As the Labor Day holidays get under way, tens of thousands of protesters have gathered at rallies across the United States to call for stronger worker protections and attack a range of policies undertaken by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
More than 1,000 demonstrations are expected on Monday to span all 50 states, under the banner “Workers Over Billionaires.”
Protesters are demanding stronger worker protections, fully funded schools, healthcare and housing for all, and an end to corporate corruption, attacks on marginalised communities, and federal overreach under the Trump administration.
In New York, hundreds of people gathered outside the Trump Tower, chanting for Trump to step down and calling the president a fascist. As a brass band played, workers held up signs demanding a living wage and universal healthcare.
‘Subminimum’ wage
Giovanni Uribe, with the restaurant worker advocacy organisation One Fair Wage, told Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey he had come out to protest against billionaires whittling away the rights of workers.
“Service workers in New York City are the backbone of this city,” he said. “The National Restaurant Association is our number one opponent that’s fighting to keep subminimum wage intact so they don’t have to pay their workers their full minimum wage to survive. So we’re just asking for a livable wage.”
The federally set minimum wage in the US is $7.25 an hour – a figure that has not been raised since 2009 due in part to the successful lobbying of industry groups. Tipped workers, like wait staff, have a federally mandated “subminimum” wage of $2.13, a figure set in 1991 that is legally required to be offset to reach the $7.25 minimum – but which advocates say often results in wage theft.
While some states have higher minimum wages – New York City’s currently stands at $16.50 – the figure is often far below a living wage.
According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult without children would need an hourly wage of nearly $33 in NYC to cover average basic expenses. Mississippi, which has one of the lowest costs of living in the country and has no state minimum wage, has a living wage of $20.75 – nearly three times the minimum wage.
Chicago protests target National Guard
In downtown Chicago, thousands turned out to demonstrate against Trump’s promise to target Chicago next in a deployment similar to those under way in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, two other Democrat-run cities.
Mayor Brandon Jo