Asheville workers join April 15 coast-to-coast ‘Fight for $15’ workers protest

Coast-to-coast protests and rallies will launch in the United States on April 15, starting with Boston, including Asheville, and stretching from “Pittsburgh to Pasadena,” say organizers. It’s the Fight for $15 movement, which launched in New York City in November 2012, when 200 cooks and cashiers walked off their jobs demanding $15 an hour and union rights.

The Asheville rally will be held at 9 a.m. at 71 Hendersonville Road on Wednesday, April 15. Here are more details from organizers:

On Tax Day, ASHEVILLE WORKERS TO JOIN LARGEST-EVER MOBILIZATION OF UNDERPAID

Fast-Food Workers to Strike in 200 U.S. Cities, Including Asheville, Protest on Six Continents; Adjunct Professors, Home Care, Child Care, Airport, Industrial Laundry and Walmart Workers to Rally Coast to Coast 

Asheville– On Tax Day, fast food workers in Asheville and in cities from Pittsburgh to Pasadena will walk off the job, while adjunct professors, home care, child care, airport, industrial laundry and Walmart workers will march and rally in what will be the most widespread mobilization ever by U.S. workers seeking higher pay.

The two-and-a-half-year-old Fight for $15 will go to college, with protests expected by students from 200 campuses. #BlackLivesMatter will join in as the ties between the racial and economic justice movements deepen. And the marches and rallies will stretch around the globe, with protests expected in 100 cities, in 40 countries, on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo.

Workers chose tax day both because the date, 4/15, is their demand and because they want to highlight the fact that they are paid so little that too many are forced to rely on public assistance to get by. [The protests will start a day earlier in Boston out of deference to the April 15 anniversary of the marathon bombing.]

The nationwide strikes and protests will come two weeks after McDonald’s announced it was increasing salaries for a fraction of its workforce by $1. But rather than mollifying employees, the paltry pay move is attracting ridicule and inspiring even more workers to join the walkout.

WHO:	Workers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, and other fast-food restaurants; retail workers; students; local activists
WHAT:	Largest-ever fast-food strikes; most widespread mobilization of underpaid workers; biggest nationwide campus protests since the anti-apartheid movement;
WHEN/WHERE:	9 am Strike Action: 71 Hendersonville Rd, Asheville5 pm Main NC rally with fast food workers, home care workers, child care workers, adjunct faculty, and students from across North Carolina, and Reverend Barber of the NC NAACP at Shaw University (118 E South Street, Raleigh, NC)

 

Background

Two-and-a-half years after it launched in New York City, with 200 cooks and cashiers walking off their jobs demanding $15 an hour and union rights, people working in a range of different industries (including home care, child care, airport services, retail and academia) in the US and around the world have joined the Fight for $15 movement. What seemed crazy — workers’ demand for $15 an hour — has caught on and is now reality in SeaTac, Seattle and San Francisco. From coast to coast, cities, states and companies are racing to raise wages well above the federal minimum of $7.25. Now Democrats and leading economists are increasingly pointing to strengthening working Americans’ freedom to form unions as a key solution to boost wages and restore broad-based prosperity, something fast-food workers have been saying since their first strike in November, 2012. And the urgent need for solutions to America’s low-wage crisis is already emerging as a key issue in the run-up to the 2016 election

On Wednesday, the Fight for $15 —the movement Slate said, “managed to completely rewire how the public and politicians think about wages;” MSNBC said, “entirely changed the politics of the country;” and Fortune said, “transformed labor organizing from a process often centered on nickel-and-dime negotiations with a single employer into a social justice movement that transcends industry and geographic boundaries,” — will wage what is expected to be the largest-ever mobilization of U.S. workers seeking higher pay, with strikes, rallies and protests to be held across the country, including multiple actions in Asheville.