Happy Tuesday friends, thanks for visiting TPW! If you are not currently a member and would like to be, please email the tpwhelpdesk@gmail.com and I’ll get you set up (or you can try your luck with the automated system…).
Starting off with some good news:
‘Our Momentum Is Unstoppable’: Workers Celebrate as Target Announces $15 Minimum Wage
In what is being described as a huge victory for the tens of thousands of workers across the country who have for years organized, rallied, and gone on strike for higher wages, Target on Monday announced that it plans to raise the company-wide minimum hourly wage to $11 by next month and $15 by 2020.
“Five years ago, when 200 New York City fast-food workers first walked off the job for $15 an hour and union rights, nobody gave us a shot. Since then, we’ve spread this movement to every corner of the country and beyond fast-food. We did what they said we couldn’t: we won. We won in the states, in the cities, with the big politicians and with the big corporations,” Steven Suffridge, a Minneapolis McDonald’s Worker and Fight for $15 organizer, wrote in an email reacting to the news. “And today, we won $15 an hour for all Target employees.”
In celebration, Fight for $15 and other groups began circulating a graphic that echoes Suffridge’s message: “When we fight, we win!”
Breaking: @Target to raise wages for all 323,000 employees to $15/hour by 2020. Never underestimate the power of organizing! #FightFor15 pic.twitter.com/2ZHtlKkltn
— Fight For 15 (@fightfor15) September 25, 2017
Immediately upon seeing the news of the Target wage boost—which will affect over 320,000 workers throughout the U.S—activists and lawmakers immediately began raising the question: if Target can pay its workers a decent wage, why can’t Walmart, McDonald’s, and other profitable low-wage corporate giants?
“C’mon McDonalds, Walmart, and everybody else,” wrote Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who recently celebrated Minneapolis lawmakers for overwhelmingly voting to raise the city minimum wage to $15 by 2024. “Pay your workers right!”
The rest of the days news/videos/etc will be in the comments, including:
*Voting machine concerns have states eyeing return to paper ballots
*Tony Blair Says Bernie Doesn’t Have the Answers (Public Opinion Says Otherwise)
*Bernie Sanders’ Graham-Cassidy Debate Quotes Will Inspire You To Fight For Health Care
*National park ban saved 2m plastic bottles – and still Trump reversed it
*Candidate Updates (Stephen Jaffe, Joe Cunningham, Jack Love, Abdul El-Sayed, Cathy Myers & more)
*Corbyn is a changed man – and he’s forging a path to power
& much more.
