Today Fast-food workers plan another day of walkouts to protest low wage servitude
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Fast-food workers are poised to walk off the job in 100 cities Thursday, the latest action in a nationwide push for a $15-an-hour wage.
Organizers said Thursday’s one-day job action will be backed by protests in 100 other cities by social justice groups that support the fast-food workers’ demands.
“There is a huge amount of support and enthusiasm for this,” said Ezra Tempko of the Delaware chapter of the Americans for Democratic Action, which is supporting workers who plan to walk out in Wilmington, Del. “The only push back is that folks were worried about what repercussions there might be for workers.”
The protests began in November 2012, when about 200 fast-food workers walked away from their jobs at 30 restaurants in New York City. Since then, the walkouts have expanded across the country and joined with a broader movement to increase pay for low-wage employees of retail chains and federal contractors, among others.
“The workers realized that the only way they could gain something was by taking dramatic action,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director for Fast Food Forward, which helped organize the initial New York walkout.
Organizers say few workers have been punished for the walkouts and that some have even been rewarded with slightly higher pay and more regular shifts. Also, several states and localities have raised their minimum wages. On Tuesday, the D.C. Council endorsed a $3.25 hike in the District of Columbia’s minimum wage, to $11.50 an hour. The measure needs final approval from the council and Washington’s mayor.
President Barack Obama has endorsed raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10 an hour after previously calling for an increase to $9.
