Low-Wage Workers Walk out in Chicago

Low-Wage Workers Walk out in Chicago

NBC Chicago is reporting that “hundreds of fast-food and retail workers walked off their jobs Wednesday morning to…call for higher wages” and the ability to unionize without intimidation. For many workers, like Esly Hernandez (interviewed by Ned Resnikoff at MSNBC), it’s also about dignity: “They don’t even appreciate the work that I do. They don’t even say thank you. They treat you like you’re a robot.”

As Josh Eidelson wrote last night at Salon, “The work stoppage follows similar strikes by New York City fast food workers and by Wal-Mart retail employees across the country, and marks the latest escalation in the struggle between an embattled labor movement and two industries that increasingly dominate and define the new economy.”

The campaign is spearheaded by the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, aka Fight for 15. Dissent followers should recognize their music, which we are proud to use as the theme song for the Belabored podcast.

We’ll have more on the story soon.