Workers to rally as part of national day of action for higher minimum wage

Retail cleaners employed by sub-contractors to clean stores like Target and Home Depot will rally with community and labor groups Wednesday for an increase in the federal minimum wage.

The rally will take place Wednesday, July 24, at 1 p.m. at the Quarry Shopping Center, 1710 New Brighton Ave., Minneapolis. The event will be part of a nationwide day of action to raise wages on the fourth anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase.

The workers, part of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), a Twin Cities worker center, will highlight corporations making huge profits while paying their workers poverty wages. Following the rally, delegations of workers and supporters will visit retailers in the shopping center where they will deliver letters informing the companies about the wages and working conditions faced by janitors who work for contracted companies cleaning their stores.

Workers are calling on their companies to give an immediate raise to lift workers and their families out of poverty and to give a boost to the local economy.

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, or $15,080 per year. According to the National Employment Law Project 2012 report “Big Business, Corporate Profits, and the Minimum Wage,” of the 50 largest low-wage employers, 75% are earning more revenue now than they were before the recession. The report also highlights that the purchasing power of the minimum wage is 30 percent lower today than it was in 1968.

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