50 years after the landmark Memphis Sanitation Strike, thousands of low wage workers are executing nationwide protests for higher pay.
According to a press release sent to EBONY, the workers who are part of the “Fight for $15” movement will join the new Poor People’s Campaign for a series of nonviolent acts of civil disobedience.
The activists will walk off of their jobs in protest on Feb. 12 — the 50th anniversary of the history Memphis sanitation strike.
The move will seek to continue the fight for higher wages and union rights that was led my hundreds of African-American municipal workers whose 1968 protest “became the rallying cry of the Poor People’s campaign led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
“Fast-food cooks and cashiers like me are fighting for higher pay and union rights, the same things striking sanitation workers fought for 50 years ago,” said Ashley Cathey, a 29-year-old Memphis fast-food worker. “We’re not striking and marching just to commemorate what they did – we’re carrying their fight forward. And we won’t stop until everyone in this country can be paid $15 an hour and has the right to join a union.”
The actions will stretch from coast-to-coast, with at cooks and cashiers in two-dozen cities across the Mid-South vowing to walk off of their jobs in a move than demands $15/hour.
For more information on the “Fight for 15” movement, visit www.fightfor15.org.
