Group Pushes For $15 Hourly Minimum Wage In Massachusetts

BOSTON (CBS/AP) — A state senator was among nearly three dozen people arrested following a demonstration in Cambridge in support of a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Raise Up Massachusetts said hundreds of workers and their supporters gathered outside of a Cambridge McDonald's restaurant Tuesday morning for what the group called an act of civil disobedience.

In Central Square, police said 36 people were arrested. Cambridge Police called these arrests "pre-planned."

A spokesman for state Sen. Jamie Eldridge says the Acton Democrat was among a group that sat down in the street.

The group also plans a Statehouse rally later Tuesday to call for hiking the state's hourly minimum wage

In 2014, the Legislature approved a bill to increase the state's minimum wage — then $8 an hour — to one of the highest in the nation over a three-year period. The final step, going from the current $10 to $11 an hour, occurs on Jan. 1.

The group plans to ask lawmakers during the next legislative session that starts in January to consider a similar bill, one that would raise the minimum wage incrementally over several years to $15 an hour, and also boost pay for tipped workers.

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• Minimum Wage
• Massachusetts
• Protests