Ferguson and the Fight for 15

The McDonald’s on West Florrisant Avenue in Ferguson became a notorious corner of a notorious city for a violent altercation between journalists and over-militarized police during the protests of mid-August. But the Ferguson McDonald’s has also come to symbolize something deeper than just confrontations between cops and civilians: the emergence of a new labor-civil rights alliance predicated on the notion that black lives matter.

Workers and activists around the country organizing under the banner of Fight for 15 have begun to generate momentum towards raising the minimum wage to $15, through government action and by pressuring individual employers. They also seek to unionize low-wage workers, particularly in the fast food industry. A national strike day has been declared for Wednesday, April 15, when thousands of workers nationwide will walk off the job to protest low wages and poor treatment. But the movement still has a long way to go. In recent months, living wage advocates have drawn attention to the connections between their goals and the goals of the Ferguson movement: affirming that black lives matter, in communities and in workplaces.

“There’s a system in place that continues to hold people back—and that’s the case in the workplace as well,” said Rasheen Aldridge, a prominent Ferguson protester and local leader of Fight for 15. “One key thing that connects both movements is poverty. If we had jobs in our communities that actually paid people a livable wage, not a minimum wage that isn’t even survival, we would get rid of crime and violence in our communities. People wouldn’t have to worry about the lights going off or about getting childcare.”

Aldridge’s leadership in both movements is indicative of their shared values and deep ties. Aldridge started organizing with Fight for 15 as an 18-year-old fast food worker. Two years later, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon appointed him to the Ferguson Commission due to his constant presence at protests and the respect he garnered from other activists.

The strength of the two movements, Aldridge said, is their willingness to make “people who have been comfortable, uncomfortable” through strikes and protests.

While the organizing strength of local activists has been crucial for building momentum and support, national labor unions have played an outsize role in synthesizing the message and turning disparate local campaigns into a national movement. Crucial to that quest, say union leaders, is framing the issue of a living wage as an issue of racial equality.

“We are deeply concerned with winning racial justice as it relates to economic justice,” said Mary Kay Henry, the international president of the Service Employees International Union during an interview with the Political Review last week. “Most of the workers in minimum wage jobs in this country are the result of structural racism. Fifty percent of jobs that pay minimum wage are held by people of color, and that’s not coincidence and it’s not happenstance.”

The SEIU’s role in the movement has not been universally welcomed. A 2013 feature by In These Times, a labor-focused magazine, raised questions about the motivations of the SEIU for supporting Fight for 15. “Many believe the endgame will be determined by an SEIU leadership that is not in contact with the daily realities of the campaign,” the magazine reported. “Workers and field organizers across the country… say they’re concerned that the top-down organizing may benefit SEIU leaders at the expense of the workers.”

Still, the SEIU’s national network, with around two million members, and its well-funded war chest have provided low-wage workers with a powerful ally. The SEIU’s local chapters have promised to provide support for any low-wage worker who faces intimidation or termination from an employer for labor activism.

By embracing the Fight for 15, Henry and the SEIU continue their campaign to make their union more representative of the American working class. American organized labor has often been criticized for its racism and exclusion of communities of color. Henry, however, painted labor unions as the victim of decades of smear tactics by conservatives, who have made “a concerted attempt to divide the white working class from people of color.”

Whatever the reason for racial divisions in organized labor, Henry said that there are four things unions must do to build a functional alliance between the white working class and working people of color. Soul searching is important: members must recognize the roots of their own racist behavior. Representation matters as well: the union leadership should reflect its overall membership, which has growing numbers of African-American and Latino members. Then, the union can take on problems of race, such as mass incarceration, in the political arena, which will ultimately lead to changing structures that “disparately impact people of color and specifically African Americans.”

When asked if she viewed the Fight for 15 as a campaign for reparations for the African American community, Henry said that although “we haven’t had a debate inside our union, I just talk about [reparations] as something that needs to be kept on the table. How do you make sure that all African American communities get targeted work done as we have universal goals like healthcare and childcare?”

Through his work at the Ferguson Commission, Aldridge believes that what’s most important for both movements, Ferguson and Fight for 15, is that people engage with the issues and challenge conventional thinking.

“When this campaign started, the minimum wage wasn’t a topic,” he said. The [Ferguson Commission] has to ask itself, what are we going to do for workers in this community? This goes beyond Ferguson, it’s about healing the St. Louis region.”

Still, Aldridge recognizes that changing systems of racial and economic oppression won’t happen quickly. Anti-labor Republicans control both chambers of the Missouri legislature, where they are in the midst of crafting “right-to-work” legislation that would severely impair labor organizing in the state. Gov. Nixon has said that he “has never seen a right-to-work” bill he would sign, but he will have to leave office due to term limits in January 2017. If Jefferson City manages to push through right-to-work, Missouri would become the latest in a string of Midwestern states—notably Wisconsin, Indiana, and a pending attempt in Illinois— to take anti-union action.

Despite the current lack of political will, Aldridge cautions against betting against popular movements. After all, the events of Ferguson have forced Missouri lawmakers to take on legislation limiting municipal revenue from traffic fines and mandating the use of body cameras by police. Both measures enjoy significant bipartisan support.

“I urge the commission to push [the issue of the living wage], even if they know Jefferson City isn’t going to agree with it,” Aldridge said. “We need to stop doing status quo things.”