Fast food workers are set to strike across the world next week to call for a higher minimum wage.
Organizers announced the May 15 strike date Wednesday outside a McDonald’s in midtown, coinciding with the recent push for a $15 minimum wage.
Fast food workers in New York and other cities have demonstrated for fairer working conditions over the past year.
Ron Oswald, general secretary of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations, the umbrella group of unions that is helping to organize the event, said the “Fight for 15” movement has caught on and is spreading.
“This is just the beginning of an unprecedented international fast-food worker movement — and this highly profitable global industry better take note,” he said in a statement,
McDonald’s said it cares about the needs of its employees and values their hard work.
“This is an important discussion that needs to take into account the highly competitive nature of the industries that employ minimum wage workers, as well as consumers and the thousands of small businesses which own and operate the vast majority of McDonald’s restaurants,” a McDonald’s spokeswoman said in a statement.
