Fast food and other low-wage workers from across the nation and their allies will converge in Richmond, VA for the first-ever Fight for 15 Convention next month.
The gathering will mark the first time workers from dozens of industries will join together.
According to a press release sent to EBONY, nearly 20 million workers have won significant raises since the movement that started a little under four years ago.
“Workers in the Fight for 15 will use this convention to draw links between America’s low-wage crisis and the legacy of racist policies that have held back working people of color,” the press release states.
Fast-food, home care, child care, and other underpaid workers will also vote on a plan to mobilize the nearly 64 million Americans paid less than $15 an hour throughout this year’s election and beyond.
“Home care workers like me have never been treated with the respect we deserve,” Lauralyn Clark, a 53-year-old home care worker from Ruther Glen, VA. “For far too long, we were left out of basic labor protections and denied minimum wage and overtime pay. It's been over one hundred fifty years since we abolished slavery, but we still have slave wage jobs where we're not paid enough to survive."
The convention will be the culmination of a massive 10,000-participant march on monuments to the Confederacy that still stand today. The two-day convention will take place on Friday August 12 & Saturday August 13 at the heart of the former Confederacy.
For more information, visit www.fightfor15.org.
