Ocasio-Cortez back behind the bar in minimum wage push
American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned to her restaurant roots on Friday, donning an apron and serving drinks in Manhattan in a push to raise the country’s minimum wage.
The 29-year-old New Yorker and rising political star, who describes herself as a socialist, worked as a bartender and waitress in a restaurant in her hometown before entering Congress last year.
“I was nervous that I may have lost my touch - still got it! That muscle memory doesn’t quit,” she wrote on Twitter after an hour taking orders and swinging a cocktail shaker at a restaurant in her Queens constituency.
Ocasio-Cortez was promoting of the “One Fair Wage” campaign, which is calling for a raise to the federal hourly minimum wage to $15 for service workers.
“The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13 an hour. That is unacceptable. Any job that pays $2.13 an hour is not a job. It’s indentured servitude,” she said behind the bar.
“All labor has dignity, and the way that we give labor dignity is by paying people the respect and value that they are worth.”
Bronx-born Ocasio-Cortez, who has become a favorite target of Donald Trump supporters, owes part of her aura to her magnetic social media presence and her bold, progressive political platform.
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