Protest on Six Continents; Adjunct Professors, Home Care, Child Care, Transportation, Fast Food, Janitorial, and Walmart Workers to Rally Coast to Coast. Fast Food Strikes Slated for 200 U.S. Cities including Boston.
College Students in Mass. Raise Curtain on National Wave of Campus Protest
BOSTON, MA – Thousands of underpaid workers frustrated by low wages will rally, strike, and march in Boston on Tuesday, April 14th to call for higher wages and to kick off a global wave of protests against wage inequality. As one of the first cities in which the growing Fight for $15 movement has spread to multiple industries, Boston will be the launch point for the largest ever global mobilization of the underpaid when workers, students, and their supporters take to the streets on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is leading the nation with three groundbreaking pieces of legislation intended to lift up low wage workers (see details below).
The two-and-half-year-old Fight for $15 will also visit colleges, with students from hundreds of campuses expected to protest, including locally at Boston University, Northeastern University, UMass-Boston, UMass-Amherst, Roxbury Community College, Harvard University, Emerson College, Tufts University, Clark University, Lesley University, Boston College, Brandeis University, and more. Following the global kick off event in Boston on April 14, protests will stretch around the globe the next day, with demonstrations expected in more than 200 U.S. cities, 100 international cities, in 40 countries, and on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo.
A recent Brookings Institution study shows that Boston is the third most inequitable city in the nation, with the top 5 percent of households earning 15 times what the bottom twenty make. Massive income disparity is badly hurting this country and on April 14, low wage workers and their allies will take action to address the growing wage inequality crisis.
Fight for $15 Day of Action – April 14 mobilization schedule for Boston, MA
4:00 p.m. – Workers and students assemble for a massive mobilization at Forsyth Park, 235 Hemenway St., Boston just off Huntington Ave. near Northeastern University. Brief rally program before march will include low wage workers from multiple industries. Also featuring: Gladys Vega, Executive Director of Chelsea Collaborative; Veronica Turner, Executive VP of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East; Steve Tolman, President of Mass. AFL-CIO; Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org.
4:50 p.m. – March to downtown Boston begins on Huntington Ave., departing from Forsyth Park.
5:00 p.m. – March arrives at Northeastern University, Krentzman Quadrangle, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston - Protesting poverty wages among adjunct professors.
5:20 p.m. – March arrives at 31 St. James Ave., Boston - In support of fair wages for janitors in Boston’s office buildings.
5:25 p.m. – March arrives at Medical Resource Home Health Corp., 359 Boylston St., Boston - In support of home care workers who have joined the Fight for $15.
5:35 p.m. – March arrives in Chinatown, intersection of Washington Street and Boylston Street, where healthcare workers will call on Tufts Medical Center executives to respect workers’ rights and prioritize services for low-income residents during merger negotiations with Boston Medical Center.
5:40 p.m. – March arrives at Chinatown MBTA stop where affordable housing advocates will speak out in a protest against gentrification, specifically against First Suffolk LLC*, a property management outfit that ruthlessly displaced Chinatown tenants in the midst of one of this winter’s most vicious blizzards. *Note: First Suffolk LLC is not affiliated with Suffolk Construction.
5:50 p.m. – March arrives at McDonald’s, 145 Tremont St., Boston where striking fast food workers will speak out against poverty pay.
6:00 p.m. – March arrives at AMC Loews Boston Common Theater, 175 Tremont St., where the cinema continues to employ a janitorial subcontractor found by the AG's office to have engaged in prolific wage theft.
Legislative efforts underway
Massachusetts is leading the nation with three groundbreaking bills impacting low wage workers.
Home care workers bill
Provides $15 an hour to nearly 20,000 workers who provide home care to seniors and people with disabilities through “agency” home care employers.Requires annual cost reporting from home care agencies, including detailed financial disclosures of executive compensation and overhead costs.Fast food and big box retail workers bill
Requires big box retail and fast food corporations to pay their employees at least $15 an hour by 2018.Applies to hourly wage workers at corporate fast food chains and Big Box stores over 25,000 square feet and with 200 or more employees in Massachusetts.Tipped wage bill
Gradually eliminates the subminimum wage for tipped workers.Mandates that after 2022, tipped employees would have the same hourly minimum wage as workers in all other industries in Massachusetts.
Additional pre-mobilization actions including regional bus information
11:00 a.m. – Fast Food Strike against poverty wages at McDonald’s, Codman Square, 605 Washington Street, Dorchester Center
1:30 p.m. – Western Mass. Bus Launch, The Plantation Inn, 295 Burnett Rd, Chicopee
1:30 p.m. – Amherst Bus Launch, Haigis Mall of UMass-Amherst, Amherst
1:30 p.m. – McDonald’s Protest & Fall River Bus Launch, Intersection of President Ave. & Elsbree Street, Fall River
2:00 p.m. – Central Mass. Bus Launch, Crystal Park: Intersection of Main & Crystal Street, Worcester
2:30 p.m. – Harvard Square: Student Fight for $15 rally and feeder mobilization to Forsyth Park, Harvard Square MBTA stop, Cambridge
2:30 p.m. – Brockton Bus Launch, D’Angelo’s Plaza, 739 Belmont Street, Brockton
2:45 p.m. – McDonald’s Protest & Lynn Bus Launch, 112 Exchange Street, Lynn, MA
3:00 p.m. – Student Fight for $15 Rally & Direct Action at McDonald’s, Kenmore Square, 540 Commonwealth Ave., Boston
3:15 p.m. – Chelsea Bus Launch, Chelsea Collaborative, 318 Broadway, Chelsea
# # #
The #WageAction coalition includes a range of Massachusetts community, religious, and labor groups united in support of the Fight for $15 and in the fight against income inequality. More info at http://www.WageAction.org.
College Students in Mass. Raise Curtain on National Wave of Campus Protest
BOSTON, MA – Thousands of underpaid workers frustrated by low wages will rally, strike, and march in Boston on Tuesday, April 14th to call for higher wages and to kick off a global wave of protests against wage inequality. As one of the first cities in which the growing Fight for $15 movement has spread to multiple industries, Boston will be the launch point for the largest ever global mobilization of the underpaid when workers, students, and their supporters take to the streets on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is leading the nation with three groundbreaking pieces of legislation intended to lift up low wage workers (see details below).
The two-and-half-year-old Fight for $15 will also visit colleges, with students from hundreds of campuses expected to protest, including locally at Boston University, Northeastern University, UMass-Boston, UMass-Amherst, Roxbury Community College, Harvard University, Emerson College, Tufts University, Clark University, Lesley University, Boston College, Brandeis University, and more. Following the global kick off event in Boston on April 14, protests will stretch around the globe the next day, with demonstrations expected in more than 200 U.S. cities, 100 international cities, in 40 countries, and on six continents, from Sao Paolo to Tokyo.
A recent Brookings Institution study shows that Boston is the third most inequitable city in the nation, with the top 5 percent of households earning 15 times what the bottom twenty make. Massive income disparity is badly hurting this country and on April 14, low wage workers and their allies will take action to address the growing wage inequality crisis.
Fight for $15 Day of Action – April 14 mobilization schedule for Boston, MA
4:00 p.m. – Workers and students assemble for a massive mobilization at Forsyth Park, 235 Hemenway St., Boston just off Huntington Ave. near Northeastern University. Brief rally program before march will include low wage workers from multiple industries. Also featuring: Gladys Vega, Executive Director of Chelsea Collaborative; Veronica Turner, Executive VP of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East; Steve Tolman, President of Mass. AFL-CIO; Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org.
4:50 p.m. – March to downtown Boston begins on Huntington Ave., departing from Forsyth Park.
5:00 p.m. – March arrives at Northeastern University, Krentzman Quadrangle, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston - Protesting poverty wages among adjunct professors.
5:20 p.m. – March arrives at 31 St. James Ave., Boston - In support of fair wages for janitors in Boston’s office buildings.
5:25 p.m. – March arrives at Medical Resource Home Health Corp., 359 Boylston St., Boston - In support of home care workers who have joined the Fight for $15.
5:35 p.m. – March arrives in Chinatown, intersection of Washington Street and Boylston Street, where healthcare workers will call on Tufts Medical Center executives to respect workers’ rights and prioritize services for low-income residents during merger negotiations with Boston Medical Center.
5:40 p.m. – March arrives at Chinatown MBTA stop where affordable housing advocates will speak out in a protest against gentrification, specifically against First Suffolk LLC*, a property management outfit that ruthlessly displaced Chinatown tenants in the midst of one of this winter’s most vicious blizzards. *Note: First Suffolk LLC is not affiliated with Suffolk Construction.
5:50 p.m. – March arrives at McDonald’s, 145 Tremont St., Boston where striking fast food workers will speak out against poverty pay.
6:00 p.m. – March arrives at AMC Loews Boston Common Theater, 175 Tremont St., where the cinema continues to employ a janitorial subcontractor found by the AG's office to have engaged in prolific wage theft.
Legislative efforts underway
Massachusetts is leading the nation with three groundbreaking bills impacting low wage workers.
Home care workers bill
Provides $15 an hour to nearly 20,000 workers who provide home care to seniors and people with disabilities through “agency” home care employers.Requires annual cost reporting from home care agencies, including detailed financial disclosures of executive compensation and overhead costs.Fast food and big box retail workers bill
Requires big box retail and fast food corporations to pay their employees at least $15 an hour by 2018.Applies to hourly wage workers at corporate fast food chains and Big Box stores over 25,000 square feet and with 200 or more employees in Massachusetts.Tipped wage bill
Gradually eliminates the subminimum wage for tipped workers.Mandates that after 2022, tipped employees would have the same hourly minimum wage as workers in all other industries in Massachusetts.
Additional pre-mobilization actions including regional bus information
11:00 a.m. – Fast Food Strike against poverty wages at McDonald’s, Codman Square, 605 Washington Street, Dorchester Center
1:30 p.m. – Western Mass. Bus Launch, The Plantation Inn, 295 Burnett Rd, Chicopee
1:30 p.m. – Amherst Bus Launch, Haigis Mall of UMass-Amherst, Amherst
1:30 p.m. – McDonald’s Protest & Fall River Bus Launch, Intersection of President Ave. & Elsbree Street, Fall River
2:00 p.m. – Central Mass. Bus Launch, Crystal Park: Intersection of Main & Crystal Street, Worcester
2:30 p.m. – Harvard Square: Student Fight for $15 rally and feeder mobilization to Forsyth Park, Harvard Square MBTA stop, Cambridge
2:30 p.m. – Brockton Bus Launch, D’Angelo’s Plaza, 739 Belmont Street, Brockton
2:45 p.m. – McDonald’s Protest & Lynn Bus Launch, 112 Exchange Street, Lynn, MA
3:00 p.m. – Student Fight for $15 Rally & Direct Action at McDonald’s, Kenmore Square, 540 Commonwealth Ave., Boston
3:15 p.m. – Chelsea Bus Launch, Chelsea Collaborative, 318 Broadway, Chelsea
# # #
The #WageAction coalition includes a range of Massachusetts community, religious, and labor groups united in support of the Fight for $15 and in the fight against income inequality. More info at http://www.WageAction.org.
