At the heart of the campaign’s theorizing lies a cogent critique of McDonalds and companies like it, who cannot pay a living wage despite making billions of dollars in profits.
By demanding $15 back in 2012, the Fight for $15 pushed the boundaries of what is feasible from the start. Many critics called the demand too lofty at the time, but now $15 is becoming the norm. As Fight for $15 officially puts it, “We didn’t win these increases because we elected supportive politicians to office. We won because we made them support us. That’s the power of direct action, of taking to the streets, of organizing.” While Fight for $15 is negotiating with the state, it is making bold demands and changing the terms of debate.
Today, it is a global movement in over 300 cities on six continents. On top of successfully shifting the terms of debate regarding the minimum wage, there have been numerous wage increases achieved across the country by Fight for $15 and its affiliates. A $15 minimum wage has been mandated in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, while Chicago and Kansas City secured a raise to $13. In addition, there have been modest increases in Alaska, Arkansas, and Nebraska. According to SEIU leader, raises have been achieved for over 8 million U.S. workers, with the SEIU spending more than $30 million since the campaign’s conception.
Despite these widespread successes, a difficult path ahead lies ahead for Fight for $15 and United States labor movements as whole. The U.S. economy is incredibly balkanized into separate jurisdictions, which makes organizing lower-tier workers immensely difficult. A large portion of these workers are vulnerable and afraid of being fired, either because they are immigrants or because they possess tenuous employment as temps, freelancers, part-time workers, independent contractors, on-call workers, or employees at franchised operations. As a result, currently, just 1.7 percent of fast-food workers and 5.7 percent of retail workers belong to unions. While a raise to $15 is important, the longer-term protections of a union are needed to win larger wage increases and improvements in working conditions. Going forward, Fight for $15 faces a slight dilemma. To the support these workers, a strong labor movement is needed that provides political and financial support in the form of finances, lobbying clout, and organizing abilities. But these forms of support require engaging with the state and dominant systems.
The theorizing behind Fight for $15 pinpoints changes in the United States’ political economy over the past several decades that render their demands urgent. While many may think of fast food as a side job for teenagers who need extra cash, the median age of a fast-food employee today is 28 years old, and more than a quarter of them have children. This is a result of changes in the U.S. economy that started around the 1970s with deindustrialization. Deindustrialization saw the closing of factories across the country, and, in the time since, the U.S. economy has turned its emphasis to service-sector jobs. As a result, for those at the bottom of the economic ladder, fast food jobs are often the only ones available. The Great Recession sped up this long-term trend, as even college-educated Americans have been forced to enter minimum wage jobs. Low-wage industries like fast food and retail have been the fastest growing American sectors since the Great Recession, outpacing the economy as a whole.
On top of the low wages, seventy percent of fast-food workers are part-time, meaning they work fewer than forty hours a week and cannot obtain close to a living wage. As fast food companies refused to use their increasing profits to pay a living wage, the government has been forced to step in. Researchers at University of California, Berkeley found that about fifty-two percent of American fast-food workers use some form of public assistance. Thus, the Fight for $15 has sought to reframe low-wage workers as vital economic contributors who are being exploited at the expense of the public. This theorizing has been supported by academic research as well. In a 2017 paper, University of Michigan–Dearborn economist Bruce Pietrykowski used skills data along with manager survey data to estimate occupational wages. Using a quantile regression to estimate a skills-based wage for fast food and other low-wage workers, Pietrykowski found evidence that provides “empirical support” for a $15 minimum wage. The study’s results indicated that low-wage workers possess skills that are, in fact, undervalued in the labor market, as low-wage workers require abstract thinking and managerial skills. Supported by ethnographic research, this study reflected the importance of active learning, problem-solving, coordination, monitoring, and negotiating skills to the success of employees in restaurants, fast-food establishments, and hair salons. Meanwhile, the think tank Demos found that fast food executives’ compensation packages quadrupled from 2000 to 2013. The differential between CEO and worker pay in fast food is 1200 to one, which is higher than any other domestic economic sector.
A key difficulty in increasing wages for fast food workers is the use of franchises by many companies. In the case of McDonalds, 90 percent of its fourteen-thousand establishments are owned and operated by franchisees. Though pressured by corporate brass to constantly lower costs, these franchisees were long seen as solely responsible for the abysmal wages their workers received. In March 2014, seven class-action lawsuits were filed against McDonald’s in three states alleging wage theft and other violations of labor law. Then, in July of 2013, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that McDonald’s is a “joint employer” with its franchisees, meaning they are responsible for the pay and treatment of workers. This was a huge victory for Fight for $15, as fast food corporation could no longer hide behind their franchisees.
The Fight for $15 (also referred to as Raise Up for $15) first began in 2012 when two-hundred fast-food workers in New York City walked off the job in order to demand $15 an hour and union rights. It then caught on when similar walk-outs happened in the coming months, first across the U.S. and then across the globe. It is underwritten by the Service Employees International Union, which has spent more than $30 million on the campaign.
The Fight for $15 contests racism, capitalism, patriarchy, and the dominant logics of the American and global capitalist political economies. While many associated with the movement have ben politically active for a long time, many workers have joined out of necessity, as their abysmal wages have left them no choice but to organize. Thus, the movement brings together passionate workers and experienced organizers and activists who can aid them. As displayed in the Fight for $15's decision to start the campaign with fast food employees walking out on the job, laborers are centered and encouraged to take charge. Thus, the ideological ethos of the group is fueled by fast food workers who are marginalized in a variety of ways, from class to race to gender. Thus, "intersectionality" is an intrinsic part of the group's mission, as, for the participants, intersectional oppression is not an academic concept but rather their lived realities.
The Fight for $15 is funded by the Service Employees International Union. While there are paid union organizers leading the campaign, many fast-food workers have joined and now carry large roles in the organization. As they describe it, they are fast-food workers, home health aides, child care teachers, airport workers, adjunct professors, retail employees- and underpaid workers everywhere. While SEIU's employees provide support and infrastructure, the workers themselves carry out most protests and do the speaking at events. Though activists and academics are at times given a platform as well, the workers are consistently centered in both theorizing and acting.