In Latest Round of Fast Food Strikes, Fight for $15 Tells Politicians: “Come Get My Vote”

[eridani]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18593/fight-for-15-fast-food-strikes-politicians-black-lives-matter

On Tuesday, one year before the 2016 presidential election, thousands of fast food workers walked out of their jobs in 270 cities. Organizers say it is the largest action yet by the three-year old Fight for $15 movement. An even larger number of workers from other low-paying jobs joined them in marches on

local city halls in a total of 500 cities to send a message to political candidates: they represent 42 percent of the American workforce, and if they register to vote and go to the polls, they could make a huge difference in next year’s elections.

Their challenge to politicians was simple: “Come get my vote.” If candidates want this bloc of voters, they will have to support a minimum wage of $15 an hour, protect the right to organize a union, provide affordable child care and high-quality long-term care, reform immigration laws and address racism towards African-Americans.

“I’m not just giving my vote away any more,” said Mary Hood, a single mother working at a Chicago McDonald’s restaurant. “If you want my vote, you have to come to get it.”

The movement, in turn, will face the challenge of demonstrating that it can deliver that low-income bloc of Americans, including many black and Latino voters, who historically do not register or vote with anything approaching the reliability of higher-income voters. Polling undertaken on behalf of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a research and advocacy group focused on low-income workers, suggested that candidates who promote the Fight for $15 agenda would inspire and attract such voters,

but it would likely require massive, targeted organizing to make that happen.

“If organizing and GOTV this election mobilize this vote,” says SEIU Illinois-Indiana Health Care president Keith Kelleher, “then we win the election, nationally and locally.