Name: Anonymous 2013-09-01 10:21
Fast-food workers on strike in US
They demand higher pay as protest hits 1,000 major eateries across 60 cities
Demonstrators surrounding Chipotle Mexican Grill eatery during a strike aimed at the fast-food industry. Workers in the industry are demanding a doubling of their pay.
NEW YORK - Thousands of workers at McDonald's and other fast-food outlets across the United States halted work in what organisers called the "largest-ever strike" to hit the US$200 billion industry.
Workers in 60 cities put down burgers and fries on 29 August 2013 to join the fight for US$15 an hour - double what most currently earn - and the right to form a union without retaliation, organisers said.
"They make millions that come from our feet. They can afford to pay us better," Ms Shaniqua Davis, 20, said at a demonstration outside a McDonald's on New York's upmarket Fifth Avenue.
Ms Davis has a one-year-old child and works at a branch of the restaurant in the Bronx where she earns US$7.25 an hour.
"I have bills to pay. I need to buy diapers. I can hardly buy food." She said that if not for food stamps and help she received to pay her rent, "I would already be on the street".
Mr Kendall Fells of the campaign group Fast Food Forward hit out at working conditions for people who had "no health insurance, no guarantee of hours".
"In (New York City) they make US$7.25 an hour. If you look at any statistics of how much it takes you to survive in NYC, just food, clothing and rent, it's over US$20 an hour."
The protest movement first began in New York last November with a strike by 200 workers but quickly spread across the country with strikes on July in Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, Milwaukee and St Louis.
On 29 August 2013, organisers said the strike hit some 1,000 major fast-food restaurants, including Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.
"Hold the burgers, hold the fries, make worker wages supersize!" read a tweet from Fight for 15, a workers organising committee.
Many of the three million fast-food workers in America do not work full time and cannot count on tips like those who staff bars and restaurants. "More people are looking to this as a real job rather than a transition or entry-level job," said Professor Jefferson Cowie, of Cornell University's Department of Labour Relations, Law, and History.
But the restaurant industry says it already operates on thin margins and insists that sharply higher wages would lead to steeper prices for customers and fewer opportunities for job seekers.
As the movement goes viral, it has become clear that the traditional image of a McDonald's worker - a carefree adolescent flipping burgers until something better comes along - has changed.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
They demand higher pay as protest hits 1,000 major eateries across 60 cities
Demonstrators surrounding Chipotle Mexican Grill eatery during a strike aimed at the fast-food industry. Workers in the industry are demanding a doubling of their pay.
NEW YORK - Thousands of workers at McDonald's and other fast-food outlets across the United States halted work in what organisers called the "largest-ever strike" to hit the US$200 billion industry.
Workers in 60 cities put down burgers and fries on 29 August 2013 to join the fight for US$15 an hour - double what most currently earn - and the right to form a union without retaliation, organisers said.
"They make millions that come from our feet. They can afford to pay us better," Ms Shaniqua Davis, 20, said at a demonstration outside a McDonald's on New York's upmarket Fifth Avenue.
Ms Davis has a one-year-old child and works at a branch of the restaurant in the Bronx where she earns US$7.25 an hour.
"I have bills to pay. I need to buy diapers. I can hardly buy food." She said that if not for food stamps and help she received to pay her rent, "I would already be on the street".
Mr Kendall Fells of the campaign group Fast Food Forward hit out at working conditions for people who had "no health insurance, no guarantee of hours".
"In (New York City) they make US$7.25 an hour. If you look at any statistics of how much it takes you to survive in NYC, just food, clothing and rent, it's over US$20 an hour."
The protest movement first began in New York last November with a strike by 200 workers but quickly spread across the country with strikes on July in Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, Milwaukee and St Louis.
On 29 August 2013, organisers said the strike hit some 1,000 major fast-food restaurants, including Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.
"Hold the burgers, hold the fries, make worker wages supersize!" read a tweet from Fight for 15, a workers organising committee.
Many of the three million fast-food workers in America do not work full time and cannot count on tips like those who staff bars and restaurants. "More people are looking to this as a real job rather than a transition or entry-level job," said Professor Jefferson Cowie, of Cornell University's Department of Labour Relations, Law, and History.
But the restaurant industry says it already operates on thin margins and insists that sharply higher wages would lead to steeper prices for customers and fewer opportunities for job seekers.
As the movement goes viral, it has become clear that the traditional image of a McDonald's worker - a carefree adolescent flipping burgers until something better comes along - has changed.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS