Hourly workers strike in Chicago for higher wages

CHICAGO - Standing with a group of protesters Wednesday morning in front of the Nordstrom Rack store on Chicago's State Street, Charde Nabors, 21, said she's fighting for better pay and more opportunities for workers like her.

Nabors works at Sears for $9 an hour to support her two children, ages 2 and 5 months. Nabors says she only works about 20 hours a week, though she has asked for a full-time position.

She has to supplement her income with food stamps, but she's struggling to pay $650 a month for the apartment she moved into after staying with family and living in a hotel.

Nabors is among the hundreds of fast food and retail workers in Chicago that community organizers expected to walk off the job Wednesday in a campaign to push for higher wages.

The Fight for $15 campaign, named for its goal of securing $15 an hour for workers, said it expected McDonald's, Subway, Dunkin' Donuts, Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret store to be affected.

The rolling strikes began at 5:30 a.m. as workers walked off the job at some McDonald's restaurants and Dunkin' Donuts. Strikes were expected later Wednesday at some retailers. A culminating rally was planned at the St. James Cathedral.

"Food stamps help, but they don't pay the rent," the protesting Nabors said, acknowledging the difficulty of searching for work and take public assistance for her and her kids. "I keep this guard up, because I look at their faces every day and I know I have to do what I can do support them."

While acknowledging that "a few workers may have walked off the job," McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said: "Our downtown restaurants remain open, and it remains business as usual for us."

Although only "a small number of folks" were striking, Proud said, she wasn't aware of anyone being terminated for participating.

Representatives for Dunkin' Donuts and Subway said that hourly wages are set at the discretion of franchisees who operate their restaurants.

A Macy's spokesman declined to comment on the strikes.

"Fight for $15 seeks to put money back in the pockets of the 275,000 men and women who work hard in the city's fast food and retail outlets, but still can't afford basic necessities," the group said in a release. "If workers were paid more, they'd spend more, helping to get Chicago's economy moving again."

But some believe it could have the opposite effect. Susan Kezios, president of American Franchisee Association, cautioned that raising the minimum wage could result in closures.

Referring to a conversation with a local 7-Eleven franchisee, Kezios said that even when a store is grossing more than $1 million per year, the operator is "hardly making $15 an hour."

"Just because there's a franchise sign doesn't mean these people are millionaires," she said. "They're working lots and lots of hours, and I think some of their employees would be surprised to see how little some of their employers are making."

Citing franchise experts, Kezios said that "only about one-third of franchised locations are making money." The rest are breaking even or losing money, she said.

Wednesday's action follows a nationwide Black Friday strike by Wal-Mart workers and comes just weeks after 400 fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City.

Rev. C.J. Hawking, executive director of faith-based workers' rights organization Arise Chicago, supported the protestors' cause and passed out bottles of water.

She said she believes that the fight for higher pay among food and retail workers is gaining momentum across the country after the New York and Wal-Mart events.

"We all know that you cannot live on $8.25 an hour," she said. "We need to stop pretending this is working."

"Fast food and retail workers bring more than $4 billion a year into the cash registers of the Magnificent Mile and the Loop, yet most of these workers earn Illinois' minimum wage of $8.25, or just above it," Fight for $15 said.

In addition to higher pay, Fight for $15 says it is pushing to organize a union for workers.

Athena Mayo, 21, was protesting with fellow Nordstrom Rack employees, where she has worked since November.

Mayo, who's also an art and design student at Columbia College, said she wanted to take a stand because many workers might be apprehensive to ask for what they want.

"A lot of people are scared, a lot of people are worried" about reprisal from their bosses, she said. "So I just came out here to represent them and fight."

"They keep adding more and more tasks and giving us less and less," added Krista Reese, 22, also an employee at Nordstrom Rack. Reese, who has worked at the store on Chicago Avenue since July, said the store used to have as many as 12 workers close every night and now they're down to four.

Reese says her fellow workers are trying to organize a union there to continue the fight for higher pay and added staff.

Among those participating will be Aimee Crawford, 56, who said she has worked for 14 months at a downtown Protein Bar restaurant for $8.75 an hour.

"I'm using my retirement funds and my savings to bridge the gap between what I bring home and what I need to survive," Crawford said.

Matt Matros, who founded the Protein Bar chain in 2009, said employees at his company control their opportunities for advancement.

Starting at $8.25 per hour, workers get raises at increments of 50 cents per hour by passing certain skills tests, such as knife safety or nutrition, he said.

(Antonio Olivo, Samantha Bomkamp, Emily Bryson York and Corilyn Shropshire of the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.)

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