Fast Food Workers Protest for Higher Wages in Hundreds of Cities

Fast food workers are protesting across the world on Wednesday, their biggest action yet in a campaign for better wages that began more than two years ago. Protestors in the U.S. are pushing ahead with their demands of a $15 hourly wage and the right to unionize. The campaign has also gone global, with organizers saying strikes and protests will be taking place in 200 cities across 30 countries.

The fast food workers’ campaign in the U.S. launched in November 2012 in New York, and since then it has attracted support from other groups including students, health care workers and activists from the Black Lives Matter movement, who are also set to join in Wednesday’s rallies, Reuters reports.

Workers at airports and retail stores are also participating, protesting the increase of so-called “zero hour contracts,” in which an employer is not required to provide workers with a minimum number of hours per week.

Organizers said they chose Tax Day for the protests to highlight that they are paid so little that they are forced to rely on public aid to survive. Retailers such as Target and Walmart have recently announced increases to their hourly wage, but not to the level that workers are demanding.