This! Retail and Fast Food Workers Strike in Chicago's Magnificent Mile [View all]

[cali]

Chicago’s downtown Loop area is the heart of commerce in the city. But beginning at 5:30 A.M. today, fast food and retail workers there have gone on strike, following New York City fast food workers who walked off the job in November and again earlier this month demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
Organizers estimate about 500 workers, uniting under the name of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, will be striking today in industries long associated with low wages but unaccustomed to labor unrest. The campaign, backed by a coalition of Chicago unions and community organizations, has the lofty goal of winning a raise to $15 per hour for workers who make up nearly one-third of all jobs in the city.

Silvia Garduno, 27, works at a Sally’s Beauty Supply store in the Loop. The night before the strike, Garduno explained that despite working at the store (one location of “the largest retailer of professional beauty supplies in the world,” according to the company’s website) for three years, she earns $8.91 per hour.

“We’re the ones working our butts off,” Garduno says. “$8.91 is ridiculous—especially being downtown. We’re worth more.” The Loop sees about $4 billion in retail and fast food revenue each year.

In addition to low pay, Garduno says her work at Sally’s is sometimes dangerous, like when she says her store was robbed, and is often full of indignities, like when she had to take time off to tend to her sick mother and was told she might be fired.

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http://www.thenation.com/article/174016/retail-and-fast-food-workers-strike-chicagos-magnificent-mile#