By Maggie Young, Staff Writer

Published in print Apr. 22, 2015

Low-wage workers across the nation marched in the “Fight for $15” protest last Wednesday in the hopes that fast food, childcare, health care companies and others will take notice and raise pay.

In 2012, almost three years ago, hundreds of fast food workers in New York City went on strike, demanding 15 dollars an hour. Several years later thousands of workers have joined the “Fight for 15” movement.

According to the Fight for 15 website, the protest has reached 200 cities within 35 countries across six continents.

Currently, the United States federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour; although some cities such as New York are pushing to raise the minimum wage to $15 over the next few years, there is still a long way to go for many workers.

North Carolina, along with thirteen other states, has a state minimum wage equivalent to the federal minimum. There are 29 states that have minimum wages higher than the federal level, but none as high at $15 an hour.

The highest minimum wage is in the District of Colombia, which reaches $9.50 per hour.

North Carolinians had a chance to join Wednesday’s protest during a rally at Shaw University in Raleigh.

Despite unremitting rain, students, professors, field-workers and laborers from myriad backgrounds stood in protest of what they believe to be a crime against those who provide the most essential of public services.

Attendants held signs with messages such as, “NC Can’t Survive on $7.25,” “Same Qualifications, Less Pay” and “On Strike To Raise Wages For A Better South.”

As the crowd began to grow, rally attendants gave encouraging speeches about their optimism for the movement.

Among the speakers were childcare workers, a health care worker, a field-worker, an adjunct professor, the president of Shaw University, and the president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.

One home health care worker told the crowd, “Me and my other co-workers have to work at least 50 hours a week to make ends meet. There’s no more 40-hour week.”

She continued by stating that she often has to choose between buying school supplies for her child and putting gas in her car to go to work.

A childcare worker claimed that although she is nurturing, loving and preparing other people’s children for their futures she is not being incentivized to do so. “Pay us the 15 dollars…so we want to come to work and stay at work.”

She emphasized that childcare is a service that people don’t just want, but need; she feels the minimum wage is not adequate for those providing such an indispensible service.

Demetrius Noble attended the rally and represented adjunct professors who are also fighting for a better wage.

Noble is an adjunct professor of African American Studies at UNC-Greensboro.

“I’m here because professors are fighting for 15 too. We’re fighting for $15,000 per course.” Noble stated that most adjunct professors make around $2,000 per course and many have less than three courses per semester.

He argued that from fall and spring semesters many adjunct professors with master’s degrees and PhDs are still only earning around $12,000 per year.

Along with $15,000 per course Noble stated that adjunct professors are fighting for at least yearlong contracts.

“Most adjunct professors are on contracts that only last from semester to semester.”

Noble claimed that due to the tenuous nature of the job many adjunct professors do not attend the Fight for 15 rallies for fear that their universities may choose to end their contracts.

Noble was recently informed, “Due to budget cuts [he] will not be coming back in the fall.”

Noble ended his speech by declaring, “The country couldn’t function without any of this labor that has been talked about today…continue to organize with us. What do we want?”

The crowd loudly replied with shouts of “fifteen!”