Humanities Homework Help

 please address the following 7 bullet points about this week’s module. 

Summarize

1. Summarize the entirety of the module’s OER reading in 5-10 sentences.
2. Summarize the entirety of the module’s lecture in 5-10 sentences.

Reflect

1. What did you know about the module’s topic before you began the module?
2. What did you learn about the module’s topic by completing the module?
3. What do you still not understand about the module’s topic, despite completing the module? (i.e., what questions remain for you?)

Connect

1. Summarize the entirety of the module’s case study in 5-10 sentences.
2. How does the topic that you learned about in this module connect to the case study? (Be specific. For example, consider applying the module’s concepts to the case study.)–

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1 –Lecture 8

Social Change

Please cut and paste this url if the link does not work: https://youtu.be/FvNAPZpeEn4

2 –Case Study 4: The Fight for $15 Social Movement

Fight for $15 is a social movement advocating for increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. The movement began in 2012 when two hundred New York City fast-food workers, organized by personnel from New York Communities for Change, the Service Employees International Union, UnitedNY, and the Black Institute, walked off the job to demand higher pay, better working conditions, and the right to form a union without retaliation from their managers. Since then, the movement has expanded to include childcare, home healthcare, airport, retail, gas station, and convenience store workers, as well as others. 

Arguments for and against the movement are the same as arguments for and against the minimum wage. Opponents generally claim that higher wages will result in fewer working hours for each worker, increased unemployment, and higher consumer prices. Additionally, former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi blames the installation of automated ordering kiosks at the chain’s restaurants nationwide on the Fight for $15 movement.

Proponents generally point to the benefits for workers who earn a higher hourly wage, and claim that associated higher prices are tolerable and promote a more equitable distribution of wealth. Additionally, the most recent research finds little to no job loss following minimum wage increases, showing that increased wages actually create more jobs by bringing people into the labor force. 

Notably, the Fight for $15 movement stands to impact some of the nation’s most marginalized workers, like teenagers and people of color. Also potentially impacted are immigrant workers, who, given the deep and historical relationship between food and migration chains, are disproportionately represented in food service. As a result, Black Lives Matter and immigrant activists support the movement. Additionally, environmental organizations like The Sierra Club link the fight for a living wage to the fight for a living planet: corporations making massive profits take toxic shortcuts, causing hardworking families to struggle with economic insecurity while bearing the brunt of their employers’ corporate pollution.

As of May 28, 2019, the movement has seen some success on the state and local levels. California, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut have passed laws that gradually raise their state minimum wage to at least $15 an hour. Major cities like San Francisco, New York City, and Seattle, where the cost of living is high, have already raised their municipal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Additionally, big companies like McDonald’s and Walmart are inching their way up, and Amazon adopted a $15 minimum in 2018.

On the federal level, the $15 proposal was added to the Democrat’s party platform in 2016. If passed, the Raise the Wage Act, which is cosponsored by 181 members of the House of Representatives and 31 senators, could increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. Significantly, the Act would break the longest period America has gone without raising the federal minimum wage since that minimum was instituted in 1938. 

Additionally, the Fight for $15 movement is active in over 300 cities on six continents. Images of the movement shared on social media reveal similar protest tactics employed on opposite sides of the world. Online protest videos act as how-to-guides, while texts and other Internet-based communications help circulate movement strategies, leading to a coordinated global effort in support of worker rights.