On Thursday, fast food workers around the country will walk off their jobs in what is expected to be the largest strike the $200 billion industry has ever seen. Workers at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and KFC will strike in 50 cities—from Boston to Denver to Los Angeles—demanding a wage increase to $15 an hour. They will be joined by retail workers at stores like Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and Walgreens, and members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The strikes follow a massive walkout by fast-food workers in July, and are the latest in an escalating series of strikes hitting the industry. As we noted last month: Many fast-food workers are paid at, or just above, the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, though it's higher in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Fast-food wages have fallen 36 cents an hour since 2010, even as the industry has raked in record profits. This is part of an economy-wide problem; the bottom 20 percent of American workers—some 28 million employees—earn less than $9.89 an hour, or $20,570 a year for a full-time employee. Their income fell five percent between 2006 and 2012. Meanwhile, average pay for chief executives at the country's top corporations leaped 16 percent last year, averaging $15.1 million... The mobilization of fast-food workers is a pretty new thing, because the industry has traditionally had high turnover. But the slow economic recovery, which has been... [Click here to see the rest of this post]  |
