Fast-food workers strike work across US cities demanding higher wages

Fast-food workers walked off their jobs across dozens of US cities yesterday, demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

According to union organisers, the strikes would spread to 150 US cities and several countries.

At a Burger King outlet in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the strike began early at 5 am with workers shouting, "Fight for $15 and union."

Strikers said they were proud they were striking adding that they were trying to get a better life for everyone in working in the fast food industry.

Similar action was seen at Taco Bell outlets in New York.

Fast food workers' are currently paid slightly over $9 an hour, or about $18,500 a year, which works out around $4,500 lower than the Census Bureau's poverty threshold level of $23,000 for a family of four.

The "Fight for $15" campaign started in New York in November 2012, with 200 fast-food workers demanding a wage of $15 per hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.

According to union organisers, the movement had been able to turn the spotlight on the issue of income disparity in the US and help raise the minimum wage in some states.

Earlier this year, workers across three states brought class-action suits against McDonald's alleging widespread wage theft.

Meanwhile in Detroit and Flint, demonstrations were held outside McDonald's restaurants, as dozens of people marched demanding higher pay.

With plans for global demonstrations unions, are trying to focus public attention to the plight of low-wage workers and garner support for the idea of a $15-an-hour wage.

However, according to businesses, significant wage increases could hurt their ability to create jobs.

The protests which got underway in 2012, are being supported by the Service Employees International Union, which counts over 2 million members.

Restaurants in Michigan have seen employee action in earlier protests on the issue.

Meanwhile, Ron Oswald, general secretary of the The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), composed of 396 trade unions in 120 countries, representing around 10 million workers, writes in an opinion piece for CNN International, that fast food was no longer where students and young people got a first job and moved on.

The fast food employee was today better educated than earlier generations and had family responsibilities. He was essentially stuck in the system with hardly any hope of breaking free from poverty wages that offered little or no benefits.

Research as the University of California, had shown that the cost of public assistance programmes to fast food workers unable to support their families totaled $7 billion annually.

''No one should be surprised, then, that "McJobs" now have a central role in the growing debate on inequality and that the "Fight for 15" has resonated'', he writes.