NYC activist group calls for national protest against Starbucks
On Saturday, April 12, New York City workers and 15 Now activists will be participating in a national day of action to demand that Starbucks’s CEO Howard Schultz put his money where his mouth is and pay his employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
Part of a national movement advocating a $15 an hour minimum wage, these protests have been called in response to recent statements by Schultz who opposes minimum wage increases in his home town of Seattle. Though Schultz admitted that Starbucks could indeed manage to pay its employees the proposed $15 an hour that the Seattle city council is currently considering, he claimed that “small businesses would not be able to afford it.”
Schultz argued that any minimum wage increase in Seattle should be calculated by the “total compensation” an employee receives (such as health care, meals and bus passes) and not merely their wage. Advocates from 15 Now vehemently reject this approach and claim that such a “total compensation” approach would undermine the very meaning of a living wage.
