MILWAUKEE – On Wednesday,
employees at big fast food and retail chains stopped work for the day to demand
a higher minimum wage, MSNBC reports. An estimated 150 to 200 workers joined
the strike, which sought to increase the minimum wage from Wisconsin’s current
$7.25 to $15 per hour. Also at issue was the right to unionize.
Workers from TJ Maxx and
McDonald’s were among the employees on strike. “I’m for a minimum wage because
I want to live comfortably, pay my bills, provide for my daughter and not feel
like I can’t eat next week…because I spent my money on rent,” said Kenny Mack,
who works in maintenance worker at McDonald’s and takes home $10 an hour.
“People can’t survive on $7.25, especially with their current hours,” he said.,
Over the course of several
months, other protests have taken place in Chicago, Detroit, New York and St.
Louis. Organizers are asking for a national call for upping the minimum wage to
$15 per hour. President Obama called for raising the federal minimum wage from
$7.25 to $9 per hour in his State of the Union address.
“I think workers
definitely felt — seeing New York demand $15, seeing other cities demand $15 — they
felt like that was reasonable,” said Jennifer Epps-Addison with Citizen Action
of Wisconsin. Epps-Addison also said workers wanted to be able to form a union.
“A few weeks previously, they voted and decided they wanted to form their own
union, and formed an organizing committee to start building a union campaign,”
she said.