Fast food strikes: Hundreds of workers walk out across the US demanding $15 an hour pay

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 16:49 GMT, 29 August 2013 | UPDATED: 22:43 GMT, 29 August 2013

Fast food outlets across the United States ground to a halt on Thursday as workers at McDonald's and Burger King protested against paltry wages.

The latest action in a nearly year-long campaign to raise wages from just $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour in the service sector saw thousands of staff rally in cities including New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Seattle.

The fast-food workers were joined by retail staff from stores owned by Macy's Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp. in what organizers were expecting to be the biggest national walkouts yet in the demand for higher wages.

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Protests: Bennett Foster, left, joins a crowd of some low-income fast food workers and their supporters in protest on Thursday, August 29, 2013, while picketing outside of the McDonalds restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee

Kevin Cole protests outside a fast food restaurant in Los Angeles

The workers want to form unions in the virtually union-free sector without employer retaliation and bargain for more money. They want to more than double their hourly wage from $7.25, which is the current federal minimum wage.

Martin Rafanan, a community organizer in St. Louis, said local employees of McDonald's and Wendy's can't make it on the salaries.

'If you're paying $7.35 an hour and employing someone for 20, 25 hours a week, which is the average here, they're bringing home about $10,000 a year. You can't survive on that.' Rafanan said. Missouri's minimum wage is $7.35 an hour.

'Unless we can figure out how to make highly profitable companies pay a fair wage to their workers, we're just going to watch them pull all the blood, sweat, tears and money out of our communities.'

Living wages: Hundreds of fast food workers across the country participated in a strike today to demand higher wages. In New York City, mayoral candidate Christine Quinn shows her support

Support: Speaker Quinn, on the left, holds up a sign referencing former gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan, leader of the 'Rent Is Too Damn High Party'

Similar protests organized by unions and community groups over the past several months have 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. In contrast, McDonald's profits totaled $5.47 billion in 2012.

But it's not clear what impact, if any, they will have on business.

In New York, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined about 300 to 400 workers and supporters in a march before flooding inside a McDonald's near the Empire State Building on Thursday morning.

Shortly after the demonstration, however, the restaurant seemed to be operating normally and a few customers said they hadn't heard of the movement. The same was true at a McDonald's a few blocks away.

Fair wages: 300 to 400 fast food industry employees fathered outside of this McDonald's in New York to demand higher pay Thursday

The lack of awareness among some illustrates the challenge workers face. Participating workers, who are asking for $15 an hour and the right to unionize, still represent a tiny fraction of the industry. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which works out to about $15,000 a year for full-time employees.

The movement comes amid calls from the White House, some members of Congress and economists to hike the federal minimum wage. But most proposals seek a far more modest increase than the one workers are asking for, with President Barack Obama wanting to boost it to $9 an hour.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez compared the protests to the demands of demonstrators in the 1963 March on Washington, who sought a national minimum wage to give workers better living standards. 

Change: Labor secretary Thomas Perez support President Obama's push to change the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour

'For all too many people working minimum wage jobs, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity are feeling further and further apart,' said Perez, who's taking a lead role in Obama's push for a higher minimum wage.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 2 million works in health care, janitorial and other industries, has been providing financial support and training for local organizers in the fast-food strikes around the country.

Organizers say the walkouts hit more than 50 cities on Thursday, following a series of strikes that began last November in New York City.

Nationwide issue: Protests were held in other major cities today, including Detroit and Chicago. Above, protesters in Boston

Massachusetts: A crowd gathers outside a Wendy's restaurant in Boston on Thursday. Massachusetts minimum wage is 75 cents higher than the federal minimum wage

Listening: Shaniqua Davis, center, makes $7.25 an hour working at a McDonald's. On Thursday she spoke about needing higher wages at a McDonald's location on Fifth Avenue in New York City while mayoral candidate Christine Quinn listens

Fast food nation: A customer at a Wendy's in Boston watches the protests while eating his meal

Backers: The Service Employees International Union has been providing the financial support for local organizers of the protests

The union represents over 2million workers nationwide and hope to add fast food workers in the future

Last November, some 200 workers walked off their fast-food jobs in New York City. Groups in Chicago, Kansas City, Detroit and other cities followed their lead in April and July.

The biggest effort so far was over the summer when about 2,200 of the country's millions of fast-food workers staged a one-day strike in seven cities.

Ryan Carter, a 29-year-old who was walking out of the McDonald's where workers demonstrated on Thursday, said he 'absolutely' supported workers' demands for higher wages.

'They work harder than the billionaires in this city,' he said. But Carter, who was holding a cup of the chain's coffee he bought for $1, said he didn't plan to stop his regular trips to McDonald's.

The $200 billion U.S. fast-food sector as well as retail sales and food preparation have been under the spotlight because they have added most of the jobs, in many cases lower-paying and part time, since the recession.

Restaurant chains and trade groups say the protests are unwarranted because fast-food and retail outlets provide Americans with millions of good jobs with competitive pay and ample opportunities to rise through the ranks.

Danny Alvarez protests at a Burger King fast food restaurant in Austin,Texas on Thursday

Christina Condori joins a crowd of low-income fast food workers and their supporters in protest on Thursday, August 29, 2013, while picketing outside of the McDonalds restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee

'Our history is full of examples of individuals who worked their first job with McDonald's and went on to successful careers both within and outside of McDonald's,' McDonald's said in a statement.
Wendy's and Burger King did not respond to requests for comment.

The restaurant chains have not changed their wage policies as a result of recent strikes.

McDonald's Corp. and Burger King Worldwide Inc. say they don't make decisions about pay for the independent franchisees that operate the majority of their U.S. restaurants.

The National Retail Federation said in a statement the strikes are 'further proof that the labor movement (has) abdicated their role in an honest and rational discussion about the American workforce.'

And in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the conservative Employment Policies Institute ran a full-page ad with a picture of a robot making pancakes, warning that higher wages would mean 'fewer entry-level jobs and more automated alternatives.'

Workers hold banners demanding $15 an hour at the rally in Los Angeles

Police stand outside McDonald's as workers gather as part of a nationwide strike by fast-food workers to call for wages of $15 an hour, in Los Angeles

'You can either raise prices and lose customers, or (automate) those jobs,' said Michael Saltsman, EPI's research director, adding that 'the idea that restaurants are rolling in the money is not representative of the situation franchisees face.'

The median wage for front-line fast-food workers is $8.94 per hour, according to an analysis of government data by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), an advocacy group for lower-wage workers.

'The workers are responding to total failure on behalf of the federal government to raise the minimum wage to keep up with inflation and the cost of living,' said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, an attorney at the NELP, referring to the strikes.

At restaurants that McDonald's owns, the company said pay starts at minimum wage and ranges upward depending on the employee's position and experience level.

The company, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, said raising entry-level pay would raise overall costs, leading to higher prices on menus.

No more dollar menu: A representative at McDonald's said raising wages would mean having to raise menu prices

A worker's worth: McDonald's and Burger King say they don't dictate the pay for franchises which account for most of their restaurants

Enough: A woman holds a simple sign outside of a Burger King in Los Angeles, California Thursday

Rage against the machine: Protesters in Los Angeles. The minimum wage in California is $8 an hour

Happy deal: Fast food workers would probably love their jobs twice as much with a $15 an hour wage

Wendy's and Yum Brands Inc, which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, did not respond to requests for comment.

'If you are someone striking for $15 an hour, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have the same number of job opportunities. It's a direct reflection of economics of the industry,' said Mike Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, which gets funding from the restaurant industry.

Workers were also expected to walk off their jobs in cities including Atlanta; Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Many targeted restaurants will likely be able to stay open, however. The strikes were announced earlier, giving managers time to adjust staffing levels.

The walkouts, coming before the U.S. Labor Day holiday on Monday, also took place in the Southern states of Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

Dorian Warren, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University who has published work on labor organizing and inequality, said the significance of protests in the South is 'a huge, huge deal.'

'The South has always been the model for low wage employment, from slavery to the Jim Crow laws, to the present. It's also the most anti-union part of the country, so the fact that workers feel empowered enough to take collective action is enormous,' Warren said.

Business as usual: The protests haven't had too big an effect on business at the chains, who were given notice and able to schedule in other workers

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Assad accused of moving human shields to key military targets as a defence against Western air strikes

The Syrian Coalition claims prisoners are being held in military loactions
Sources in Damascus report seeing inmates being loaded onto buses
David Cameron defeated in the Commons on plan to launch missile strikes
Obama advisers suggest he is prepared to intervene on his ownAssad says Syria would 'defend itself in the face of any aggression'UN inspectors prepare to examine sites were chemical rockets struck

By Daniel Miller

PUBLISHED: 01:31 GMT, 30 August 2013 | UPDATED: 01:31 GMT, 30 August 2013

President Assad has moved thousands of Syrian prisoners to key military targets to use as human shields against air strikes, opposition groups claimed last night.

Sources in the capital Damascus report inmates being led from their cells onto buses and being taken to sites the regime fears will be targeted by western forces.

As the international community continues to debate military intervention in the long-running civil war following the alleged use of chemical weapons, opposition groups opposed have accused the Assad regime of murdering and torturing political prisoners.

Crucial evidence: A U.N. chemical weapons expert inspects one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus

In a statement released last night, The Syrian Coalition in Istanbul said:  'Assad's fascist regime is amassing detained activists and civilians in prisons inside military locations that may be potential targets for foreign military forces.

'Using civilians as human shields is a blatant breach of International Humanitarian Law, and those responsible must be held accountable for crimes against humanity.

Tyrant: Syrian President Bashar Assad has been accused of moving political prisoners to key military sites as human shields against Western air strikes

'Assad has deployed a policy of arbitrary detention since the start of the revolution in March 2011 infringing on Syrian law, International Covenants on Human Rights, and International Conventions related to the prohibition of enforced disappearance.

'In Assad’s torturous prisons, thousands of detainees experience deplorable conditions. They are forced to live a life of pain, fear, and intimidation by Assad’s intelligence forces. The locations where prisoners are held, nearly in all cases, are not disclosed.

'Prisoners are often summarily executed, placed in sites where Assad forces carry out explosions and bombardments or are tortured to death. 

'The Syrian Coalition holds Assad and his accomplices accountable for crimes against activists and civilians detained in security centers, government institutions, and military installations.'

British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Commons when MPs voted against air strikes.

Mr Cameron insisted it was 'beyond doubt' that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against its own people.

And he claimed that if the West failed to act it was likely they would continue to be used against the civilian population.

In The U.S. government officials say they received 'intercepted communications from high-level Syrian officials' reporting personnel being moved around Damascus that indicated 'it was ready for something big like a chemical attack,'.

A British Typhoon fighter jet arrives at a British air base in Cyprus. The Ministry of Defense said it was deploying six Typhoons as a 'prudent and precautionary measure'

The Obama administration appeared undeterred by the British vote with advisers suggesting he would be willing to retaliate against Syria on his own. 

However President Obama has not yet  revealed definitive evidence to back claims that Assad used chemical weapons on Syrians.

Even before the vote in London, the U.S. was preparing to act without formal authorization from the United Nations, where Russia has blocked efforts to seek a resolution authorizing the use of force, or from Capitol Hill. But the U.S. had expected Britain, a major ally, to join in the effort.

France announced that its armed forces 'have been put in position to respond' if President Francois Hollande commits forces to intervention against Syria. Hollande does not need French parliamentary approval to launch military action that lasts less than four months.

Assad, who has denied using chemical weapons, vowed his country 'will defend itself against any aggression.'

Demonstrators take part in a protest calling for no military attack on Syria outside the White House yesterday

Defeat: Prime Minister David Cameron was outvoted in the Commons over plans to launch missile strikes against Syria however the Obama advisers suggest the U.S. would be willing to retaliate on its own

Some of the U.N. chemical weapons experts will travel directly from Syria on Saturday to different laboratories around Europe to deliver 'an extensive amount of material' gathered, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said.

While the mandate of the U.N. team is to determine whether chemical agents were used in the attack, not who was responsible, Haq suggested the evidence - which includes biological samples and witness interviews - might give an indication of who deployed gases.

U.S. officials say the intelligence assessments are no 'slam dunk,' with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence publicly.

Despite shortcomings in the intelligence, the White House signaled urgency in acting, a White House spokesman said the president believes there is a 'compressed time frame' for responding.

In safe hands: An Italian soldier gives water to a rescued girl aboard the Foscari ship near Sicily after recovering almost 200 people from a crippled fishing boat who are believed to have fled the violence in Syria

Desperate measures: Italy's coast guard and navy rescue about 350 people, mostly Syrians, off the coast of Sicily from a badly overcrowded and crippled fishing boat which they used to escape the civil war

Traumatic: Among those rescued from the boat were 48 children, including a four-day-old girl born on the crossing

He said: 'It is important for the Assad regime and other totalitarian dictators around the world to understand that the international community will not tolerate the indiscriminate, widespread use of chemical weapons, particularly against women and children as they're sleeping in their beds.

But many Congress members were pressing Obama to explain the need for military action and address fears that such a move might draw the U.S. deeper into the Syrian civil war.

Escape from Assad: Syrian refugees use containers to collect water at the Arbat refugee camp in the northern Iraqi province of Sulaimaniya after fleeing the violence in their native country

Syrian children stand outside their tent at a temporary refugee camp in the eastern Lebanese town of Faour

Conflict rages: Free Syrian Army soldiers help their wounded fellow fighter in Al Rasheddin, Aleppo

Displaced: Chart shows the number of Syrian refugees who have fled to surrounding countries as of August 27

On Wednesday a Syrian army officer that Assad was considering using kamikaze pilots against Western forces.

In the event of an attack by the U.S. and Britain, the Syrian army had 8,000 'suicide martyrs' who would give their lives to bring down warplanes if necessary, the unnamed officer said.

He said: 'If (US and British) warplanes raid our skies they will face hell fire.

'If we are unable to shoot down their warplanes with artillery, we have military pilots who are ready to attack these foreign warplanes by their own warplanes and blow them up in the air.' 

The officer told The Guardian that 13 pilots had signed a pledge this week saying they would form 'a crew of suicide martyrs to foil the U.S. warplanes'.

He claimed: 'We have more than 8,000 suicide martyrs within the Syrian army, ready to carry out martyrdom operations at any moment to stop the Americans and the British.

'I myself am ready to blow myself up against U.S. aircraft carriers to stop them attacking Syria and its people.'

Mobilising: Israeli soldiers patrol near an Armored Personal carrier near the border with Syria after the Israeli cabinet authorised a call-up of army reservists amid growing expectations of a foreign military strike on Assad

Eyes on the skies: An 'Iron Dome' missile battery of the Israeli army in industrial area of Haifa

Building a case: A U.N. chemical weapons expert carries a plastic bag containing samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack

Hazardous: UN inspectors collect samples inside a house during their investigations at Zamalka, east of Damscus on Thursday

Will the results trigger a war? United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he is expecting a report on the chemical weapons investigation on Saturday

Meanwhile, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has pleaded for more time for diplomacy and to allow U.N. investigators to complete their work.

U.S. leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden, have charged that Assad's government was behind the August 21 attack that Doctors Without Borders says killed at least 355 people.

The White House says it's planning a possible military response while seeking support from international partners.

The U.S. has not presented concrete proof of Syrian regime involvement in the attack, and U.N. inspectors have not endorsed the allegations, although the U.N. envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said evidence suggests some kind of 'substance' was used that killed hundreds.

Gathering evidence: U.N. chemical weapons experts wearing gas masks carry samples from one of the sites of an alleged gas attack while escorted by Free Syrian Army fighters in the Ain Tarma district of Damascus

On the frontline: Members of a UN team of arms experts inspect the site where rockets fell in Damascus

Delicate operation: A member of a UN investigation team takes samples of sands near a part of a missile believed to be one of the chemical rockets fired at civilians in Damascus last week, killing hundreds

With many seeing Western intervention no longer a question of if but when, there were signs of growing fears across the wider region.

At least 6,000 Syrians crossed into Lebanon in a 24-hour period through the main Masnaa crossing, including an estimated 4,000 on Wednesday, according to Lebanese security officials in the country's Bekaa Valley near the border.

The normal daily influx is 500 to 1,000 refugees, depending on the level of fighting.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Long lines of packed cars - some with suitcases strapped to roofs - were backed up at the frontier post, witnesses said.

A security official said about 2,000 also crossed into Syria, but many of them said they were going in to evacuate relatives.

One woman, Um Ahmad, entered Lebanon with her five children, saying she fearing U.S. strikes on Damascus.

'Isn't it enough, all the violence and fighting that we already have in the country, now America wants to bomb us, too?' the 45-year-old said, declining to give her full name for security concerns. 

Enlarge   Gearing up for war: A graphic looking at the options open to the West if it were to launch strikes on Syria

Running gun battles: Free Syrian Army fighters run to take cover from snipers loyal to Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad near Aleppo International airport

Nearly two million Syrians have fled the country since the crisis began in March 2011 and millions more are displaced inside Syria.

Effects were also evident in Israel, where large crowds lined up at gas-mask distribution centres.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government ordered a 'limited' call-up of reserve units to bolster civil defense preparations and to operate air-defense units near the border. Officials said the call-up is anticipated to bring in hundreds of troops.

While Israeli officials believe the chances of a Syrian strike remain slim, there are concerns that Damascus may respond to any U.S.-led military action by attacking the Jewish state, a close American ally.

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