Silicon Valley Workers and Residents Rally for Good Jobs, Affordable Housing and Child Care
Hundreds of child care, fast food, and Silicon Valley residents to rally on Thursday
San Jose, 2 Oct 2018 – One month before Election Day, local fast-food workers, joined by child care providers and a variety of other Silicon Valley working families will rally together, starting the day with a strike at McDonald’s on Thursday, Oct. 4. They are demanding the right to a union at fast food chains, at a local non-profit agency and for child care providers, while also calling for tech giant Google to be a good neighbor in San Jose.
Silicon Valley is the heart of technology and wealth creation, yet the region has the highest income inequality in the nation with serious housing and child care crises. While companies like Google and McDonald’s make massive profits, the workers who keep them running smoothly and its communities have been left behind. Three years ago, workers at Community Child Care Council of Santa Clara County Inc. (4Cs) overwhelmingly voted to form a union, but the employer has still not agreed to a contract that respects its employees, using typical anti-union busting tactics.
Affordable housing is a major concern in San Jose, where Google is poised to build a huge new campus for 20,000 employees. Since the city is already suffering a serious housing and inequality crisis, residents have worked together to come up with a plan that will ensure any new Google development benefits both Google and the people of San Jose – but so far Google has refused to agree to it.
WHAT: Workers and residents will march in solidarity with the Fight For $15 movement, Silicon Valley Rising, child care providers, and working families nationwide to highlight that the stakes are higher than ever in the November elections. It’s time we build an inclusive middle class and an economy that works for everyone.
WHO: Community activists, union members, workers and residents from various backgrounds will join a national day of action to say no to a rigged economy, under the theme of “Rise Up and Vote” (#RiseUpandVote).
WHEN: Thursday, October 4, 11:45 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
WHERE:
11:45am-12:30pm: McDonald’s, 1299 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose, CA 95116
1:30pm-2:00pm: Community Child Care Council of Santa Clara County Inc. (4Cs), 150 River Oaks Pkwy., San Jose, CA 95134
3pm-3:30pm: Google Headquarters, 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy., Mountain View, CA 94043
Visuals: Silicon Valley workers, child care providers, and residents carrying signs and banners.
Media contact:
Brenda Gonzalez – 321-662-8605 – brenda.gonzalez@thefightfor15.org
Liam Kelly – 408-809-2126 – liam@wpusa.org
Valerie Prigent – 408-571-9894 – valerie.prigent@seiu521.org
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Background:
As the election nears, support for unions is hitting record levels across the country. A survey by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released in June found that Americans’ interest in joining unions is at a four-decade high, with nearly half (48 percent) of all nonunion workers in the U.S. saying they would join a union if they could.
The strikes and canvasses follow a blitz of town halls and roundtable meetings workers in the Fight for $15 and service industry have held in 17 cities this year with members of Congress and state and local elected leaders focused on the need for lawmakers to make it easier for workers to organize in unions. Earlier this year, public school teachers launched a wave of strikes hitting red states spanning West Virginia to Oklahoma to Arizona and beyond to protest years of pay cuts and attacks by politicians against their union. And in August, working people in Missouri voted by an overwhelming 2-1 margin to repeal the state’s right-to-work law. The strikes and protests by the Fight for $15 come on the heels of a historic walkout by McDonald’s workers Sept. 18 protesting widespread sexual harassment at the fast-food giant. Among other demands, cooks and cashiers are calling for the right to a union at McDonald’s to hold the company accountable for ending harassment at its stores.
