Biggest Fast-Food Strikes Yet Coming Thursday

Want a Big Mac? Don't plan to buy it on Thursday: The fast-food strikes are coming back. Organizers who want to see workers paid $15 per hour are planning strikes in 100 cities across the US Thursday, plus protests in 100 other cities. The latest move comes almost exactly a year after the strikes began, in November 2012 in New York City, and about three months after 58 cities saw strikes. "There's been pretty huge growth in one year," one of the organizers tells the New York Times. "People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow."

Some cities, including Charleston, SC; Providence, RI; and Pittsburgh will be seeing their first strikes. The movement is supported by the Service Employees International Union; in addition to higher wages, it wants to see restaurant workers allowed to unionize with no danger of threats and retaliation. But the National Restaurant Association continues to insist that raising wages so far above the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25, would result in a decrease in hiring. (More fast food stories.)