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 The protests escalated a series of actions at several Walmart
stores on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, seeking to draw
attention to workers at the lowest end of the wage scale.
The description of fast-food workers, once viewed mainly as
teenagers looking for pocket money or a first job, has changed.
Today's fast-food worker is typically over 20, often raising a
child, and 68 percent are the primary wage earners in their
families, according to a report by the University of Illinois and
the University of California, Berkeley.
About 100 workers in Chicago marched along Michigan Avenue with a
large costumed Grinch, chanting: "We can't survive on $7.25."
Protesters want the hourly U.S. minimum wage raised to $15 from
$7.25.
In Kansas City, Missouri, Kizzy Sanders, 30, an employee at a local
Popeye's restaurant, joined about 100 protesters picketing fast-food
restaurants in freezing temperatures.
"I love my job, I love the people I work with, but the $7.70 I make
does not cut it," said Sanders, a mother of three. "It doesn't pay
my bills, I can't buy my kids anything for Christmas. I can't even
celebrate Christmas."
Thursday's protests were organized by groups such as "Fast Food
Forward" and "Low Pay is Not OK" that have the support of labor
union giant Service Employees International Union, which represents
more than 2 million members including healthcare, janitorial and
security workers.
POVERTY-LEVEL WAGES
Despite the involvement of organized labor, the protests are focused
on wages, not unions, for the moment, said John Logan, a labor
studies professor at San Francisco State University's College of
Business.
"The immediate goal is to focus national attention on the impact of
poverty-level wages on employees and the negative impact of
poverty-level wages for the public and the economy," Logan said.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and public benefit programs show 52
percent of fast-food workers relying on at least one form of public
assistance, between 2007 and 2011, according to the report from the
University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois.
Shemethia Betler, a 33-year-old mother and cashier at a
Washington-area McDonald's who earns $8.25 an hour, receives food
stamps and temporary cash assistance, and said she feels like she is
on the brink of homelessness.
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"I'm worker and I'm making 8.25 an hour, and I have two kids and I'm
living in poverty," Betler said during a protest in Washington.
Because the current minimum wage, on an inflation-adjusted basis,
lags behind those of decades past, the purchasing power of
minimum-wage earners has diminished.
Increasing the minimum wage, however, would not reduce poverty, said
Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute, because
employers will compensate by reducing staff and workers' hours.
Instead, they should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which
provides a small-wage supplement for low-income families in the form
of a tax refund, he said.
A 2012 study published by the Employment Policies Institute found
that states that increase the Earned Income Tax Credit by 1 percent
saw a 1 percent drop in state poverty rates.
Others disagree. Christian Dorsey, director of external and
governmental affairs for the Economic Policy Institute, said tax
credits should not let employers skimp on wages.
"Businesses have a responsibility to pay workers enough to keep them
out of poverty," Dorsey said. "The idea that we would simply not
look at wages is passing off the problem to someone else."
Jose Martinez, 26, a KFC cook who joined about 100 protesters
outside a McDonald's in Oakland, California, said he still lived
with his parents and recently dropped out of welding school because
he could not afford the tuition. He said his job paid $8.25 an hour.
"If I made $15 an hour, I would support my parents, move out and go
back to school," Martinez said.
(Additional reporting by Marina Lopes, Mary Wisniewski, Colleen
Jenkins, Kevin Murphy, Carlyn Kolker and Laila Kearney; editing by
Daniel Trotta and Gunna Dickson)
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