CHICAGO CARLESS

As I sit here in Newark Airport waiting to head back to Hogtown from a whirlwind visit to my hometown, I think the official 7 Days @ Minimum Wage press release says it all

Press Release: November 7, 2006–Election Day

AFL-CIO/ACORN Minimum Wage Campaign Celebrates Resounding Success With Ballot Initiative Wins in AZ, CO, MO, MT, NV and OH

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She can tell it better than I can. Watch one of the most courageous women I’ve ever met tell her story of life with four kids at an unfair wage today, on day four of 7 Days @ Minimum Wage.

I had never picked up a video camera in my life before I interviewed Jessica. Her story and her eloquence, both of which emerged absolutely spontaneously, blew me and the ACORN/AFL-CIO project team in D.C. away–so much so that her interview is being shown in its 13-minute entirety, with one small edit to protect her privacy.

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(Photo: Who’s heading home from work here, and who’s just starting their commute? Credit: Looper.)

When I first moved to the Windy City, way back in early 2003–eons ago in Internet time–I was soundly kicked down the economic ladder by fate. I moved midwest on the shaky strength of a job offer that shook apart just as I was arriving. Moving from New York as I did, any savings I might have had to cushion that blow had already been blown on other of life’s line items, like outrageous Gotham rent and food costs. Now here I was, with an urban planning masters degree, without an apartment, and with the sinking feeling I was about to return, albeit temporarily, to the crap jobs of my college days.

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It’s about to happen. On Monday, October 23, the national video blog I was invited to work on for ACORN and AFL-CIO goes live on the Net. And as my life has been going for the past few months, since last Monday I’m in deeper still.

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God knows I’ve wanted to scribe on Carless in the past few days. Especially with juicy tidbits floating around, like Crain’s (and Chicagoist’s) call for the CTA to dump Frank Kruesi, Daley finally wanting to sell off Grant Park’s debt-ridden downtown garages, and Allstate Insurance tossing a car off of Marina City’s west tower in a commercial reshoot of the classic parking-ramp plunge from The Hunter.

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This summer, when I jumped head-first into Chicago’s big-box wage debate, I repeatedly said that the best way to promote a wage increase was at the state level. Little did I suspect that, three months later, I would be selected for the national publicity team of a weeklong, ACORN/AFL-CIO sponsored Internet campaign to raise the minimum wage in six states.

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