Living wages should start with employers, not taxpayers
On a beautiful spring morning, Ricardo Chavez spent a little of his free time to speak out for some fellow janitors that he has never met.
“We have a union,” said Chavez. “We have paid benefits, but my brothers cleaning the Best Buy store next door don’t have these benefits.”
Chavez, who came from El Salvador in 1988, works in the company’s Richfield headquarters, where he cleans offices. The cleaning company he works for pays higher wages and benefits, but cleaners at the company’s stores are paid substantially less and have no benefits, he said.
There are bills now moving through the Legislature that would change that by mandating such benefits as earned paid sick time and family leave.
Activists chose to demonstrate in front of Best Buy Tuesday because the company is an influential member of the Minnesota Retailers Association, which has been lobbying the Legislature and trying to stop the bills that would help millions of Minnesota workers. The MRA is taking it a step further by pushing a bill that would prohibit local governments from enacting wage or benefit laws, something that has been discussed in Minneapolis.
Yep, those are the same people who usually scream for local control.
Greta Bergstrom, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, which organized the event, said it is the beginning of a statewide push to finally get some of the benefits of a surging economy to those who have the least and need it the most. Bergstrom said a coalition of organizations, including unions and religious leaders from a wide variety of denominations, are trying to get meetings with companies like Best Buy to appeal to their corporate stature to strengthen benefits for part-time and low-paid workers.
“We’re asking them to use their leadership for the greater good,” Bergstrom said.
