Imagine life on $320 a week. Before taxes. Now throw in holiday shopping lists and — if you're lucky enough to get a day off on the holiday — the family dinner menu.
The working poor often have to scramble to save up for holiday celebration with their families, and often they just cannot afford to celebrate at all. While that wasn't the explicit reason low-wage earners gathered at more than 150 notoriously low-paying fast-food joints across the country, the fact that they have to scrape in order to participate in traditions most of us take for granted — if they can celebrate at all — illustrates the plight of many of these working families.
Tampa resident Imani Johns, who was demonstrating outside a north Tampa Burger King Thursday afternoon, has worked for Taco Bell for two years. She says it’s very disappointing that she cannot afford to buy gifts for her goddaughter.
“It’s kind of embarrassing," she said. "I have a credit card, but what’s the point in using it if I still don’t have enough money to pay it back?”
She says her goddaughter’s mother, who works for McDonald's, could not attend the protest because she could not afford a babysitter.
Although the demonstrators say they're fighting for a $15-per-hour minimum wage, many low-wage earners say the paltry paycheck is just part of the problem, that the emerging prevalence of wage theft, unsafe working conditions, unreliable work schedules and an utter lack of accessible public transportation in our communities across the state have workers fed up.
As projected, the campaign was able to draw as many protesters as they had in their protest back in September. One hundred individuals marched up and down Fowler Avenue this afternoon, accompanied by a half a dozen police officers, who were both professional and gracious, as they kindly halted traffic for the group to cross through several intersections. Along the way, the group stopped at four locations, including McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, and Taco Bell.
At each stop, a handful of protesters were led into each storefront by economic justice advocate Reverend Bruce Wright, who heads The Poor People’s Economic Rights Campaign. Inside he read a speech to workers on duty, informing them of their right to walk off the job in protest to join the strike.
“We explain to them that it is their legal right by federal law to do a walkout for collective bargaining to ask for fair wages, safe working conditions and the right to form a union," he said. "That’s their legal right.”
The consensus among the fast food workers in attendance is that limiting the hours of employees who are willing and able to work is tantamount to wage theft.
"You do the math," Johns said. "There just isn't any money to spare on the holidays. I’m not looking for a huge miracle. It would be nice to look forward to just one paycheck extra here and there to be able to do something nice for my family. Something is better than nothing, something more than $7.93 an hour."
Roderick Livingston recently started working at Taco Bell. At 27 years old, he has been working in the restaurant industry since he was 15.
“The cost of living has gone up tremendously," he said. "It’s sort of impossible to save for the holidays when I have two children to take care of. Holiday season is horrible when you don’t get to see your kids as happy as other kids. For shareholders and CEOs' kids, it’s a holiday all year round,” he says.
Since the protests began, some of the workers aren't even allowed to leave the building on their lunch breaks. They have no choice but to eat at work and they have to pay for it.
"They aren't thinking about veganism or vegetarianism, they are thinking about filling their stomachs, how they are going to feed their kids and what is most cost effective,” said activist Char Singleton.
At 43, Marlene Volpe worked for Taco Bell for five years. She had to take some time off work to aid her ailing 82-year-old father; as a result, she says her employer slowly cut her hours from full-time to one day a week and finally down to two hours a week.
“I explained to them the whole situation," Volpe said. "They forced me to quit.”
Her son, 21 and also recently laid off, also works in the industry.
“Christmas is horrible," she said. "We don’t even have a tree, but it is what it is; we are just trying to make it as best we can as a family.”
She says that even in her former line of work in hotels, she saw the slow decline in fair work conditions as hotels were slowly bought out by corporations.
Tiarra Callan came from Orlando to strike. She is representing Fight for 15’s Organize Now. She has been working for Popeye’s for two years and has a 3-year-old. She says that this is a very depressing time of year for low-wage workers.
“In my opinion, to survive and make a comfortable living in Florida, you have to have a job with benefits," she said. "Otherwise, you will live in poverty. You have to work several jobs just to get by.”
The Fight For 15 campaign is leading protests across the nation and making national headlines. A recent notable achievement of the campaign was in October, when they made it onto the front page of the New York Times' International Business section. The article compares the livable wages in Denmark to the not-so-livable ones in the States. The movement has expanded; it now intends to represent and call to action low-wage workers of all service sectors. It is not just the fast food workers they intend to recruit and inspire for change, but also those who work in gas stations, airports, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and security.
