Local Sodexho employees picket

Employees of Sodexho serving the Recovery School District and Loyola and Tulane Universities have been picketing to publicize complaints about low wages and other grievances.

Walkin' in New Orleans

Yesterday was another gorgeous spring day, and late in the afternoon my daughter and I walked through the Tulane campus, and as the glory of spring was overcoming me, I heard in the distance a speaker demanding economic justice and the right to organize. Seems Sodexo workers at Tulane and Loyola need street demonstrations to pump support for their agenda. While I could only hear bits of the appeal as I walked, CLEAN UP SODEXO has a post about it. The part where the guy making $8.12 an hour says he's had only a 24¢ and 12¢ raise in five years seems a little odd. In 2005, the minimum wage was $5.15/hr. I guess the real dollars received as a result of the minimum wage rising to its current level ($7.25) are not real raises. Thats not to say that $8.12 an hour is a living wage, but my bet is that the complaining worker has seen a lot more than 36¢ in raises in the last five years.