Hundreds of minimum-wage workers from across the southern United States waved picket signs reading “show me $15 and a union” and chanted “we are the working underpaid” while walking from Clayborn Temple to Memphis City Hall and honoring the 50th anniversary of the Sanitation Strike of 1968.
The march was in support of the Poor People’s Campaign to help raise awareness and get the federal government to change their minimum wage to $15 as well as aid in lowering the poverty rates in Memphis and across the country. The march was part of a string of events leading up to April 4, the 50th anniversary for Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
A symposium at the National Civil Rights Museum featured Ashley Cathey, a fast-food worker; Tami Sawyer a community activist; Colleen Wessel-McCoy, co-coordinator of Poverty Scholarship, an organization that gives scholarships to students; and Elmore Nickleberry, a sanitation worker from 1968. They discussed what the movement means and why it is necessary for everyone to be involved with working toward better pay.
Stacey Spencer, president of Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, said the march affects him because he wants to be able to see people support their own families.
“We’re fighting for living wages and honoring the commitment of the sanitation workers who wanted to make sure that there were safe working conditions and living wages for those sanitation workers years ago,” Spencer said. “Even today, we need to fight for $15, so people have the right to make a living wage and not be stuck in poverty.”
Spencer said he wants to live long enough to see the minimum wage go up and help out families.
“It’s very important for me to be able to see others make a living wage because there is a big gap in poverty,” Spencer said. “I don’t want Memphis to be known as the city of impoverished people anymore. I want it to be seen as empowered people.”
Many employees from Christian Care Home, a nursing home in St. Louis that has been on strike for about 74 days, attended the march hoping their own wages would be raised.
Ingrid Ellis, a certified medication technician in St. Louis, said she is under the Service Employees International Union, and said she was at the march to help get the workers a union and a raise.
“I am fighting for $15 because the cost of living is up, and we can’t afford to raise our families with only $7,” Ellis said. “People can’t afford to bring up themselves with only $7 and something cents.”
Amy Jones, the chief shop steward at St. Louis University Hospital, said for people to have better living conditions, they must be better paid first.
“This personally affects me because I have family that works in fast-food places, like McDonald’s,” Jones said. “I’ve seen them decide on which bill they need paid more than their other bills. It’s heartbreaking.”
Nichole Scott, a certified nurse assistant from St. Louis, said she fully supports the fight for $15 because it is a fair working wage.
“This day and age, there’s no need for people to be still making $7.75,” Scott said. “You can’t raise yourself, let alone a family on that wage.”
Scott said the minimum wage indirectly affects her when she goes to fast-food restaurants.
“It affects me in the way that I’m treated in some establishments,” Scott said. “Some of these workers are disgruntled because they’re not making a feasible wage.”
The minimum wage in Seattle has been increasing since 2014, with the current minimum wage as high as $15.45 for employees without healthcare benefits at companies with more than 500 employees globally. Minimum wage in Seattle ranges from $11.50 to $15.45, depending on the work. The increase in minimum wage does not affect the restaurant services in Seattle as much as people thought, according to a study by University of California at Berkeley. The study found employment in food service was not affected, even among limited service restaurants for whom the policy would have had the most effect, and it did not lead to job loss or economic growth.
