NAACP Backs Fast Food Workers’ Fight for $15 Hourly Wage

By Julianne Hing Jul 22, 2014

At its annual convention happening in Las Vegas, the NAACP unanimously passed a resolution today backing fast food workers’ ongoing campaign for a $15 hourly wage and a union. 

Burger King and Taco Bell employee Terence Wise, a father of three living in Kansas City, addressed the attendees. "Our children watch us go to work each day only to come home to eviction notices, shut-off notices, and bare cupboards," Wise told the crowd, according to a statement. "The civil rights movement taught us what to do when our nation defaults on a promise. Straighten your back, stand together, and fight for justice."

The NAACP resolution notes that, the nation’s "four million fast food workers are the largest group of minimum wage workers in the United States, with workers of color disproportionately represented and especially concentrated in the lowest paying jobs; where only ten percent of workers of color hold management positions compared with almost half of the white men who work in fast food industry, further perpetuating the racial wage gap."

Read the resolution in full after the jump.