On the next Your Call, we’ll talk about workers fighting for increased wages and the right to unionize. Last Thursday fast food workers in over 100 cities nationwide walked out for the fifth time in a year. Walmart workers protested and went on strike at 1500 stores on Black Friday in response to low wages and unpredictable schedules. What explains the rise of this movement, and where is it going? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and you.
Guests:
Arun Gupta, founding editor of the Indypendent magazine and co-founder of the Occupy Wall Street Journal
John Schmitt, senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research
Dominic Ware, former Walmart cart pusher who says he was fired for going on a 14-day strike
Web Resources:
Institute for Policy Studies: Fast Food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay
In These Times: Fight for 15 Confidential
The Hill: Fast Food Workers Need a Raise and a Voice
Al Jazeera, from our own Rose Aguilar: On Black Friday workers of Walmart unite
On the Economy blog: If Increasing the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Cost Jobs, How Does it Get Absorbed?
CEPR:Minimum Wage is Not What it Used to Be
NYT: Unionizing at the Low End of the Pay Scale
Demos: Retail’s Hidden Potential: How Raising Wages Would Benefit Workers, the Industry and the Overall Economy
SFBG: Oakland Joins 100 cities in national fast food strike
