Dozens arrested during protests for higher minimum wages

And then this summer he said at a press conference that the federal “minimum wage has to go up” to at least $10, but only a few months earlier he said it should be up to each state to decide. But Major isn’t done striking.

“Fifteen dollars is just a number”, he said. “Right here, right now, we’re ready”, he said. But for Major, it’s also a sign of the work that remains. “Even $15 an hour, what folks are asking for, still gets you to only $31,000 a year”, said Erika Zucker, with Workplace Justice Project at the Loyola Law Center.

The protests in the capital city are part of a national movement with workers in more than 340 cities taking part.

But Lathrop noted that in Seattle, which has begun phasing in a $15 minimum wage, there has been job growth in the restaurant industry, the employment sector most affected by the increase.

Protesters have tended to view franchise brands like McDonald’s as a monolithic corporation rather than as a community of small business owners.

“All these people don’t have savings because we’re working check to check”, New Yorker Flavia Cabral, who works two jobs, said Tuesday.

“I’m taken away because I have a right and I’ll fight”, she said. “Fast food workers … we need more money. But when people join together, good things can happen”.

Chris Geehern, spokesman for the trade group Associated Industries of MA, said business owners who have had to grapple with paid sick time, a rising minimum wage, and a gender pay equity law “feel as if they’re under siege”.

Still, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington approved state minimum wage increases advocates vowed to continue pressing their case at the state and local levels.

Already, Massachusetts’ minimum wage tracks ahead of the national average, and is set to rise in January to $11/hour as part of previously passed legislation. But while appreciative of that increase, workers said it still wasn’t enough to make ends meet. “By speaking out and sticking together, the courageous workers at the heart of the Fight for $15 movement have delivered meaningful, life-changing wage increases for 19 million low-wage workers and their families around the country”. The institute called them “cautionary tales”.

Fast food and other service workers walked off the job in a nationwide protest Tuesday. That will eventually reach $15 at the end of 2018, under an agreement reached by state officials previous year.

“Together we will keep fighting for $15 (an hour minimum wage), a union, racial, immigrant and environmental justice”, Henry said of the protests among restaurant workers, as well as those in healthcare, retail and maintenance.