Fast Food Workers Strike for 15

About eight months ago, fast food workers in New York City started holding day long strikes during peak customer traffic. Their goal: higher wages, fifteen dollars an hour to be exact, which is more than twice the current minimum wage. Since then, protests have spread to Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Flint and as of tomorrow, Milwaukee. Thousands of Fast Food workers, who make a median salary of about $9.05/hour, have set their sights on pressing Congress to raise the federal minimum wage and urging state legislatures to raise the state minimum wage.  The protests are part of a campaign underwritten with millions of dollars from the Service Employees International Union.

There are a few hitches though. Number one being that it is hard to unionize when your occupation has an annual turnover rate of 75%. In fact, none of the 200,000 fast food restaurants are unionized. Restaurant industry Officials also claim that raising wages to $15/hour would put many restaurants out of business and many workers would have to be let go or replaced with some form of automation.

Be that as it may, there are still thousands of hard working Americans trying their hardest to support their families on paltry wages and with few benefits at part-time hours  as they attempt to make ends meet.