Organizers Pushing Nationwide Fast Food Worker Strikes

Want $15 minimum wage

Fast-food workers in hundreds of cities across the United States kicked off a day of strikes and rallies on Thursday to demand a higher minimum wage. The largest job actions were expected in New York and Washington, organizers said.

Workers want the federal minimum wage raised to $15 from $7.25, saying the current rate is not enough to live on. Critics counter that doubling the minimum wage would cost jobs, forcing employers to cut back on the number of workers.

In New York City, where some 57,000 fast-food workers earn an average of $8.89 an hour, protesters were picketing at one McDonald's restaurant shortly after dawn on Thursday.

In Washington, federal contract workers at the McDonald's inside the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum walked off the job, and about 150 people assembled to picket outside the building.