Susan Sarandon is on a roll, arrested at protest after picket line appearance
After showing up for the Writers Guild of America picket line, Susan Sarandon leant her star power to a protest with One Fair Wage
Half of Hollywood is on the picket line for the Writers Guild of America strike, but Susan Sarandon was on the frontlines of a different battle this week. The actor was arrested while protesting in New York’s state capital, Albany, with the group One Fair Wage. The organization advocates for a fair minimum wage for service workers, whose hourly rates are typically less than state minimum wages due to also receiving tips.
Monday’s protest was in response to new legislation which will increase the state of New York’s minimum wage to $17 per hour, indexing to inflation for future increases, per Politico. However, service workers (who are “disproportionately women of color,” as the outlet notes) are excluded from this increase. One Fair Wage has called to phase out the subminimum wage by passing an Assembly and Senate bill by Mother’s Day. Tipped workers “have been left out of minimum wage increases for 73 years,” the org said in a statement on social media. “A direct legacy of slavery, the subminimum wage in New York impacts a workforce of nearly 330,000 tipped workers that is 58% women and 49% people of color.”
Enter Sarandon, who was arrested with eight individuals (including former New York lieutenant governor candidate Ana Maria Archila) to be arrested during One Fair Wage’s demonstration. The day also featured speeches from state lawmakers, including Senators Mike Gianaris and Robert Jackson and assembly members Jessica González-Rojas and Harvey Epstein.
Sarandon has always been politically active, previously arrested in 2018 in Washington, D.C. while protesting then-President Donald Trump’s immigration policy. She’s been particularly active lately, though, joining the writers’ strike picket line the week prior. “I’m a union person, as you probably know, so I support every union, but especially my brothers and sisters,” she said in an interview with The Indypendent from the line. “Without writers, we don’t have anything, and I think what they’re asking for is more than fair. …Every time that there’s a union strike, you have to respect it.”