Fast-food workers and care staff are holding a Black History Month strike in 15 cities to push for a $15 minimum wage

<p><img src="https://static6.businessinsider.com/image/602a77c5b3c2a800183ccd83-1755/GettyImages-1227708129.jpg" border="0" alt="minimum wage protest" data-mce-source="Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="A group of BLM demonstrators protest the Federal Reserve Bank about $15 minimum wage in NYC to solidarity nationwide in Lower Manhattan at the financial district in New York, United States on July 20, 2020"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Fast-food, home-care, and nursing-home workers will strike on Tuesday for a $15 minimum wage, more training, and better COVID-19 safety measures.</p><p>Some workers from fast-food chains including McDonald's, Burger King, Domino's, Taco Bell, and Wendy's would strike in 15 cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Houston, according to Fight for $15, a group that advocates for raising the minimum wage.</p><p>This comes as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-pelosi-minimum-wage-increase-coronavirus-relief-2021-2">President Joe Biden pushes for a $15 federal minimum wage</a>, despite&nbsp;opposition from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-another-democratic-senator-sinema-minimum-wage-relief-package-2021-2">Republican lawmakers and some Democratic politicians</a>.</p><p>Tuesday's strike will focus on Black communities "who have faced generations of low pay and insufficient protections on the job, leaving them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19," the group told Insider.</p><p>Fight for $15 has been staging walkouts since 2012 to advocate for an increase in the minimum wage and is supported by the Service Employees International Union.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-15-minimum-wage-increase-benefit-black-workers-2021-1">Nearly a third of Black workers would get a raise if the minimum wage rises to $15</a>, the Economic Policy Institute found.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-increase-15-stimulus-pandemic-biden-congress-2021-2'r=gd-sub" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="60" data-uri="11dc198ac3cea7eece9117d27b55c0f8">Joe Biden's $15 minimum wage plan is complicating the stimulus action. There are two major hurdles: opposition on both sides, and an arcane Senate rule.</a></em></p><p>Home care and nursing home workers, including members of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Service Employees International Union, will also strike on Tuesday. Alongside the $15 minimum wage, they'll demand better wages, benefits, and training, Fight for $15 said.</p><p dir="ltr">The care workers will be taking action outside agencies that oversee Medicaid in at least 15 cities, including Atlanta and Los Angeles, calling for a major investment in Medicaid, it said.</p><p dir="ltr">"As a home care worker who has been told I'm essential but treated like I'm expendable, this fight is about paybut it's also about respect and a voice on the job for all workers," Joyce Barnes, a home care worker from Richmond, Virginia, said in a statement provided by&nbsp;Fight for $15.</p><p dir="ltr">In Orlando and Tampa, striking workers will also protest against an <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-prem-bz-brandes-reduced-minimum-wage-legislation-20210208-t7zxlreainc35mg5eybsd5rjy4-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url'q=https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-prem-bz-brandes-reduced-minimum-wage-legislation-20210208-t7zxlreainc35mg5eybsd5rjy4-story.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613564070223000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGznyPk6Ol7YZFkaGyWsNPt9FuGcg">effort by a Republican legislator</a> to make workers who have been previously incarcerated, are under 21, or are considered "hard to hire," ineligible for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-minimum-wage-rise-vote-amendment-15-tipped-employees-workers-2020-11">Florida's $15 minimum wage</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">The strikes were first reported by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/12/fast-food-workers-15-cities-black-history-month-strike-15-an-hour">The Guardian</a>.</p><h3 dir="ltr">Doubling national wage would mean one in five Americans earn more</h3><p>A national minimum wage of $15, up from the current $7.25, would&nbsp;mean around one in five Americans earns more, the Economic Policy Institute said. It could also help <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-15-minimum-wage-increase-benefit-black-workers-2021-1">reduce income equality</a>, its research found, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-15-minimum-wage-increase-benefit-black-workers-2021-1">women, minorities, and frontline workers</a> benefiting the most.</p><p>"[The minimum wage increase] would change my life a lot," McDonald's worker Gloria Machuca, who earns $9.50 an hour, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-15-minimum-wage-would-mean-businesses-workers-employment-2021-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="60" data-uri="c78b746369145d0ff2462e5b1328a5c4">told Insider's Juliana Kaplan</a>. Until recently she worked 80-hour weeks across two different McDonald's branches to support her six children.</p><p>"It is not fair that we work so much and that we have to suffer this much," she added.</p><p>Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-15-minimum-wage-election-economy-paychecks-low-workers-2020-10" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="80" data-uri="24c38562820444f1f2e20b4f48767323">pushed for a $15 minimum wage</a> during his campaign, and it's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-stimulus-plan-15-dollar-minimum-wage-proposal-economic-aid-2021-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="80" data-uri="49558e87625939ea0fa68f2ac4e7d105">part of his $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal</a>, though this has faced&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-stimulus-plan-uphill-battle-through-congress-republicans-economic-aid-2021-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="80" data-uri="75393511e90828da2f981ae8ca61e644">pushback from Republican senators</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-another-democratic-senator-sinema-minimum-wage-relief-package-2021-2">some Democratic lawmakers</a>.</p><p>Speaker of the House <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-pelosi-minimum-wage-increase-coronavirus-relief-2021-2">Nancy Pelosi</a> confirmed that the minimum wage increase to $15, which would happen incrementally over five years, would be included in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-package-pelosi-minimum-wage-increase-coronavirus-relief-2021-2">House's stimulus package being given to the Senate</a>.</p><p>The federal minimum wage has not been raised in more than a decade. In 2019, the US House of Representatives passed a plan to incrementally raise the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/us/politics/minimum-wage.html" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="b0d5be6b073f1c8fab5f9bedfb053ac0">federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025</a>, but the Senate rejected it.</p><p>This push for a wage rise comes as states are boosting their own minimum wages.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/every-state-raising-its-minimum-wage-in-2021-15-2021-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="55e099e57df01ee560a21e35c1e518cd">Twenty states increased their minimum wages at the start of 2021</a>, and several more are set to see boosts in the coming months.</p><p>Companies are increasingly taking the matter into their own hands, too. Among those that have raised, or announced plans to raise, their hourly minimum wage to $15 or higher are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wayfair-ups-wages-to-15-pandemic-2021-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="739b32e89daceed97fb0c4a29c9797a9">Wayfair</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-plans-for-15-minimum-wage-across-us-stores-2020-12" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="d0c6710dd4a541a55eb47c8f096dcf6b">Starbucks</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/target-raises-its-minimum-wage-to-15-dollars-an-hour-2020-6" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="f4a05ffe8759605da7704cb1c7419a4b">Target</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-to-15-dollars-2018-10" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="cd2e32e3f530371edd940de8739ee680">Amazon</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/costco-raises-minimum-wage-war-for-talent-2019-3" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-uri="b41e7430eb14735e40af3bd7421d3f0e">Costco</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-food-workers-strike-15-minimum-wage-stimulus-bhm-biden-2021-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-travel-during-coronavirus-outbreak-planes-airports-virus-2020-3">Here's what it's like to travel during the coronavirus outbreak</a></p>
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