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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Thousands Heading to National Low-Wage Workers’ Convention

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Wednesday, August 10, 2016   

NEW YORK - Republicans and Democrats have had their big, national conventions, now, low-wage workers are having one of their own. Thousands of workers from across the country will converge on Richmond, Virginia, this weekend to intensify the growing campaign to raise the minimum wage and secure the right to organize.

Kendall Fells, national organizing director for the "Fight for $15," said those making less than a living wage are a political force to be reckoned with.

"We're mobilizing the 64 million Americans who are paid less than $15 an hour to go to the polls and challenge candidates to support $15 an hour and the right to form a union," he said.

He said the convention is being held in Richmond to call attention the legacies of slavery, segregation, and the impact of forty years of anti-union government policies.

According to the National Employment Law Project, more than half of all African American workers, and almost 60 percent of Latino workers, earn less than $15 an hour. And Fells pointed out, many need food stamps, Medicaid and other subsidies just to get by.

"If you look at the fast-food industry, it leaves about a $7 billion-a-year tab for the taxpayers to pick up, because McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's don't want to pay their employees enough money to survive," he added.

New York, where the Fight for $15 movement began four years ago, started raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 last year, and for other workers earlier this year.

Fells called those events a "eureka moment" for low-wage workers everywhere.

"And now, this voting bloc that was very silent is awakening, and we can swing city, state and federal elections in this country, because of the strength of this voting bloc and their involvement in the Fight for $15," he said.

The Fight for $15 convention gets underway this Friday, August 12.


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