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Fightfor15
to
include
childcare,
healthcare,
college
students
and
adjunct
professors
DETROIT,
MI – In
a
procession
that
snaked
through
Wayne
State
University
and
wound
its way
to one
of the
longest
thoroughfares
in
Detroit,
some
2,000
low-wage
workers
and
their
supporters
created
the
largest
mass
rally
yet in
the
battle
to
secure a
livable
wage.
Childcare
and home
healthcare
workers
along
with
students
and
adjunct
professors
from
across
Michigan
are the
latest
workforce
to join
a 2 ˝
year-
long
battle
initiated
by fast
food and
retail
workers
for a
$15
hourly
wage and
the
right to
form a
union
without
interference.
The more
than
mile
long
trek
included
a rally
at an
apt
venue
(the
Walter
Reuther
Library)
and
ended
with a
march
around a
McDonald’s
drive-thru,
where
two
workers
went on
strike
today.
A
rolling
disc
jockey
accompanied
the
march,
leading
protestors
in a
call and
response
chant
of,
“What do
we
want?”
“Fifteen!”
and When
do we
want
it?”
“Now!”
“People
don’t
understand
the fact
of how
little
we get
paid,”
said
Kimie
Jones, a
43-year-old
mother
of five
who
earns
the
state’s
hourly
minimum
wage of
$8.15 in
both her
childcare
and home
healthcare
jobs,
work she
took on
after
getting
laid off
in 2009.
“We just
want a
livable
pay so
that we
have
enough
to take
care of
ourselves.”
SEIU
Healthcare
Michigan
President
Marge
Robinson
spoke at
the
library
rally
and
noted
that the
average
pay for
home
healthcare
workers
is
$13,000
a
year---despite
it being
one of
the
fastest
growing
professions.
“I
believe
these
corporations
make
billions,
yet too
many
workers
take
home
pennies,”
Robinson
said.
“Nearly
50
percent
of
caregivers
who work
in other
people’s
homes
live in
households
that
receive
some
form of
public
assistance.”
Workers
chose
tax day
both
because
the
date---4/15---is
their
demand
and
because
they
want to
highlight
that
they are
paid so
little
that
many
have to
rely on
public
assistance
to get
by.
“Part-time
faculty
work
without
paid
benefits,
just as
minimum
wage
workers
do; we
do not
have
health
insurance
or
retirement,”
said
Susan
Titus,
an
adjunct
professor
at Wayne
State
University’s
School
of
Social
Work.
“Many of
us teach
at
several
schools…just
to make
ends
meet.”
The
lead-up
to the
largest
mobilization
to date
of
low-wage
workers
got a
jumpstart
Tuesday
night,
when
three
workers
walked
off the
job and
some 100
protestors
took
over the
lobby
and
brought
business
to a
halt
inside a
Detroit
McDonald’s.
“We’re
fired
up!
Can’t
take it
no more!
We’re
fired
up!
Can’t
take it
no
more,”
protestors
shouted.
The
rally
lasted
just
under an
hour.
Ashley
Hosler
was
among
those
who
walked
of her
McDonald’s
job
Tuesday
night.
She held
up her
wrist to
reveal a
grease
burn,
which is
among
the
controversies
tried to
the
corporation’s
mistreatment
of its
workers.
D15 is a
coalition
of low
wage
workers
and
their
supporters
who are
fighting
to
secure a
$15
hourly
wage and
the
right to
form a
union
without
interference.
For more
information,
go to
www.fightfor15.org
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