‘We Won’t Back Down’ says The Fight for $15,
Strike Nationwide!
featuring
. Isaias Sapon, McDonald's worker, Texas 
. Rob Hill,  VP and Organizing Director of 32BJ                             

As newly-elected politicians and newly-empowered corporate special interests threaten an extremist agenda to move the country to the right, working Americans announced that their four-year-old Fight for $15 will not back down and that any efforts to block wage increases, gut workers’ rights or healthcare, deport immigrants, or support racism or racist policies, will be met with unrelenting opposition.  To show their determination in the face of the seismic shifts in the political climate, workers in the Fight for $15 waged their most disruptive protests yet, expanding their movement
to nearly 20 airports serving 2 million passengers a day, and risking arrest via mass civil disobedience in front of McDonald’s restaurants from Detroit to Denver. Workers spanning the economy—including baggage handlers, fast-food cooks, home care workers, child care teachers and graduate assistants— demand $15 and union rights, no deportations, an end to the police killings of black people, and politicians keep their hands off Americans’ health care coverage.
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Low Wage Airport Workers Protest  Scrooge Employers During Holiday Travel Season 
with
* Shareeka Elliot, a terminal cleaner at JFK's Terminal 8 (American Airlines) 
for a contractor called Airway Cleaners
* Rob Hill, Vice President, Local 32BJ, SEIU
* Rose Oby, a security guard at LaGuardia airport (Delta Airlines) 
for a contractor called Aviation Safeguard
* Hector Figueroa, President, Local 32BJ SEIU

Thousands of employees of the largest private contractors at airports are protesting to call the public’s attention to the prevalence of poverty wages and poor working conditions that are creating a crisis for workers and the traveling public at the airports.  “Supporting yourself on $7.90 is hard,” Shareeka Elliott, a terminal cleaner for Airway Cleaners at JFK told the crowd.  “Supporting yourself and two growing girls is nearly impossible.  My take home wage does not begin to cover bills, daycare, and food for me and my daughters. I feel like I’m drowning in debt.” “These are hard-working men and women doing some of the most vital jobs to keep our airports running smoothly and safely,” 32BJ SEIU President Hector Figueroa said. “They should not have to live in poverty to do it. Their families should not have to live without health care because they happen to be working at our airports.”  So, now during the busiest holiday travel season of the year workers are forced to take their complaints straight to the tarmac.

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