| Submit your comments on this article |
| Economy |
| Fast food strikes to hit cities across the country |
| 2013-08-29 |
| [NBCNEWS] Fast-food customers in search of burgers and fries might run into striking workers instead. Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country Thursday, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to pay workers higher wages. It's expected be the largest nationwide strike by fast-food workers, according to organizers. The biggest effort so far was over the summer when about 2,200 of the nation's millions of fast-food workers staged a one-day strike in seven cities. Thursday's planned walkouts follow a series of strikes that began last November in New York City, then spread to cities including reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... , bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... and Seattle. Workers say they want $15 an hour, which would be about $31,000 a year for full-time employees. That's more than double the federal minimum wage, which many fast food workers make, of $7.25 an hour, or $15,000 a year. The move comes amid calls from the White House, some members of Congress and economists to hike the federal minimum wage, which was last raised in 2009. But most proposals seek a far more modest increase than the ones workers are asking for, with President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... wanting to boost it to $9 an hour. The push has brought considerable media attention to a staple of the fast-food industry -- the so-called "McJobs" that are known for their low pay and limited prospects. But the workers taking part in the strikes still represent a tiny fraction of the broader industry. And it's not clear if the strikes on Thursday will shut down any restaurants because organizers made their plans public earlier in a call for workers around the country to participate, which gave managers time to adjust their staffing levels. More broadly, it's not clear how many customers are aware of the movement, with turnout for past strikes relatively low in some cities. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 All makes since after a Rantburger posted a few days ago that union pay is linked to a multiple of the minimum wage. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2013-08-29 21:48 |
| #6 KFI-LA Radio ran a street protest line interview - of the 17 interviewed, one (1) was an actual FF worker. The rest were SEIU and UFCW union workers bussed in and to try and unionize the min wage workers. Self-admitted, with purple wrist bands to indicate they got a free lunch |
| Posted by: Frank G 2013-08-29 20:54 |
| #5 Town of Sea-Tac has an initiative on the fall ballot for just such a pay hike for the service workers.....Can hardly wait to see how it fares. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2013-08-29 20:33 |
| #4 Fire them all. There's others who want to work. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-08-29 11:51 |
| #3 Limited prospects huh. If I were looking for an extra job I'd show up at one of these places at 06:00 with bells and work shoes on. 2,200 of 1,000,000 = 0.0022, so much less than 1%, looks like the rags are agitating for at least 5 times that turnout. Which would make them 1%'rs har har. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2013-08-29 11:01 |
| #2 Dan T. Cathy and Donald (Bubba) M. Cathy smile. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-08-29 10:35 |
| #1 Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country Thursday, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2013-08-29 10:31 |