Showing posts with label strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strike. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri


Postcard US-3064248 from Tennessee shows the city skyline of St. Louis, Missouri, featuring the Gateway Arch, a 630-foot or 192-meter monument built at the site of St. Louis' founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River between 1963 and 1965 to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States, against the backdrop of a flurry of cloud-to-ground bolts strike.

As the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the arch is the tallest arch in the world and the tallest monument in the Western Hemisphere. The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967. In comparison, the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas stands at 1,149 ft or 350.2 meters.

St. Louis, the second largest city in the state of Missouri, was the hometown of Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014), an American author and civil rights activist. USPS issued a Forever stamp in her honor today, with Winfrey Oprah and Michelle Obama attending the stamp dedication ceremony in Washington D.C.


However, USPS failed the fact check for the stamp by featuring a quotation from another author, and had no plan to re-issue the stamp. Nonetheless, the mix-up did not damp the enthusiasm of the dedication ceremony. Even a power outage that also affected the White House and much of the D.C. area could not stop Oprah's speach.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Fast Food Workers Demand Living Wage


President Obama said in his Labor Day speech at Milwaukee, Wisconsin: “All across the country right now there’s a national movement going on made up of fast-food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity.” Meanwhile, organizers representing fast food workers around the country are planning a one-day strike next Thursday on September 4, 2014 at restaurants such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s and KFC in 150 cities, demanding a living wage of $15 per hour and the right to unionize. The Bureau of Labor Statistics had the average hourly wage for restaurant workers at $8.74 as of May 2013.

The campaign started with 200 fast-food workers in New York City in November 2012. It has since gained momentum as 13 states increased their minimum wages at the beginning of 2014 and Seattle approved a $15 minimum wage. According to Chicago Tribune, "in May, 101 McDonald’s workers were peacefully arrested for trespassing at a protest outside the company’s Oak Brook headquarters. Since then, the so-called Fight for $15 campaign has continued to raise awareness of its goals of unionizing fast food workers and raising their wages to $15 an hour."

The featured postcard shows a McDonald's Restaurant at Sahara Paradise Plaza in Las Vegas, as seen from the Stratosphere Tower.