How We Talk About Low-Wage Workers

We need a movement that makes us feel strong — all of us, whether we work at Burger King or Bank of America or an automobile plant or in journalism. That means not just focusing on the poverty but also the power in the voices of a group of workers on the street outside the Wendy’s where one of their colleagues was just fired for organizing. It means giving those workers and their strikes the credit for the wins when they do come. Too often, people derive something that feels like strength from remembering that someone else has it worse. But that’s temporary, and real strength comes from all of us being strong together.

Sarah Jaffe has an opinion piece in The Washington Post about the way the labor strikes has been covered in the media — often not at all, or placing emphasis on poor, low-wage workers as “some exotic Other rather than our neighbors, our family members and ourselves.”

The worker strikes and protests are making a difference. A report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commison shows that McDonald’s is considering raising wages, noting that the trend “was toward higher wages and social expenses in both mature and developing markets, which may intensify with increasing public focus on matters of income inequality.”

Photo: Ethan

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