Fast Food Workers To Hold One-Day Strike To Protest Low Wages
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Fast food workers in New York and six other cities across the country were set to go on strike Monday, on the grounds that their wages are just too low to live on.
Workers will walk out for a one-day strike at several major and well-known fast food purveyors, including McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Wendy's, according to a Washington Post report.
The walkouts will be held in New York, as well as Chicago; Detroit; Milwaukee; St. Louis; Kansas City; and Flint, Mich., the newspaper reported.
Fast Food Workers To Hold One-Day Strike To Protest Low Wages
Jonathan Westin, director of Fast Food Forward and the executive director of New York Communities for Change, said fast food workers are not paid a living wage despite having to raise families.
"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," he told 1010 WINS. "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."
Westin said the purpose of the strike is to spur interest and momentum across the country among all fast food workers whom he said are suffering from low wages and unfair labor practices.
"What it has accomplished is mobilizing workers; having them get excited about a campaign to really change the conditions that are really pervasive in the fast food industry of paying poverty wages, throughout the history of the industry," he said.
Fast food workers also picketed in New York and several other cities in April. At one location, about 60 workers chanted "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Minimum wage has got to go!" at a midtown Wendy's.
The protesters called on fast food restaurants to pay $15 per hour, almost double the current statewide average pay of $8.25 per hour.
New York's minimum wage is $7.25 but the state Legislature this year voted to raise it to $9 by 2016.
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