| Advertisement |
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Fast-food workers nationwide are again taking to the streets demanding $15 an hour minimum wage, promising civil disobedience in the latest round of protests for higher pay. In addition to increased wages, employees fast-food employees and members of the Service Employees International Union want collective bargaining rights and employee benefits where appropriate.
Advertisement
"I'm participating because I'm doing whatever it takes," Chicago Burger King employee Ronnie Kitchen told U.S. News and World Report.
"It's not just teenagers who are looking for pocket change. It's mothers and fathers who want to support their families ... I'm tired of living in poverty."
Kitchen makes $8.25 an hour.
Scott DeFife, however, is unmoved by Kitchen's plight.
The executive vice president for policy and government affairs for the National Restaurant Association, DeFifre questioned the merits of Thursday's protests, asserting they had more to do with union-building than social justice.
"This is a national, multimillion-dollar campaign engineered, organized and funded by national labor groups," DeFife said, even claiming "the vast majority of participants are activists and paid demonstrators."
DeFife's criticism of outside involvement is somewhat ironic as in 2012 The Hill honored him as Washington's most successful lobbyist for work done on behalf of the National Restaurant Association, earning DeFife praise for his devotion to "protecting the industry."
"This is nothing more than labor groups' self-interested attempts to boost their dwindling membership by targeting restaurant employees," the former lobbyist of the year said of Thursday's protests.
Elsewhere in Washington, fast-food workers and the SEIU have their own public advocate: U.S. President Barack Obama.
"All across the country right now there's a national movement going on made up of fast-food workers organizing to lift wages so they can provide for their families with pride and dignity," President Obama said at Milwaukee Laborfest on Monday.
"There is no denying a simple truth: America deserves a raise. Give America a raise."
