By David Cruz
Correspondent
On the 15th day of the fourth month — hence the Fight for $15 — low-wage workers across the country are calling on corporate giants like McDonald’s and Walmart to raise wages for their workers.
“For people living in one room apartments and squalor to becoming part of the middle class,” said Kevin Brown.
Brown, VP and state director of 32 BJ SEIU, the union organizing today’s demonstration in New Jersey, says the state’s middle class is rapidly vanishing as wages continue to stagnate.
“There used to be a huge and especially in New Jersey, a huge industrial middle class that helped fuel our state and fuel our economy. And that was New Jersey but today New Jersey is a different kind of state. It’s inservice economy and when these jobs got driven down to minimum wage, the state really has had a very difficult time raising revenues,” Brown said.
Nancy Vazquez, who works as a skycap at Newark Airport, says $15 an hour is the difference between work and public assistance.
“But if taxpayers pay the assistance, so what we’re doing actually is because we’re not taking care of the poverty level. We’re actually paying more out in taxes,” she said.
When asked what she could do with $15 an hour versus $10, Kyeishawa Ford of East Orange said, “Well you could support your family better. Be able to put your kids in better activities and stuff like that. With $10 you can’t do stuff like that for your children. If they want to do football, how are you going to pay for that.”
“So we contend that when you raise the wages for all workers, a raising tide lifts all ships, we’re going to have workers who are going to be reinvesting in their community. Going out to dinner, going out to the movies, making ends meet and so it means better business, bigger business for the local economy,” said NJ Working Families Alliance Executive Director Analilia Mejia.
In recent months, McDonald’s and Walmart have announced a dollar wage increase for their workers. But as corporate profits continue to increase, outpacing wages and benefits, workers say they want a piece, even a small one, of the action.
Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America is a multi-platform public media initiative that provides a deeper understanding of the impact of poverty on American society. Major funding for this initiative is provided by The JPB Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Ford Foundation.