Despite Hundreds of Arrests, Striking Workers Remain Undaunted in Fight for $15

Hundreds of service workers were arrested while striking for a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a union in cities across the county on Tuesday, organizers said, but the strikers remain undaunted.

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“We won’t back down until we win an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few at the top,” said Naquasia LeGrand, a McDonald’s worker from Albemarle, North Carolina. “Working moms like me are struggling all across the country and until politicians and corporations hear our voices, our Fight for $15 is going to keep on getting bigger, bolder and ever more relentless.”

“We work at O’Hare, one of the biggest airports in the world, but we still live in poverty. I’m fighting because I’m not afraid,” said one airport employee in Chicago.

Independent outlet Unicorn Riot captured footage of the arrests of 21 striking workers in the early morning hours in Minneapolis, with some workers even being arrested in the middle of interviews with reporters. Another video in Los Angeles shows riot police surrounding workers on strike.

Workers were arrested in Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, and elsewhere.

The strike, organized by the Fight for $15 collective, is the first of its kind since the election of President-elect Donald Trump, and the nationwide action has inspired observers who see the workers’ solidarity and commitment to their cause as a lesson for progressives facing an extreme right-wing administration.

“Politics might be the art of the possible, but organizing is the art of making more possible.”
—Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)”Their courage, bold vision, solidarity across race and gender, and vision for economic fairness have transformed what is possible for low-wage workers,” writes New York City council member Brad Lander in the Nation. “We’re going to need that courage in the days ahead, in the face of hate crimes and bullying, the loss of health care, the threats to immigrants, to Muslims, to women—such a long list that the erosion of workers’ rights barely gets a mention.”

“By rejecting the reactionary politics of divisiveness and relentlessly opposing injustice in all its forms, the workers in the Fight for $15 are lighting the way forward for our nation,” said the Rev. William Barber II. “We need to come together across lines of class, race, and gender, and tell our newly elected leaders in one clear voice that we will not let you divide us, oppress us, or take us one step backward in our march towards a more perfect union. The fight for voting rights, living wages, and civil rights are all one fight.”