(en) US, Black Rose / Rosa Negra - PORTLAND DEMANDS A RAISE:
PDX JOINS THE FIGHT FOR $15 DAY OF ACTION
We don't live in the world we were promised. ---- With hard work we could achieve dreams,
the kind of which our parents never could have seen. Instead we have collectively headed
into a "lost generation" where we will be the first generation to be poorer than our
parents. The concept of preparatory work, or jobs you have while preparing for your life
with a fulfilling career has been completely abandoned and instead we are grabbing at any
paying position we can get. This has started a labor struggle that should have begun
decades ago, but has dominated the discussions about the future of workplace organizing in
the U.S. Fast food one of the largest employing sectors in the country, yet continue to
maintain poverty wages. These jobs additionally tend to have some of the highest turnover
rates, miniscule avenues for progression, institutionalized wage-theft, and have an
industrial food model that both pumps out unhealthy food while attacking the bodies of the
people forced to work in its restaurants. In this climate, Fight for Fifteen is a
concerted union effort to demand both a union in one of America's most debilitating
workplaces, and a base pay of $15 an hour.
Today, April 15th, was the 2015 Global Day of Action where hundreds of cities worldwide
will go on strike demanding $15 and a union. In 230 cities, workers walked off the job in
one of the largest strikes of the 21st century. Marches, solidarity rallies, and
speak-outs will match the workers walking out in protest, showing a global support for
workers taking power in their workplaces and us collectively having access to a living wage.
In Portland, Oregon, $15 Now PDX, Portland Jobs with Justice, SEIU, AFSCME, and LiUNA
organized a mass action supported by dozens of other groups like other unions, the
Portland Solidarity Network, Socialist Alternative, and the Black Rose Rosa Negra
Anarchist Federation. Standing openly in support of workers at Portland State University,
food service workers, janitorial staff, care providers, city workers, and everyone else
who cares about worker justice, the event drew hundreds from around the metro area.
The action saw heavy participation from SEIU 503 and 49, as well as the $15 Now organizing
effort. Home care workers, who have made headlines recently for joining the Fight for $15,
we well represented, as well as many state and city workers, adjunct faculty, and others.
SEIU 503 represents home workers with the Department of Human Services locally, and who
got a massive raise to over $13/hr in their 2013 contract. This is above the average,
where many non-union workers in private home care agencies are making barely above minimum
wage for aggressively difficult labor.
One noticeable element of Portland's Fight for $15 action was the age of participants.
Unlike many other Big Labor actions of recent years, young people dominated those who came
out as actual union workers. This came especially from home care workers, but also from
those organizing with the AAUP, AFT, and AFSCME. This is a testament to the position of
workers in their 20s and 30s who are often taking low-paying jobs rather than moving into
middle income salaries right out of college.
The rally began with mentioning the San Francisco and Seattle $15 minimum wage hikes, and
the fact that Oregon has began a "conversation" at the legislative level about this. SB610
and HB2009 in the state legislature are being debated in the Business and Labor Committee,
and a ballot measure in Oregon is about to be filed for the minimum wage increase. This is
huge for those organizing in the electoral sphere, which many seem to be trying to shift
the movement into. There was broad support for this, but labor's touchstone is to still
see these increases through collective action and bargaining. The bill they were
suggesting was a very slow increase to $15/hr by 2019; not exactly the revolution they
were touting.
"The movement's growing, and it's spreading, and before we know it, we are going to have
15 in all 50!" an organizer with $15Now declared, to cheers and applause.
A "hazardous waste" worker Tim Combs represented by AFSCME got on the megaphone and told
about what it took to get his wage up to this bar.
"I'm a worker at the bottom, like many of you," said Combs. "Don't make a lot of money.
The permanent staff that do the same job I do, they get paid twice what I got paid. AFSCME
organized us, we fought, they retaliated against us. They didn't give some people more
work. We stayed strong with community partners on the best day of bargaining, we scared
them! They didn't want public action. We got a thirty percent raise! We got fifteen plus!
Fifteen now, more later!"
This returned us to the overarching theme that what is required is actual on-the-ground
organizing inside workplaces. While both the approaches, the legislative and the labor
organizing, were present and complimentary, this showed where some of the tactics diverged.
SEIU then began the march by leading the crowd to the Pittock Block, where building
managers had brought in non-union janitorial staff that make significantly below what
their SEIU represented counterparts were making. After security tried to block the
protesters from entering, marchers broke free and began releasing purple balloons inside
the building. Security's response to the noise was to turn the lights off. The march then
took the streets, pushing the demand for $15/hr, with glowing support from onlookers.
Eventually they made it to Portland State University, where students and workers alike
were standing up to support Aramark workers in janitorial and food service positions,
which are again pushing for this wage increase. They entered the student union, completely
overtaking the space. The university was an important area of struggle for adjunct faculty
and graduate teaching staff as well, who have been fighting for increases and, in the case
of teaching assistants, just the ability to be represented in a bargaining unit.
This day of action erupted around the country as cities drew together workers from a host
of industries under the banner that was started by fast food workers. In Brooklyn, a
thousand fast food employees, construction workers, and community workers hit the streets,
while 700 hit a Manhattan McDonald's. In Rochester, NY, a local community non-profit with
a 50-year history mobilized hundreds to stand with the workers that they have been
actively organizing in Wendy's and McDonald's locations. Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, big
cities, and small towns saw these actions, coordinated into one massive movement. Over
60,000 people estimated to stand with today's actions in more than 40 countries and a
hundred 170 college campuses. Student leaders have begun to use this momentum as a chance
to target inflated administrative salaries while tuition rises and adjunct faculty and
other staff make poverty wages. Students at Northeastern University rose up today, citing
the president Joseph Aoun's salary that is 117 times more than the average service
employee at the school. Aoun made news in 2013 when he hired the union-bustin firm Jackson
Lewis to fight adjunct faculty's work at organizing a union.
Ramping up to the Global Day of action, McDonald's recently threw the workers the smallest
possible bone in the form of a $0.89 raise for non-franchised locations. This would not
affect a full 12, 500 employees in America who are working at franchise locations, not to
mention that it is nowhere near the $15 demand or any calculation of a living wage.
Today we saw that Fight for $15 is moving beyond simply being a fast-food organizing
project, but a way to address underserved positions that are and precarious. This includes
Wal-Mart workers often associated with the Our Wal-Mart campaign , home-care workers who
have been joining SEIU Fight for $15 actions recently, and adjunct professors who are
organizing across the countries to get consistent employment and benefits. This is an
important component because what we see here is workers in radically different types of
jobs, requiring different skills and educational backgrounds recognizing a common class
interest: they are all exploited. Adjunct faculty often harbor a six figure student-loan
burden, but are often forced onto public services from a pay scale that is barely above
minimum wage at times. Home-care workers have had a lot of victories recently, including a
huge jump of several dollars in pay for SEIU workers contracted through DHS, but this is
still not the norm. These workers, who care for special needs and elderly patients in the
home, have one of the most physically demanding jobs in the country, often working shifts
more than twelve hours at a time for a pay that is far below something reasonable. Today
they have come together with a common goal, a process of solidarity that is going to be
critical if any of them are going to see the projected goals met. If one person is made
stronger in the workplace by connecting with several other co-workers along a shared need,
then one struggle is only going to benefit from the support and common campaign of joining
with several other movements. If the messaging of Fight for $15, for example, is to be
successful, it will need multiple sectors of organizing workers to get behind it, and in
that way they have strengthened the demand through its increase in numbers. Because this
language is both lofty and attainable, it serves as a great rallying point for a number of
industries to raise the bar workers in general. The big risk now is if Big Labor is to
make concessions with employers that will weaken the demands, destroy bargaining units,
and rob the workers of autonomy and a propensity for direct action.
The April 15th Fight for $15 action will stand out as one of the biggest labor actions
since the campaign started in New York City on November 29th, 2012. The walkouts in April
and May of 2013 also saw impressive numbers, but now we are seeing that this movement is
only increasing as it diversifies. This diversity needs to also be matched by allies that
see the place for the Fast Food fight in the general fight for economic justice and
working class gains. Fast Food workers are one of the largest segments of the population
on public assistance, and we have seen recent instances where McDonald's management
actually tells their employees to go on public assistance to make ends meet since their
wages are so low. This is just one example of the negligence of McDonalds expanding out
and coming at the cost of people completely unaffiliated with the company. Taxpayers are
paying to subsidize their low wages, which means that there is a direct economic benefit
to see these wages come up. This is on top of the general gain for working industries when
a major labor victory comes through, the ability to strengthen our labor organizations,
and to inspire even larger fights from the energy of massive gains. Having this day of
action on "tax day" really helped to highlight the way that our taxes go to pay the rich,
not subsidize the poor.
Right now the movement is touting legislative victories in Seattle and San Francisco
towards a $15 and hour minimum wage, but the true victory will be when this victory comes
directly in the workplace from worker action. When we are able to force these concessions
from our employer through collective bargaining we prove that we can do it because of our
power as workers, rather than because of the benevolence of progressive politicians. On
July 29th, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board finally ruled against McDonalds who
had been claiming that they couldn't be held as "joint employer" around wage issues that
was coming in from their worker-rights violations. They were determined to be "the boss,"
even though they sell franchises that are independently operated. This was a major victory
that labor leaders used as a sticking point, and, like the increase in the local minimum
wage, was the result of an official ruling sanctioned by the state. We should not dismiss
these victories, but we should not use them as a barometer of a movement's success since
the victories that come directly from movement action is the best measure of what kind of
power the workers are exercising. The last thing that maintains a successful labor
movement is to stand back and let liberal agencies and politicians to throw us some
concessions. Instead, we need to keep the pressure on, organizing new workers and keeping
a focus on action.
While the action was appropriately labor focused, there was a lot of ways that this was
bleeding out into complimentary movements like housing justice. The Portland Solidarity
Network, an active part of the Portland labor community, has been known for wage-theft
work and their co-organizing with the Voz Worker's Justice Project and the Portland Jobs
With Justice. They take on both wage-theft and tenant justice campaigns, working on
specific instances of exploitation and developing escalation-campaigns with a direct
action focus. As a part of their campaign in support of two former tenants of Fox
Management in Portland, they were handing out flyers alerting the crowd to the problems
with this management company. As the large unions are being energized around this common
project, we wonder if they will begin continuing their stated commitment to community
projects as well. SEIU was known for this in recent years where they were funding
community projects dealing with housing justice, which resulted in Portland with the We
Are Oregon and Housing is for Everyone campaigns. Hopefully we will begin to see the
issues in underpayment and its effect on housing more thoroughly united, and we can see
housing justice and labor organizers working on coordinated campaigns and actions. This is
especially true as Portland, like many other cities, is beginning to have "tenant
assemblies" and are organizing to fight "no cause eviction." This is a major step towards
tenant unionization, the kind of long-term organizing work that builds on the
organizational strategies of labor.
$15Now is getting the momentum that it rightfully earned through the last two years of
organizing, and we need participation to keep it a movement driven by the workers and
focused on direct-action. This year's May Day march in Portland was heavily promoted
there, and we can guess that Fight for Fifteen will join Black Lives Matter as being the
represented movements in the streets.
http://www.blackrosefed.org/portland-demands-a-raise-pdx-joins-the-fight-for-15-day-of-action/
