Employees at a significant number of quick-service restaurants around New York City staged a protest yesterday, calling for higher wages and the ability to unionise.
Organizers of the one-day strike — called “Fast Food Forward,” claimed that hundreds of quick-service employees had joined the protest, setting up pickets in front of Burger King, Wendy’s, Domino’s, KFC, McDonald’s and other chain outlets around the city.
Jonathan Westin, organising director of New York Communities for Change, one of the chief organizers of the coalition sponsoring the strike, told Nations Restaurant News (NRN) that protesters were demanding $15 an hour in wages and the right to unionise at their respective restaurants “without fear of retaliation.”
Saying that the quick-service industry employs thousands of workers in New York and pays them “poverty-level wages,” Westin said many employees can’t even afford to buy the basic necessities, including their own food. “People just can’t find good paying jobs,” he said.
He estimated the quick-service industry in New York employs 50,000 people.
