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Fast-Food Workers Demand Double Pay


Don't expect to have it your way today at some fast-food restaurants across the country.

Workers at the nation's best known fast-food restaurants in seven cities across America are planning to walk off the job Monday to protest what they say are wages that are too low to live on.

The Washington Post reports that the protests will take place in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Flint, Mich., involving workers at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC. Some employees at stores including Dollar Tree, Macy's and Victoria's Secret are also expected to join the protesters in several cities.

The workers are calling for wages of $15 per hour, more than double New York's current minimum wage of $7.25.

A network of local community groups, clergy and unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are backing the strike.

"SEIU members, like


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Fast-Food Workers Demand Double Pay
all service-sector workers, are worse off when large fast-food and retail companies are able to hold down wages and push benefit standards for working people," Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, told the Washington Post.

In New York City, the protests were organized by a group called Fast Food Forward, which states its Twitter account: "No one can survive on $7.25."

"A lot of the workers are living in poverty, you know, not being able to afford to put food on the table or take the train to work," Fast Food Forward director Jonathan Westin told CBS New York. "The workers are striking over the fact that they can't continue to maintain their families on the wages they're being paid in the fast-food industry."

The group posted a photograph on its Twitter account early Monday depicting workers who have "walked out" in New York.

Fast-food workers in New York City earn an average salary of $11,000 annually.


Proof you may soon make less than your fast food counterparts