Workers march to increase minimum wage

Rev. Rodney Lyde of the Baptist Temple Church looked out on a crowd of protestors sitting in the middle of Forbes Avenue and said that he couldn’t accept Pittsburgh’s title as the “most livable city.”

Lyde disputed the title that The Economist has bestowed upon the city at the Fight for $15 protest, as he said there are people in Pittsburgh who can’t afford to pay the bus fare to get to work. Fight for $15 is an international movement that began in 2012 to increase the minimum wage to $15 from the current Pennsylvania minimum wage of $7.25. Students at Pitt, the Pittsburgh branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Fight for $15 Pittsburgh organized the Wednesday night protest in Oakland. The protest had a turnout of about 800 to 1,000 people.

The crowd sat across all four lanes of traffic and listened as Lyde spoke. Some held signs that read, “Unite!” Other signs read “Fight for $15.” One person held a giant paper mache figure in the form of a white CEO with a cigarette dangling from large pink lips. Back on their feet, the Westinghouse High School marching band danced and led the crowd toward Schenley Plaza with trumpets and trombones blaring and silk flags whirling.

National organizer Ashona Osborne, who has worked at the Arby’s in the Edgewood Town Court for a year, heard about the campaign from a representative in her neighborhood last year.

“We are changing the conversation community and politically-wise,” Osborne said.

The movement seeks to change the debate about income inequality and encourages workers around the globe to strike, rally and protest to raise the minimum wage, according to the Fight for $15 website.

“It’s really difficult having to decide which priority is more important,” Osborne said, describing her difficulties supporting herself, her five-year-old child and the “three major bills”: gas, electricity and water.

The rally started in front of the Cathedral of Learning on a peaceful stage with Jasiri X, a local hip-hop artist and community activist. Other speakers from community and religious groups around Pittsburgh and Pitt student activists like Josh Orange and Bempoma Pieterson spoke over the microphone to the crowd..

“I am here because I am a poor boy from Detroit, Michigan, raised by a single mother,” Orange, a junior urban studies and French major, said. “We cannot remain complacent. We have a responsibility to each other more so than we do to ourselves.”

As Orange led the charge of marchers onto Forbes Avenue at approximately 5 p.m., the SEIU workers who have been protesting in favor of a better contract with the University followed the crowd.

Ricky Elison, a member of the SEIU, had just gotten off of work at the Graduate School of Public Health and came to Bigelow Boulevard in support of the cause.

“These people are hardworking people just like everyone else,” Elison said. “[Corporate wage-makers] can’t give the little man any respect.”

Pitt spokesperson John Fedele said the University had no comment on the protest.

Not everyone in the crowd, like Dave Swanson, pastor of the Pittsburgh Mennonite Church, was presently living on the current minimum wage.

“Our congregation and our neighborhood are full of folks where daily life is a struggle,” Swanson, who was marching as part of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, said.

Over the railing of the Litchfield Towers patio on the Forbes Avenue side, Ben Case and other Pitt students draped a canvas banner that called on UPMC to raise wages for its workers. Below them, the protesters marched under the skyway.

“People are struggling, we’ve gotta have each other’s backs,” Case, a graduate student in Pitt’s sociology department, said.

Case acknowledged that after he graduates, he will likely take an adjunct position at a university and earn little money as a result.

“It’s not in their corporate interest to pay people a living wage,” Case said. “If we want something for ourselves, if working people want something, they have to fight for it.”

The protesters sat down across Forbes Avenue in front of the McDonald’s to chant, “Whose streets? Our streets.” McDonald’s locked its doors at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday to protect the safety of customers and workers, according to a sign hung on the door.

McDonald’s did not contact Pittsburgh Police for security during the protest, according to Lt. Ed Trapp, but security guards stood in the lobby of McDonald’s watching the protestors.

“I think this McDonald’s is supposed to be open 24 hours a day, does anybody know what happened?” Lyde asked the crowd of people sitting on Forbes. “I think we shut it down.”

Lyde also spoke up for workers at UPMC, as protesters chanted “UPMC, you are not a charity.” 

The hospital system is exempt from paying taxes because of its official status as a charity.

“What you got to do today, is show some love,” Lyde said. “You don’t have a UPMC without these workers. In Pittsburgh, it is people over profit.”