log the hours, clock out. Take a shower, sit down on the couch, fall asleep.

I actually enjoyed these jobs a lot. There is great satisfaction in doing a simple, necessary task well, and with other people. And the best thing about the work was the other workers. Most were women: moms and grandmas, intelligent, funny, resilient, enduring, and accepting.

But stuck.

In the world of dead-end jobs, I was a tourist. I wasn’t staying. I flew in, did the work, and then flew out. I had good luck: My folks were born poor, but got through college on the GI Bill and scholarships, secured solid middle-class jobs back when they paid enough to enable you to buy a house and save for college and retirement. They sent me to college and then grad school. I’ve worked these jobs, throughout my life, as a way to keep alive for a while and tide me over.

But these women are not going anywhere. They stay, and they work, harder and harder every year, for wages that decline in value every year. Continue reading →

Vermont Raising Minimum Wage

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BOSTON, June 9 (Reuters) – Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin on Monday signed a law that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.50 an hour by 2018, higher than any other U.S. state. The move to raise the entry-level salary from $8.73 comes in a year when Democrats, including Shumlin, have sought to make worker pay an election issue.

U.S. President Barack Obama pushed Congress to raise the federal minimum wages to $10.10 per hour from its current $7.25 but failed to win support in either the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or Democratic-controlled Senate. Seven U.S. states plus the District of Columbia have passed laws this year raising their minimum wages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Connecticut, Hawaii and Maryland all plan to raise their minimums to $10.10 per hour, with the District adopting an $11.50 minimum in 2016.

“States like Vermont realize that working people can’t support their families on the current minimum wage, and we’re moving ahead to do the right thing on our own,” Shumlin said at a signing ceremony.

Vermont will raise its minimum wage in three steps, first to $9.60 in 2016, to $10 in 2017 and finally to $10.50 in 2018.

Some U.S. cities have approved higher wages, with Seattle’s city council last week agreeing to raise its minimum to $15 per hour over the next seven years.

Poetry by Domestic Workers

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June 15 will bring a poetry workshop event for domestic workers to Governors’ Island, reports Mark Nowak, director of the MFA program atManhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. The event will be in collaboration with the  International Domestic Workers Federation, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Andolan, Justice for Domestic Workers (J4DW), and other groups.
The program will include a live Skype session with J4DW from their protest rally in London at 11am, a workshop with domestic workers from noon-1pm, writing/painting poetry on the walls of a building from participants as well as poems coming in from domestic workers in Chile, Costa Rica, Lebanon, and  elsewhere from 1-3pm, and a looped screening of Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel’s documentary film Claiming Our Voice (on Andolan, an organization founded and led by South Asian immigrant low-wage workers) from noon-4pm.

 

 

McDonald’s President Supports Minimum Wage Hike

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McDonald’s may now be in support of raising pay for its low-wage workers. Click here.

Recent reports say McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson recently suggested his company would support a bill, proposed by President Barack Obama, raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. Such a wage hike likely wouldn’t satisfy his workers, some of whom were recently arrested during protests at the company’s Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters demanding $15 an hour. But it would be a  shift in attitude for the world’s biggest restaurant chain, which has so far been neutral as the debate about higher wages has roiled around it.

“You know, our franchisees look at me when I say this and they start to worry: ‘Don, don’t you say it. Don’t you say we support $10.10,'” Thompson said during a little-noticed talk at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management last month, according to a Chicago Tribune report. “I will tell you we will support legislation that moves forward.”

 

 

Retail Action Project – NYC

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Community-based organizations, unions, faith-based institutions, elected officials and individual supporters work together in the RAP Community Coalition to advocate for better employment opportunities in retail and hold individual retailers accountable for unjust treatment of workers.

Unemployment and access to decent jobs are issues that affect low-income communities throughout the city. Retail is one of the largest, fastest growing industries in New York City. Yet, employment opportunities in the retail industry do not meet the basic economic needs of workers and their families. Wages and benefits of NYC retail workers are so meager that taxpayers spend over $1 billion annually to prove the health insurance, rent subsidies,child care, food stamps and other assistance they and their families need to survive.

Please see videos with workers here.

Scared, then Emboldened by Protest Arrest

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Full story here

By Vickie Elmer, May 22 at 12:09 pm

Natasha Carson was a bit frightened on Wednesday afternoon when she found herself at the front of the crowd, carrying part of a banner in the protest against her employer, McDonald’s. She had been part of earlier fast food protests, but this one, at the company’s corporate headquarters outside Chicago, was bigger, with ample media attention and plenty of police.

Police officers, some in riot gear, watched as protesters, including union leaders and clergy, started chanting and singing. “I was pushing away my fear,” Carson said in an interview. “You stand up for your rights and you make history.”

That sentiment comes from a 20-year-old who lives with her mom in Milwaukee, and is known as Tazz. She has worked for McDonald’s for almost five years, starting in high school and now while attending Milwaukee Area Technical College.Organizers say she was the first worker arrested Wednesday, and then 100 others from 33 cities were taken into custody. Continue reading →

Minimum Wage Gets Minimal Attention at McDonald’s Meeting

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May 22, 2014 6:02 pm

By Neil Munshi in New York

Even as 400 protesters rallied outside McDonald’s headquarters for a higher minimum wage for fast food workers, the chain’s pay policies generated little noise inside its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday.

A day earlier, more than 100 people were arrested for trespassing after up to 1,500 protesters descended on McDonald’s suburban Chicago headquarters, calling for a $15 an hour minimum wage and a union for fast food workers.The rallies follow recent minimum wage protests across the country amid a growing national debate over income inequality, which President Barack Obama has called “the defining issue of our time.” Continue reading →