here in chicago. howard kling, secretary of the international labor communications association afl-cio and editor of minnesota working. elke redmond, org national board members of jobs with justice.ck board members of jobs with justice.e redmond, org nationald members of jobs with justice.rg members of jobs with justice.g members of jobs with justice. n members of jobs with justice.na members of jobs with justice. so panelists, kari and howard, this story is as old as dirt. corporations making mega profits and paying the workers barely a living wage. and the labor press always covered the struggles for better

life for working people. so tell us one story that you have written about concerning low wage workers, the struggle of fast-food workers and what those stories show about the uniqueness of these struggles today. >> okay. >> well, okay, so i am from the minnesota labor association and project of work day minnesota and it was sort of my idea, or whatever. right? but anyway. we have been covering a lot of -- oh, working minnesota is the first on-line labor newspaper in the united states. we think. founded in 2001. we have been covering labor news in minnesota since then. so just to give people an idea. so we have been covering the

organizing of low wage workers and minimum wage fight in minnesota. i will tell you one story. it just happened. monday, i had the privilege and i do video, i con treb out about half of the video to our squiemt. i had the privilege anyway, monday, and it is, to go to a trailer park in the suburb of minneapolis and interview alicia flores who is a building cleaner for the target corporation, a subcontracting -- actually works for a firm that subcontracts with target. and sat in her kitchen. and had her tell me about the recent victory that they just had.

she is a member of of center for workers united struggle. i'm language challenged. but anyway -- workers centers based in the twin cities of minnesota that has been operating for about 3 1/2, 4 years, organizing. they had been organizing building cleaners who work for various companies that are subcontractors with target and cub foods and sears and home depot and stuff like that. and so, the biggest fight with target corporation and monday they announced tuesday, or monday, they announced they reached an agreement with target corporation. the three pieces of the agreement, this is unprecedented for i think for a workers center and certainly the agreement

includes, protects and ensures workers rights to bargain with employers. with noninterference. two, ensuring that workers have the right to safety committees in the work force with 50% of workers designated and elect bid coworkers. >> and three. and this is the one she talked about the most, and three it ensures that workers are not forced to work seven days a week. >> so alicia talked about just how this felt, right? and the time away from her family and the people who told her it wasn't going to work. and all of those doubts that she had had. and you know, and finally her kids, she had something to tell her kids about why she had been gone, you know, in the evenings after a long day of work or whatever. but the thing that really struck

me is she said before this happened, and we were going back and forth and back and forth and my heart was so tight and so closed and now it has opened up and blossomed. and you know, well, okay. so i run the camera now and i mean, whatever, i mean, the power -- i mean, they won something and the power of that and the dignity that she felt, i mean, was just enormous and it makes everything i do worth it to be there when someone can tell me that stuff. and so this is a remarkable achievement and worker center on its way to probably unionize and they are doing a union and you know a car drive. and they work closely with service employers national union local 26. i can tell you way more, but anyway -- >> thank you, howard.

>> first of all, i want to say, hashtag awesome. how about it. music of panel. and i say that because my story is about the global strike and there was a protest here in front of mcdonald's and a lot of the mcdonald's workers were there, including somebody from rockford who came in and told her story about how she started working at mcdonald's when she was 16 and made $3 an hour and she still is working for mcdonald's as a crew chief, but making, because in illinois it is $8.25, moninimum wage, but still can't stay alive on 8:2.2

but still working that, and this woman devoted her life to this billion dollar corporation and put her heart and soul into, you know, she talked about training the people because she is a crew chief now. training people to keep to the standards of mickey ds. and you know, wants and all of that. and was unbelievably, you know, thrilled like the other mcdonald's workers there and the other workers like wal-mart workers and car wash workers and et cetera. who are struggling were thrilled about that there was 150 cities. and you know, people tweeting their pictures from around the world. brazil. and japan, et cetera.

and that they -- people aren't alone. and that was the message. and we have already heard a lot of that. so when i went to interview another mcdonald's worker, i said, you know, what do you think about all this. and she said, we'll win if we all stick together. because that's what a union does. and when you think about it, i don't know, 30 years ago, you know, when i was younger, we talked about wow you know, all these young people working at fast-food. we should be organizing in the fast-food. it was like, impossible. that's going to be impossible to do that. and now, look at what's happening. you know, fast-food workers, wal-mart workers, organizing, doing this. and you know, earlier today we stood up when roberta asked who is in a union and a lot of people stood up.

i was like really impressed with the union members. but then i realized, why didn't everybody stand up? because of the labor movement has opened its doors all wide. and can say, join working america. and join fast-food forward. and join the fight for 15. joan our wal-mart. and everybody could be part of the labor movement. be part of the union movement. and you don't just have a card that said, you know, whatever. you can be part of that laebor movement. but still, that's -- >> elce? >> the causes and solutions, to the crisis of growing joblessness, and rising economic and equality are very

complicated, but polls show they continue to show that an overwhelming majority support a hike in the minimum wage. seattle of course is leading the way. with the recent decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. as a community organizer and labor activist, what do you think it driving the growing support for raising the men mum wage? what is the opposition? and how can it be counted? especially in the u.s. senate. >> okay. >> good. >> good evening, comrades. my name is elce redmond. i'm absolutely glad to be here. i wanted to answer that question with a brief story. my grandfather was in the brotherhood of sleeping porter's union. and he -- [ applause ] and he spent 12 years trying to

organize a union there. and one of these, when i was young, he would tell stories about the massive dehuman. anization that was happening within that industry itself. and three things that they were fighting for. they were fighting for living wages. they were fighting for dignity. they were fighting for respect. during that early part of the 20th century. you had sort of the big moguls. pullman, you had jpmorgan, you had the vanderbilts, the carneghe's, you had the rockefellers, you had the kennedys. now we don't have those individuals but we have the multinational corporations. so you know, jpmorgan is replaced by wal-mart. ka carnaghis replaced by young brands. rockefellers replaced by amazon.

and the kennedys, bastards, have been like -- excuse me, have been replaced by disney. so you have these multinational corporations who are doing the same thing that these robber barons did in the 20th century. they don't want to give living wages. they don't want to give workers any dignity. they don't want to give work rs respect. they don't want to recognize union. what we need to do now in 21st century is what our brothers and sisters from the fight for 150, fight, fight for moving forward, fight for what wal-mart is doing, move on not just a local but a national and international scale. and look at the issues of inequality and how the 1% are controlling 99% of our economy.

and when all of this is going on, you see that people are rising up. workers from all over the world are rising up against this massive inequality. so organizing we are doing right now is making a difference. and it is effecting congress and senate. and we mobilize even more to attack these issues and issues of inequality, poverty and racism and dehumanization that is happening within the work forces have all been exposed. now what we need to do is mobilize the workers, the community, labor, and the faith community to really mobilize on a much more larger scale. and one of the most unfortunately one of the worst issues is the massive unemployment that exists when in our country itself and how it effects african-americans and latinos in our society.

and you know, we're fighting for wages but we also need to be fighting for jobs and we need to be pushing for a national jobs program. that puts people back to work right now rebuilding this country. >>. [ applause ] >> naquasia, rasheen, michael and terrie. going global from the day of action from the uk to brazil to india to germfulany to japan, t took it to the streets. you got love facebook, right? i have friends in tokyo who were posting mass pictures going to streets and protesting mcdonald's. so what is the significance of

going global? and what do you think will be the outcome of fast-food workers connecting globally? what can be the outcome? what do you think is going to happen? >> well, let me just say, i have the opportunity to actually meet workers from other countries. and i don't know if you know but workers in denmark are making -- workers in denmark at mcdonald's, guess how much they making? can anybody guess? just throw a number out there. yeah, no. yeah, no. facebook. facebook. the power of facebook. so denmark is making $21 an hour at mcdonald's and also have a union. so pretty much -- [ applause ] yeah.

so by us going global, it is showing that the workers in america are sick and tired of being sick and tired. and the workers on the other side of the world is like what in the world is going on. like, how do you have these workers working for this amount of money and don't -- and don't, you know, give them no type of benefits, don't give us nothing and so, the workers on the other side of the world are concerned. they wanted to -- it is only right of them to stand up and help us when this victory because all of it, all of us are in it together. so this one about global show the corporations and we keep getting bigger and bigger. and it's only been two years and we are already global. what's next? and everybody just needed to shut it down.

just got to shut it down. so pretty much, that's what we won't stop until we get what we deserve and what we demand. >> basically, the struggle, there is a global movement. like the whole labor movement, because i mean, labor has to be international because capital is international. and i mean, if capital can move from one country to another, labor has to have solidarity from one country to another. he says, you know, unit is where our strength is. and if we all just, like want to challenge the system just individually and it is like,

individually negotiate our employment contracts. it is the only way possible, on a united and global scale. and on the outcome of this global movement, is workers like taking control of things. and this is about workers demanding more rights and inevitableably it has to lead to workers, you know, getting to a point where they can -- not just that, but you know, we have more rights. but they can't be taken back because there is nobody else to take back. they are our rights. and -- [ applause ] >> the fight for 15 is important. but it also has to be for a union. if we get this team, tomorrow they can take that away without a union. and so we will just -- and

united we stand. and it is interesting to know that we're the super country. and we're the country that everyone wants to know about from the freedom but australia and denmark are paying their employees more money. this is america. how does that happen? how does that work out? i definitely think that people of these other countries will be standing pup because they know what it is to make a livable wage. they know what it is to not have or twory and not have to struggle. they know what it is to not have a union. it is great to have them in solidarity and to be standing with workers who don't know that. once again it is strange that these workers whose living in this other countries make morgue money and don't have the same privilege and resources but they are standing up against the same company that's over here and

telling them bb if you can do it over there, why don't you do it in the usa. that's power florida, strong. and to have our back another country to be standing with, america, to be standing with low wage workers in america, i mean, this is definitely something in the history books and kids are going to be reading on. >> well, i guess two things came to mind. one was really the power of social media. in helping to fuel the narrative and to win people over. and as an incred el organizing tool, because here is a couple people you've already mentioned. and posting to facebook and twitter and in the midst in realtime, you know, during this

strike, and so that you know, helps first of all get the whole issue on the large media as well. in terms of you know, network and all of that. and but it also, you know, then it just expands people's hori n horizons and minds and also then there's, you know, the delegations, and you find out about how workers are being treated in other countries. but it is interesting too, that this global kind of organizing and reaching out is happening and in other sectors as well. and steel workers and mexican steel workers and there is these international solidarity campaigns going on. nissan workers. in the south. and in mississippi. and getting support from the south african workers and their

organizing campaign. and so this kind of thing, is incredibly important and it expands minds. is it a point where we can, you know, tip the balance of forces. it is getting there and there is a lot of things people have to confront. like, you know, like ideas of, you know, war and peace and being number -- this all -- you know, ideas of america being number one in the world. or whatever. so it is a lot of things get involved into it. that's it. >> elce? >> thank you. >> in our country we have a long history of a lack of racial equity, real equity gp and racial divisions.

tell us what you think. the impact of the fight for 15, support for wal-mart workers is having on racial unity. both in the labor movement as well as the community. >> i think the campaigns, both esh i esh ish ice of race and class and gender. that's important in the 21st century.ice of race and class a gender. that's important in the 21st century. to have campaigns and people on the bases and you look around the world and you know, there are people of color who are making minimum wages. there are people of color who are working and dehumanitarianizing situations. there are people of color who are standing up with others across our communities fighting together on these issues. because the central issue is wages. dignity. respect.

and those issues cross racial lines. it brings people together from all across the country and all across the world. and if you look at the fight for 15 campaign in the campaign, the amount of those workers are workers of color. those workers are also women. who are heads of household, trying to support their families. but there are quite a few of whites who are also living in those same conditions. and these campaigns have brought all of these groups together. and unified them against one common enemy and that enemy is big capital regardless of its wal-mart, amazon or young products or disney or whom ever. it has brought people together. we all understand, i think one important thing, that this is a global fight.

and we are fighting against global capital. and as like african-americans, as whites, as asians, as women, as gays, we all are fighting this fight together. and i think that that's one unifying factor. and you see that all over the world. you see our brothers and sisters in brazil, standing up against global capital, who is destroying their communities for these games. so this is going on all around the world. and as someone had mentioned, about social media and how social media brought us all together, and in realtime we can tell our stories, and i think that's what's really important, and if we look at the esh us of race and class and we fight these issues together, against our common enemy, and i need you to know who our common enemy is. >> thank you.

>> okay. last question. it's so rasheen and howard. what is the response to the labor movement of this rising up of low-wage workers a and what significance does it have for the future of the labor movement? >> most people in the labor movement who have been in it before, who knew what the labor movement was, have been with the fast-food workers, like this is what is next in labor movement p. this is what will get and this is what will get a lot of the old people up off their butts and moving. >> i also know that, like she said, people have been trying to organize fast-food for a while. so for it finally to be happening and finally have changes coming and you know, cities eventually getting 15, we still want that union so don't

forget about it. it is something that labor movements are like, hmmm, is this a new style of organized or is this the new avenue or new group of people we need to be tapping into. i think the outcome is that everyone can be organized.