Hundreds March Against Inequality Through Downtown Miami While Candidates Stump Nearby (PHOTOS)

While Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and New Gingrich made campaign stops in Miami Wednesday, hundreds of people marched in solidarity with predominantly Haitian and Cuban workers from Miami's financial district to demand better pay and benefits.

Activists from community groups to religious leaders to Service Employees International Union members joined the March For Inequality, walking from Greater Bethel AME Church in Overtown through the shadow of Freedom Tower, where Romney was meeting with supporters, to a rally at the Southeast Financial Center.

Outside a Wells Fargo bank, they demonstrated to demand attention to the "ever-growing gap in wealth in this country," according to a statement from participating group 1Miami.

"We believe that hardworking men and women have a right to put food on the table, have access to adequate health care and give their children the opportunity to have better lives by making a good living wage," said Jose Suarez, communications director for 1Miami, in an e-mail.

"Miami, as well as the country, should not allow and cannot afford to have workers whose jobs are pushing them towards poverty while corporations and banks like Wells Fargo are making billions without paying their fair share in taxes," he wrote.

According to the SEIU, local office cleaners earn as much as $4 an hour less than their counterparts other large metro areas -- while a "typical" office clerk earns as much as $9,000 less.

Former security guard Rosabla Campos said it was time to hold government and "large greedy corporations" accountable: "After my hours were cut, I was spending more money getting to work than I was making," she said in a statement. "How’s someone supposed to get by with jobs like these?"

Suarez said the scheduling with regard to Romney and Gingrich was a coincidence, but a convenient one: "Their visits to Miami on the same day as this march help highlight the deep differences of their favor-the-few philosophies versus our commitment to build a solid, stable middle class here in South Florida."

View images and video from the march:

Comments

[KittenSoldier]

11:48 AM on 01/30/2012

Oh goodie, more obambam class warfare in action. They protest for better wages - a 'living wage' infact - a buzz word taught to them by protest organizers which has no meaning and no definition and is subject to interpretation on whim and demand that corporations pay their 'fair share' - another mercurial buzz word. Just how does the exacting of higher taxes on corporations translate into better wages for its workers? Flawed logic seems to rule the day.

If you don't make enough money with one job, get 2 or find another that pays better. How is it that big corporations are responsible for the fact that your only skill is to make beds or mop floors at a hotel? Someone explain this please.

Shouting at a Wells Fargo truck makes perfect sense.

Perhaps these protestors are unaware that they spent the day walking around yelling when they could have been earning money at a second job. Someone enlighten them.

[Georgann Putintsev]

11:03 PM on 01/29/2012

Part 2) Remember the movie Tucker, too big to fail Corp Auto Industry killing the little guy with a BETTER idea - True American Capitialism requires competition. How many times has a CONGRESSMAN killed the BETTER AMerICAN idea for his campaign, his party, his IOU.
WE THE PEOPLE must get our Government back into the hands of hard working, honest people who want to be a CIVIL Servant for the betterment of their community, their constituents.
-- Setting term limits will help fend off corruption, or corruption taking hold, and potential blackmail IOUs.
-- Setting Corp life-span limits, taxing for longer life-spans ( say 50 , 75, 100 yrs, growth state to country to countries to hemispheres to global ). Then they divest.
-- Limiting any one Corp from owning more than 1 Media outlet to ALL of a sector. \
-- Limiting the size of Banks (too big to fail) and/or the types of Investment Banking (conglomerates that exist in any one or more industry sectors).
-- Look into the Composite Annual Financial Reports (town, city, county, state, gov) and take that money to rebuild those infra-structures that BENEFIT WE THE PEOPLE, not make them self-perperuating by products. (( This is the 2nd book NOT the BUDGET book.))
-- Build 5 cities of Hope : NEW AGE only towns or cities in 5 regions in the US -- Best, Brightest Engineers, Architects, Builders, self-sustaining communities. Regional faires/VOTE for the BEST for the ONE City - Worlds Fair.

[Georgann Putintsev]

10:43 PM on 01/29/2012

Fixing the REAL Problem: WE THE PEOPLE pay for set auditable campaigns from Mayor to President, with ballot/campaign limits set by location: median income, population and single type of occupation (so 5 lawyers would = the 1 w/the most pre-ballot signatures). If anyone running violates their audit/funding/budget of their campaign, they're out. We also have FAIR Media & serious debates on ONE - THREE Federal | State | or Local topics (each week/ 4 week period)- civic subjects the elected official actually has the power to work on once elected.
Eliminates: * Corp for Profit Lobbyists * PAC or Corp PAC or uber Rich donations
* IOU's * Wasted time spent on their NEXT campaign funding, so they can actually WORK.
* separate retirement/health care plans for CONgress.
Gives: * We THE PEOPLE more representation in Congress: no more-- 27% Lawyers, 44+% Millionaires, -55 mbrs >10M dollars, * AUDIT the FED, ALL Federal Agencies/downsizing * TOOLS necessary to stop WHITE COLLAR CRIME, Wall Street, corp raiders & corp cronizm, loops holes to get money for NOTHING - no viable product * Equal Law for ALL
An example of Congress/Corp greed is Diabetes, a curable disease. Corp insulin & insulin producers talk about AMerican diabetics growth in their Annual Report with indirect to direct ties to BOD's of the Food Industry that promote high blood sugars. This shows that WE THE PEOPLE are the built-in commodity-fodder of many types of self-perpertuating businesses. CONgress feeds off of this by Corp donations/IOUs.

[brinniewales]

10:06 PM on 01/29/2012

If people feel or think "...the corporations and banks like Wells Fargo are making billions without paying their fair share in taxes," as said by Mr. Suarez, then they need to address the issue to their state legislators and their members of the U.S. Congress. On the whole, these businesses are paying the appropriate taxes that are required of them. Changes need to be made in the state and federal tax codes so talking to and protesting in front of the banks and businesses is a waste of valuable time and energy that could be used in other areas. No one I know willingly pays more taxes than they are required to pay by law. The same holds true for businesses. They pay that which is required of them. Period. Nothing more.

[brinniewales]

09:47 PM on 01/29/2012

I thought it was a new word or one I didn't recognize on the previous page under Photo Galleries:
March Against Inquality
Perhaps it's 'Inequality'

[bigjakeIII]

01:11 PM on 02/02/2012

thats the liberal way to spell it.

[brinniewales]

05:26 PM on 02/02/2012

I don't think a misspelling means political motivation. It's just lack of proofreading.

[ILCAPO1957]

09:11 PM on 01/29/2012

And where were all these marchers when it came out John Kerry and his wife pay only 12 percent of their income in taxes? In 2004, when running against Bush, he denounced Bush as being rich and clueless, but it turns out he married into money and he and Teresa had an income five times that of George and Laura Bush, yet the Bushs paid 30 percent of their income in 2003 in federal taxes while the Kerrys paid only 12 percent. Suddenly the subject went dead quiet in the main stream media. But here we are again, and the same nonsense is being spewed by the left.

[teleqsal]

01:08 AM on 01/30/2012

If we get back those hundreds of billions of $$ that Obama threw away....it may help a little, huh?

[ILCAPO1957]

10:11 PM on 01/31/2012

Isn't going to happen. And from the looks of it, it won't matter because we're going to be even deeper in debt once the idiot electorate gets done with us. Apparently the masses of morons out there haven't had enough of the RINO and socialists yet. They're running a man who is Obama light.

I have ZERO faith in Romney being anything other than another go along to get along liberal in Republican clothing. He's talking a big story, but his record as governor doesn't support his claims.

And with the crap coming out on him, I'm not sure he could even win anyways. Two dozen foreign bank accounts, ranging from the Cayman Islands, to Luxembourg, to Switzerland, etc.? REALLY? Why? Who does that unless they're trying to hide something? Obama doesn't care because hes living large off the taxpayer anyways. Always has. Just like the Clintons.

We're sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss, and yet millions of Americans are cheering those taking us down on even further. Have you SEEN the comments on this board? The Huffington Post draws psychos from every point of the spectrum.

[teleqsal]

01:37 PM on 02/01/2012

Thats too bad about Indiana being a "Right To Work State" now. We all enjoyed being forced to join Unions and paying them dues even if we don't join them. Oh well, I guess we have to put up with being free to work where we want now and to join Unions if we want or not.

[BoycottFox2]

11:58 AM on 01/26/2012

It's been a real wakeup call...