The Pitt News T h e i n de p e n d e n t st ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh
Missouri’s stance an important step Page 8 November 11, 2015 | Issue 61 | Volume 106
BUS HITS PITT STUDENT Elizabeth Lepro
Assistant News Editor
Local workers and activists march for a $15 minimum wage Downtown on Tuesday. Dale Shoemaker | News Editor
THE FIGHT CONTINUES Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto issued an executive order Tuesday mandating a $15 per hour minimum wage for city workers. Later that day, workers rallied for more. | by Dale Shoemaker
With official action coming yesterday morning and a rally descending upon Downtown in the evening, the fight for a $15 minimum wage bookended in Pittsburgh. Amid a national discussion about workers’ pay and the federal minimum wage, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto issued an executive order Tuesday morning requiring the city to pay its workers at least $15 per hour. Nine hours later, roughly 250 workers and activists marched on the Pittsburgh City-County Building Downtown in another push in Pittsburgh’s fight for a $15 minimum wage. The order mandates the city pay all full-
time employees at least $15 per hour by 2021. The city will phase in increases over the next five years, the release said, to comply with the city’s Act 47 Recovery Plan, a plan from the state that designates Pittsburgh as financially distressed. The order will affect about 300 city employees, according to the release, including laborers and clerical workers. At the rally Tuesday evening, workers and activists marched from the U.S. Steel Tower down Grant Street, chanting, shouting and gathering on the steps of the City-County Building. Labor leaders, activists and elected
officials spoke in support of Peduto’s order and called on those gathered to use it as momentum in their continued fight for a higher minimum wage. “We’re still fighting because we want [$15 per hour] for fast food workers. But it’s a start,” Ashona Osborne, a Pittsburgh worker who works two part-time jobs at McDonald’s in Penn Hills and at the Pittsburgh Zoo, said. The city will begin phasing in pay increases in 2017, giving it a full year to work the increases into its budget. In the first year, Peduto’s spokesperson Tim McNulty said, city workers, See Rally on page 3
Port Authority Police is investigating what happened before a Port Authority bus hit a Pitt student on Fifth Avenue Tuesday afternoon. The student stepped into the bus lane to cross Fifth Avenue toward Thackeray Avenue when a Port Authority bus running the 71A outbound route toward Shadyside struck him. The bus driver called 911 at 2:25 p.m., and Pitt Police, as well as Port Authority police, responded to the scene, according to Port Authority spokesperson Adam Brandolph. Port Authority is not releasing the name of the student, but Brandolph said he had minor abrasions on the scene. The student stood and spoke with police for several minutes before walking to an ambulance. He was in stable condition at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital this afternoon following the accident. After police arrived, an unnamed woman on the bus who hit her head on impact complained of a headache, according to Brandolph. EMTs treated her on the scene, and she did not go to the hospital. Brandolph said Port Authority is investigating the details of the incident and will perform routine drug and alcohol tests on the driver before the end of the night. Following impact with the bus, the front windshield cracked in the bottom-right corner. This is the fifth reported person hit by a bus on Pitt’s campus since the beginning of October.