--- title: Fast Food Workers to Strike in 150 U.S. Cities description: American employees at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are due to join their counterparts in dozens of cities around the world on May 15 to walk off the job and demand a raise to $15-an-hour canonical: https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-07T18:52:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:42:27.503Z article:section: World og:title: Fast Food Workers to Strike in 150 U.S. Cities og:description: American employees at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are due to join their counterparts in dozens of cities around the world on May 15 to walk off the job and demand a raise to $15-an-hour og:url: https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5528e6d1938fcafa/69868e69cd804d0566ccac02/fastfood-protest-2.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers and urge fast food workers from around the globe to join their campaign outside a McDonalds on May 7, 2014 in New York City. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Fast Food Workers to Strike in 150 U.S. Cities twitter:description: American employees at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are due to join their counterparts in dozens of cities around the world on May 15 to walk off the job and demand a raise to $15-an-hour twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5528e6d1938fcafa/69868e69cd804d0566ccac02/fastfood-protest-2.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Fast Food Workers Will Go on Strike Next Week by [Maya Rhodan](/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan May 7, 2014 6:52 PM CUT  Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers and urge fast food workers from around the globe to join their campaign outside a McDonalds on May 7, 2014 in New York City. Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers and urge fast food workers from around the globe to join their campaign outside a McDonalds on May 7, 2014 in New York City.Andrew Burton—Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan May 7, 2014 6:52 PM CUT Fast food workers frustrated by low wages will participate in an organized, global walk-out in protest next week in as many as 150 cities, an advocacy group said Wednesday. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC employees in the United States will demand a raise to $15-an-hour next Thursday, joined internationally by fast food employees also seeking higher pay, in as many as 33 countries. The strike’s announcement, at a New York City McDonald’s on Wednesday, came days after fast-food workers and union leaders from across the globe came together for the first time at a meeting organized by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering and Tobacco Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF). The Manhattan-based group leading the protests, Fast Food Forward, has led a “Fight for 15” campaign since 2012\. The efforts have reportedly attracted fast food workers in Argentina, Morocco, Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Dominican Republic, among others. “The highly-profitable fast-food industry needs to know we won’t stop fighting until our voices are heard,” Ashley Cathey said in a statement. Cathey is a McDonald’s worker from Memphis, Tenn., who makes $7.75 after six years on the job. Throughout 2013, dozens of [U.S. cities](http://business.time.com/2013/12/02/fast-food-protests-planned-in-100-cities-thursday/ "undefined") saw similar demonstrations. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/"},"headline":"Fast Food Workers Will Go on Strike Next Week","datePublished":"2014-05-07T18:52:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:42:27.503Z","description":"American employees at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are due to join their counterparts in dozens of cities around the world on May 15 to walk off the job and demand a raise to $15-an-hour","url":"https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/","keywords":["Retail","protest","Careers","Mcdonald's","Fast Food","Companies","strike"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5528e6d1938fcafa/69868e69cd804d0566ccac02/fastfood-protest-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5528e6d1938fcafa/69868e69cd804d0566ccac02/fastfood-protest-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers and urge fast food workers from around the globe to join their campaign outside a McDonalds on May 7, 2014 in New York City.","caption":"Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers and urge fast food workers from around the globe to join their campaign outside a McDonalds on May 7, 2014 in New York City.","creditText":"Andrew Burton—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/91213/fast-food-workers-will-go-on-strike-next-week/","name":"Fast Food Workers Will Go on Strike Next Week"}}]}] ```