Michelle Wu: “I have owned a business. I have met a payroll. But I have also worked for relatively low wages. I have worked in…”

“I have owned a business. I have met a payroll. But I have also worked for relatively low wages. I have worked in decommissioned ships that were both extremely hot in the hold and also filled with asbestos. I have worked in a dog food factory. But my real minimum wage job was as an assistant dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant owned by friends of my parents. I saw how hard those full-time workers worked. I was an assistant dishwasher, and I saw how the full-time dishwasher got his fingers burned, how the cooks got their hands cut. And they worked for minimum wage just like me, but I was a teenager. And I came home to my parents' home. I said to my parents, Those people work awfully hard, and they deserve more. We ought to have a union. There are times when there is unequal bargaining power, when there are market failures, and there is a very legitimate role for the public sector and for joint action. It is long due to pass an increase in the minimum wage. I rise in strong support of raising the minimum wage.”