After making a first appearance last month, the Fight for 15 campaign to raise the minimum wage will return to the streets of Sechelt this Sunday, Feb. 15.
“This one is bound to kick up a little more controversy, given we’re marching on McDonald’s,” Fraser Shortt, the event’s volunteer coordinator, said last week.
The year-long campaign, spearheaded by the B.C. Federation of Labour, aims to put pressure on Victoria to increase the minimum hourly wage in the province from $10.25 to $15.
As well as returning to Sechelt, where a petition-signing was held on Jan. 15, the campaign will also touch down in Gibsons this Sunday with an information event between noon and 2 p.m. in the 200 block of Gower Point Road.
Two women volunteers will staff the Gibsons event, addressing the issues women face as a disproportionately represented segment among minimum wage workers, Shortt said.
The larger Sechelt event will begin at 1 p.m. with a petition-signing in front of St. Mary’s Thrift Store on Cowrie Street, followed at 2 p.m. with a march to McDonald’s Restaurant on Highway 101, where a brief protest will be held.
Shortt said fast food chains are a major focus of the campaign, and McDonald’s was chosen as “a pretty egregious example of a corporate entity that is doing everything in their power to maintain the low wages of their employees.”
In Canada, he said, McDonald’s “pays on average slightly higher than minimum wage — 75 cents to $1.25 above minimum wage.”
Shortt said he expects between 15 and 30 people to take part in the protest, adding there is no intention “to impede their ability to do business.”
The protest, he said, is “less against this particular franchise and more of a protest against McDonald’s in general and the wages they pay to their employees. This does not have anything to do with this individual franchise. They’re representative of a much bigger problem.”
Management at McDonald’s in Sechelt declined comment.
