Fight For $15 Labor Day Protests Demand Living Wage and a Union

Interview with Angel Candelario, a Burger King employee from Hartford, CT who marched for $15 an hour and union representation on Labor Day, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Along with more than 300 other cities across the U.S., Hartford, Connecticut, hosted a Fight For $15 march and rally on Labor Day. About 200 fast food workers, other low-paid workers and their allies rallied in front of a McDonald’s restaurant, then marched two miles past many more fast-food franchises and held a rally in front of a downtown church where workers from the food, day care and home care sectors talked about the need for a livable wage and a union.

The national workers alliance known as ‘Fight for $15,’ was founded in 2012 and backed by the Service Employees International Union, which has initiated other successful organizing drives including the Justice for Janitors campaign. With their Labor Day rallies, Fight For $15 is launching a campaign to defeat anti-worker politicians across the U.S. in 2018.

While covering the Hartford Fight For $15 rally, Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus met Angel Candelario, a 37-year-old Burger King employee. He explained how it’s impossible for him to support his family on Connecticut’s minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, especially when, like most fast food workers, he doesn’t work full time. He recounts that although he was hired 7 months ago at 20 hours a week, he has since seen his hours cut in half. Here, Candelario, who has suffered from leukemia since the age of 8, talks about why he became active in the Fight For $15 movement and the importance of having the right to join and be represented by a union.

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Because I started standing up for myself and fighting for or my rights and actually believing in everything with this movement, and my management knows about me and this movement, they’re not pleased with it, so now my hours got cut from 20 to 10 and I only get 5 hours for 2 days a week, Saturdays and Sundays. But I only bring home $60 and some cents. So right now, it’s like, Let’s fight.

BETWEEN THE LINES:Is this the only job you have?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Right now, yes. At one point I was doing a temp agency job. I was working installations, and then Burger King. But due to my health issues and difficulties, I’m not able to. So I had to reduce to just one job.

BETWEEN THE LINES:So how are you surviving?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:I’m not. If I was to say yeah, I’d be lying to you. I’m just living off my sister or my mom or my ex-girlfriend. That’s the truth.

BETWEEN THE LINES:How does that feel to you?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Degrading. At the end of the day, it’s degrading. It hurts, man pride. You know that good stuff – man ego. But right now with this fight, they got my back. They make me feel it’s all right. You have to stand for something. If not, you’re going to fall for every single thing they throw at you in life. So for today, I’m standing for everybody, not just for myself. I’m standing for the people that was afraid to come because they might get in trouble with their job. But it’s gonna be all right. It’s gonna be all right.

BETWEEN THE LINES:So, how do you think … first of all, if you could get paid for 40 hours a week, $15 an hour – do you think that would be an acceptable salary to live on?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Yes. Let’s think about it though. Our movement is called “Fight for 15 and a Union.” If they say, OK, Connecticut, here’s $15, but we don’t have a union, the management still has the right to take the hours from you – so here’s one day of work a week, $15 dollars an hour, 8 hours. What then? So we want that union because the union’s gonna guarantee us safety. The union’s gonna treat us like a family, the union’s gonna pay attention to our hours; the union’s gonna make sure that once we sign that dotted line to get a job, we gonna get 30 hours, nothing less but better.

BETWEEN THE LINES:Is there a specific union you’re wanting to join?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:If I was to join a union, it’s a blessing. To pick one – I didn’t even know we could pick one. But to have our own and have our own backbone, because now we understand. Seven months ago I wasn’t part of this. I was afraid to even speak to the union because at my job I was told to walk away from the union, don’t talk to the union, don’t interact with the union, you are capable of getting fired if you interact with the union.

BETWEEN THE LINES:Which is illegal for them to say.

ANGEL CANDELARIO:(sighs) But men and women today don’t have the proper knowledge on what is what, on what is the rules and regulations that is happening behind closed doors. What we can or cannot do, what we can say. Who can we talk to and go to the proper chain of command. I would love to create our own union; that’s my answer. And if we had the opportunity, and by the grace of God we do, we’d like to create our union. We are family. These are my brothers and sisters in the same common struggle every day.

BETWEEN THE LINES:What other fast food places or other businesses are represented here? You work at Burger King; what are some of the other ones?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:It’s a list. We have McDonald’s. We have Burger King. We have Wendy’s. We have Taco Bell. We have under-the-table restaurant workers. We have people who work in car washes. We have people, secretaries of dentists. They want to believe in this. We have medical people that want to come over here and protest with us.

BETWEEN THE LINES:You said you had health issues. Under the Affordable Care Act, do you have any health insurance?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Under the Affordable Care Act, I have HUSKY. Burger King offers medical, but if you sign this piece of paper waiving your medical rights, we can make sure you get over 30 hours a week. That’s what I was told. Excuse me – me being a young man, naïve, I signed. I signed, so now I don’t get no medical, nothing, my medical’s weak, and my hours are weak.

BETWEEN THE LINES:Burger King told you if you signed a waiver…

ANGEL CANDELARIO:If you sign this piece of paper we can guarantee you over 30 hours, because we can’t really give you benefits and also provide you 40 hours. I bit the bullet because I didn’t understand. I was still naïve, still immature as to the rules and regulations. But now that I understand it, I bet it won’t happen to the next person. I won’t allow it.

BETWEEN THE LINES:If you talk to your fellow workers, can you talk about any of the other struggles that your fellow workers have had to deal with, making only $10.10 an hour?

ANGEL CANDELARIO:There’s a young gentleman I was working with at a restaurant under the table – great pay because it’s under-the-table – we get the cash, you know? But this gentleman lost a tooth, and he’s undocumented, and because of that he can’t go to a regular dentist. He has to pay cash, to get seen as a favor, because of his legal situation. It’s unbelievable, that people get hurt and can’t get workman’s compensation. You get hurt and you can’t complain about it to your boss, because what are you going to do? Either you get fired or suck it up, or you get one day off.

BETWEEN THE LINES:Without pay.

ANGEL CANDELARIO:Without pay. So, I want to tell everybody that if you have a fight you want to stand up for in your life, anything, one moment, one day, Fight for 15 is the movement.

Learn more about Fight For 15 at hfightfor15.org.

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