About 500 fast-food workers gathered on Thursday at a Fifth Avenue McDonald’s to call for higher wages and the right to unionize. The industry-wide protest is expected to continue throughout the day, reaching 1,000 stores in 50 cities from Los Angeles to Boston. Workers plan to walk out of Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and other major fast-food restaurants.
Thursday’s protests occur as part of a larger movement for better working conditions that first picked up momentum last November, with a strike of 200 workers in New York. The cause quickly spread throughout the country, culminating in July with a one day strike of 2,000 people in 7 cities, reports the Associated Press.
Currently protesters are demanding a raise from $7.25 to $15 in hourly wages. While there have been similar efforts in Washington to raise the federal minimum wage, proposals are much more modest. President Barack Obama supports a raise to $9 an hour.
Of the three million fast-food industry workers in America, many differ from the stereotypical young student working part-time to make some extra cash. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Economic Policies Institute shows that the average age of minimum-wage workers is now 35. With economic mobility becoming increasingly stagnate, older fast-food employees desperately seek to make enough money to feed their families.
Strikers face an uphill battle against a powerful $200 billion industry that is able to keep restaurants open despite strikes.
"They make millions of profit. We deserve better," says Tyeisha Batts, a 27-year-old Burger King worker, reports L’Angence France-Presse.