US fast food workers demand higher wages

U.S. fast-food workers fighting for better wages enlisted students, healthcare workers and racial justice activists to swell the ranks of rallies set for Wednesday in 230 cities, according to Voice of America.

The latest wave of protests to press for pay increases to $15 an hour was expected to kick off in New York at dawn outside a McDonald's in Brooklyn, pick up momentum during the day and culminate in a march to Times Square during the evening rush hour, organizers said.

Fast-food workers will walk off the job and be joined at protests by students from 200 colleges and activists from the Black Lives Matter movement, which protests police brutality, they said.

The campaign by low-wage workers for higher pay has been building for several years as they protest that the U.S. federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is not enough to lift them from poverty. Fast-food and retail chains are starting to respond, but their wage increases are generally below the level organizers are demanding.

McDonald's said it would raise pay at company-owned stores to $9 an hour, though that would not necessarily apply to the more than 90 percent of its 14,000 U.S. locations operated by independent franchisees.