Local Workers Join National Fast Food Wage Protest
Michelle Wirth/WABE News
As part of a national protest, fast wood workers, union members and others demonstrated in front of a Church’s Chicken on Moreland Avenue. Protesters called for the right to unionize without retaliation and to raise their wages to $15 an hour.
Dozens of protesters shouted and held signs in front of the fast food restaurant. Cashier Tina McCoy says after taxes she makes a little more than $300 dollars every two weeks.
“I’m barely making it. We go without necessities sometimes. I mean it’s a lot that I have go without just to be able to have a roof over my head.”
Frederick Hambrick has worked with Church’s for about 15 years. He started at about $6 .50 per hour. Now, he makes eight twenty five. Hambrick says it’s hard to support his family.
“I have to pick up odd jobs you know just to make ends meat. It’s hard when you work so hard for so many years, and you really don’t have nothing to show for it, and you’re still struggling.”
The National Restaurant Association says it welcomes a discussion on wages. But the group says only five percent of restaurant employees make minimum wage and they mostly work part-time and half are teenagers.
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