Estimated 15,000 Protesters March To Times Square McDonald's To Demand Living Wage
(Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
Some 100,000 frustrated underpaid workers demonstrated in over 200 cities across America last night to demand a living wage, according to organizers' estimates. In NYC, over 10,000 workers and their supporters came together at Columbus Circle for a march on the Times Square McDonald's. The large demonstration capped a day of impassioned protests across the city, starting yesterday morning with crowds stopping traffic in front of a Brooklyn McDonald's, and a later die-in on the Upper West Side.
Wendy Guzman, 43, traveled from the Bronx to attend the rally with her daughter. A home care worker and mother of three, she works in Manhattan. While she enjoys her work with elderly people, her $9.50 an hour wage makes her life desperate. "We don't have too much money to pay the rent, to pay the bills, the kids... The cost of life increases every day, but the salaries are down. And you can't live with that money," said Guzman.
She noted that, like many others, she also doesn't get the hours she needs every week: "For now, I'm only working five hours a day, five days a week. But now, there's not a lot of jobs." Guzman said that a wage increase would "change her life," and give her a better shot at sending her children to high school and college.
Wendy Guzman and her daughter (Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
The Fight for $15 movement began two-and-a-half years ago in NYC's fast-food industry, when hundreds of cooks and cashiers walked off the job in 2012 to demand a pay raise and union rights. What was noticeable about last night's rally was the spread of industries which have joined the movement, filling up blocks along Central Park West from West 61st Street. Standing with the fast-food workers were adjunct professors and their students, yoga instructors, home care workers, crossing guards, and a host of others.
An estimated 15,000 people participated in the rally, according to organizers. An NYPD spokesperson said there were no arrests in connection with last night's protest, but Alec Baldwin was inconvenienced.
Kate Riley spoke about the difficulties facing adjunct professors (Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
Education was a hot issue among protesters, with adjunct professors joining the rally to "Fight for $15K." Kate Riley, 57, has been an adjunct professor at various times over the last 30 years and spoke to us about the current "precarious academics" situation in colleges.
"You don't know from one semester to the next whether you're going to be hired for the next semester, and if the courses don't fill, then it could be cut at the last minute," Riley said. "I'm getting $3900 a course, which is pretty good according to the national standards for adjuncts. But sometimes I try to figure out what I've made per hour, all these years, and it'd be maybe a dollar per hour."
One member of the adjunct professors group chimed in that one in four part-time instructorsrelies on some form of public assistance to get by. Being forced to turn to public assistance was a common complaint heard from employees out protesting—more than half of McDonald's workers are on benefits, along with 48% of home care workers. The shortfall from McDonald's costs taxpayers in excess of $1 billion a year.
(Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
As the crowds waited, speeches and songs filtered through from the main stage. Eventually the procession wound its way past Columbus Circle down to Times Square, where the marchers met with a group of protesters already picketing NYC's flagship McDonald's location. NYPD officers stood guard at the doors, as they had at at least one other restaurant along the march.
(Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
A number of the city's elected officials offered their support to the protesters—on Tuesday,Comptroller Scott Stringer said a wage hike was an "economic imperative for our city," noting an increase would boost consumer spending, and Mayor de Blasio and Public Advocate Leticia James tweeted their support yesterday afternoon.
Last night's action was a bigger continuation of other wage protests in recent weeks, including frustrated McDonald's workers decrying a paltry $1.00 per hour raise (which won't apply to90% of employees who work in franchised restaurants of the corporation). At a demonstration reacting to the increase, workers branded the move a "PR stunt" and Fight for $15 organizing director Kendall Fells told us, "McDonald's can raise wages for everyone if they wanted to. They're just not doing it."
Anthony Mann (Jessica Warriner / Gothamist)
Anthony Mann, a 45-year-old father of two teens from Brooklyn, held his sign near the Columbus Circle subway station yesterday evening. Both of his kids work at McDonald's. "When you look at corporations like McDonald's, they generate so much money," said Anthony. "They should be paying them much more money than they are."
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