Food Chain Workers Take Action on Cesar Chavez Day|Joann Lo

Food Chain Workers Take Action on Cesar Chavez Day|Joann Lo: March 31 is Cesar Chavez Day. As you probably know, Cesar Chavez was a co-founder and leader of the United Farm Workers union. A farmworker himself, in the 1960s through the 1980s, Chavez organized with workers in the fields in California who struggled for fair wages, safe working conditions and respect on the job. Chavez also collaborated with Filipino labor leaders like Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz to found the United Farm Workers.

Because of Chavez's legacy of multi-racial organizing for workers' rights, the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) chose Cesar Chavez Day for a day of action to raise the minimum wage. On March 31, food workers from around the U.S. are meeting up in Washington, D.C., to deliver a MoveOn.org petition with over 101,000 signatures and a letter signed by over 100 food movement organizations and businesses to House Speaker John Boehner. Boehner is refusing to allow the members of the House of Representatives to vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010), which would increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, and the tipped minimum wage to 70 percent of that. The current national minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, while the tipped minimum wage is $2.13.