What happened to the American Dream?

17 Apr 2015  2040 | World Travel News

NEW YORK Thousands of demonstrators, including many fast-food workers, protested in New York on Wednesday demanding a minimum wage of USD15 an hour to escape poverty in America’s largest city.
Fast-food workers held strikes in more than 230 American cities, joined by airport, construction and child care staff, as well as people working in education, organisers said, calling it the largest mobilisation of underpaid workers in the US.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 took part in the New York protest, they said.
The protest highlights the reality of life in the US for millions of people who are deep in debt and overseas travel is a luxury beyond their grasp.
inside no 9Pedro Gamboa, 58, is a baggage handler at JFK airport who works 40 hours a week and wakes up at 0300 to do it — earning USD10.10 an hour.
“It’s not enough. You have to be a magician to survive on that,” said the Guatemalan-born family man. “Once you pay your bills, there is nothing left in your pockets.”
In New York, a first protest began at around 0600 outside a McDonald’s outlet in Brooklyn.
In Manhattan, fast-food workers were joined by students and activists, spreading out on the sidewalk outside another McDonald’s to demand better salaries, an AFP photographer said.
They held up placards proclaiming: “Why poverty,” “Fight for 15″ and “Because the rent won’t wait.”
Workers say they are fed up with pay that does not come close to keeping them out of poverty and the threat of retaliation from employers hostile to them joining or forming unions.
On 1 April, McDonald’s said that it was raising hourly pay to USD1 above the local official minimum wage for 90,000 employees in company-owned restaurants, and would offer them paid time off.
The increase, however, does not apply to 660,000 employees working for restaurants owned by franchises, which comprise 90% of the 14,000 McDonald’s outlets across the United States.
inside no 9.1“Rather than mollifying employees, the paltry pay move is attracting ridicule and inspiring even more workers to join the walkout,” strike organisers said.
The minimum wage in New York state is USD8.75 an hour and due to rise to USD9 in 2016.
There is a federal minimum wage of USD7.25, but many US states have their own minimum wage.
New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a report on Tuesday that even when adjusted for cost of living, New York’s minimum wage is the lowest of any major US city.
Pay of USD15 an hour would save taxpayers USD200 to USD500 million a year in food stamps and Medicaid spending, his report said.
San Francisco and Seattle have both adopted minimum wages of USD15.
In August 2013, fast-food workers launched their first national day-long labour strike, in 60 cities, and their outcry has increasingly resonated in national politics.
President Barack Obama has faced stiff Republican opposition in his push for an increase in the minimum wage to USD10.10 to lift hundreds of thousands of people above the poverty line.

sourced:ttrweekly.com 

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