Activists and protesters seeking to pressure fast-food restaurants around the nation to give them $15 per hour minimum pay say they’ll do whatever it takes — including civil disobedience and occupying the facilities — to win their cause.
“I personally think we need to get more workers involved and shut these businesses down until they listen to us,” and maybe even occupy the restaurants, said Cherri Delisline, a 27-year-old single mother from Charleston, S.C., who has spent 10 years making $7.35 per hour at McDonald’s, The Associated Press reported.
A predicted 1,300 fast-food workers are due to attend a rally for higher wages on Friday in Chicago and at the expo center in Villa Park, Ill. Kendall Fells, the organizing director of the effort to win higher wages for fast-food workers and a representative of the Service Employees International Union, said the main message to those attending the rally will be a directive to do “whatever it takes” to pressure the restaurants to cave to their demands, AP reported.
“We want to talk about building leadership, power and doing whatever it takes depending on what city they’re in and what the moment calls for,” Ms. Fells said, in the AP report. She went on, saying that those actions will be “more high profile” and include civil disobedience, if needed, AP reported.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. President Obama has called for increase in that to $10.10 per hour. But fast-food workers say that’s not enough — they want at least $15 an hour.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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