minimum wage

As Income Disparity Grows, Tucsonans Protest Low Wages at Walmart & McDonalds

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Mcdonalds-street-48-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Protests against the low wages paid by multinational corporate giants have been sweeping the country, since the Occupy Movement raised the consciousness of the 99%. On Black Friday, Nov. 29, at Walmart stores nationwide and again Thursday, Dec. 5 at McDonald's restaurants nationwide, workers, unionists, progressives, and other liberal activists protested unfairly low wages and barriers to unionization for millions of US workers.

With profits, CEO pay, and wage disparity at all time highs, isn't it time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?

Here in Tucson, protesters chanted and waved signs in front of the Walmart on Valencia and the McDonald's in midtown. (For more on the Walmart protest, check out the video here.)

At McDonald's, approximately 80-100 citizens braved chilly temperatures and intermittent rain to protest low wages. In the days before the local protest, right wing radio host Jon Justice shared PDA Tucson's Facebook announcement about the event and urged his Facebook followers to come to the midtown McDonald's, show their support for the fast food chain, and eat some good food. (Excuse me, but McDonald's hasn't served "good food" in decades– if ever.) This resulted in a flurry of comments on the PDA page and Justice's page about the "entitlement mentality", people being "paid what they're worth", and the fast food industry being "one key stroke away from 80% automation"– justifying Arizona's $7.80/hour minimum wage and offering support to McDonald's franchisees who make millions on the backs of workers.

Protest Low Pay for Fast Food Workers in Tucson on Dec 5

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by Pamela Powers Hannley Across the US– and here in Tucson– citizens will be standing in solidarity with fast food workers who are demanding a living wage. The Tucson protest is at the McDonalds at Alvernon and Speedway. Here is the flyer . Here is a link to the Facebook event.  

In Light of Local Poverty, Tucson Needs Creative Direction & Progressive Economic Ideas

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Development33-sig-sm72by Pamlea Powers Hannley

Business friendly? Tucson’s been there, done that, … and got the t-shirt at Goodwill. As former City Councilwoman Molly McKasson said, we put all of our eggs in the development basket and look where it got us.

Twenty percent of Tucsonans are living in poverty.

Thirty percent of Tucson children are living in poverty.

Fifty-two percent of Tucson children live in a one-parent household.

Seventy-one percent of Tucson Unified School District students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. (Statistics from the Arizona Daily Star.)

How did we get here?

The Back Story on Tucson’s Poverty Rate

In a November 2011 “What If?” article published just a few days before the last mayoral election, former Arizona Daily Star reporter Josh Brodesky interviewed activist, writer, and artist McKasson and mused about how Tucson would be different today if she had beaten former Mayor Bob Walkup back in their 1999 match-up.

I remember that election well. Walkup– a former Hughes Aircraft executive and former head of the Greater Tucson Economic Council– was the quintessential business candidate. Bankrolled by Tucson’s business community, Walkup’s campaign successfully painted McKasson as a flighty hippie artist whose no-growth, tree-hugging, water-conserving policies would be bad for Tucson (ie, bad for business and bad for growth). Meanwhile, Walkup was championed as a business savvy savior who successfully ran a business, and, therefore, (of course!) could successfully run a city.

As mayor, the glad-handing, ribbon-cutting Walkup promoted business development, Rio Nuevo, and ill-conceived, taxpayer-funded private projects like the downtown hotel (which went down in flames, thank goodness). Except for his pro-business, pro-growth cheerleading, Walkup was a do-nothing mayor who depended upon defense funding, the occasional TREO call center moving to Tucson, and housing boom construction jobs to bolster Tucson’s chronically low-wage tourist economy. The Tucson Weekly’s endorsement of McKasson (here) eerily  predicts what happened to Tucson under three terms of Walkup. Read it and more background and new ideas after the jump.