Fightfor15 to include childcare, healthcare, college students and adjunct professors

DETROIT, MI – In a procession that snaked through Wayne State University and wound its way to one of the longest thoroughfares in Detroit, some 2,000 low-wage workers and their supporters created the largest mass rally yet in the battle to secure a livable wage.

Childcare and home healthcare workers along with students and adjunct professors from across Michigan are the latest workforce to join a 2 ˝ year- long battle initiated by fast food and retail workers for a $15 hourly wage and the right to form a union without interference. The more than mile long trek included a rally at an apt venue (the Walter Reuther Library) and ended with a march around a McDonald’s drive-thru, where two workers went on strike today.

A rolling disc jockey accompanied the march, leading protestors in a call and response chant of, “What do we want?” “Fifteen!” and When do we want it?” “Now!”

“People don’t understand the fact of how little we get paid,” said Kimie Jones, a 43-year-old mother of five who earns the state’s hourly minimum wage of $8.15 in both her childcare and home healthcare jobs, work she took on after getting laid off in 2009. “We just want a livable pay so that we have enough to take care of ourselves.”

SEIU Healthcare Michigan President Marge Robinson spoke at the library rally and noted that the average pay for home healthcare workers is $13,000 a year---despite it being one of the fastest growing professions.

“I believe these corporations make billions, yet too many workers take home pennies,” Robinson said. “Nearly 50 percent of caregivers who work in other people’s homes live in households that receive some form of public assistance.”

Workers chose tax day both because the date---4/15---is their demand and because they want to highlight that they are paid so little that many have to rely on public assistance to get by.

“Part-time faculty work without paid benefits, just as minimum wage workers do; we do not have health insurance or retirement,” said Susan Titus, an adjunct professor at Wayne State University’s School of Social Work. “Many of us teach at several schools…just to make ends meet.”

The lead-up to the largest mobilization to date of low-wage workers got a jumpstart Tuesday night, when three workers walked off the job and some 100 protestors took over the lobby and brought business to a halt inside a Detroit McDonald’s.

“We’re fired up! Can’t take it no more! We’re fired up! Can’t take it no more,” protestors shouted. The rally lasted just under an hour.

Ashley Hosler was among those who walked of her McDonald’s job Tuesday night. She held up her wrist to reveal a grease burn, which is among the controversies tried to the corporation’s mistreatment of its workers.

D15 is a coalition of low wage workers and their supporters who are fighting to secure a $15 hourly wage and the right to form a union without interference. For more information, go to www.fightfor15.org