Nearly three years after launching its first worker strike, the Fight for 15 was reaping the fruits of its labor on Tuesday.
The union-backed campaign aimed at boosting the minimum wage held what organizers described as its largest mass demonstration yet, with fast-food and other service-sector workers taking part in strikes and protests in scores of cities around the country. Some of these protests were no doubt small, but others, in cities like New York, San Francisco and Pittsburgh, had huge turnouts.
The campaign’s startling political success became clear on Tuesday, if it wasn’t already. Hillary Clinton, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, offered a message of encouragement directly to the strikers, while another candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), spoke to striking workers outside the U.S. Capitol. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) joined workers at a demonstration in Brooklyn. And both the city of Pittsburgh and the state of New York announced new policies centered on a $15 wage floor.
In Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto (D) announced that city employees and contract workers would be paid at least $15 per hour by 2021, and in New York, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said all state employees would be making $15 by the end of 2018.
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