Rebecca Band
Most every day around noon, the McDonalds on Jackson St in downtown Oakland is filled with customers. Yesterday at noon, it was jam-packed as usual, but it wasn’t the usual crowd. Nearly 200 striking fast food workers and their supporters flooded into the restaurant with a simple demand: “Keep your burgers, keep your fries… we want our wages SUPERSIZED!”
Fast-food is one of the most profitable industries in our country, and yet the vast majority of fast-food workers earn poverty wages, and more than half are forced to enroll their families in public assistance programs just to afford basics like food and housing. Fast-food corporations are some of the biggest contributors to our nation’s growing income inequality, which is why thousands of fast-food workers went on strike in more than 100 cities yesterday.
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