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On May 15, 2014 hundreds of fast food workers protested against the fast food low wages in several countries.According to the movement organizers, the protest took place in 30 cities in Japan, 5 cities in Brazil, 3 cities in India and 20 cities in Britain. The labor federation with over 12 million workers in 126 countries joined the protest to help propel the effort. Industry officials say that only a small percentage of fast-food jobs pay the minimum wage and that those are largely entry-level jobs for workers under 25. Backers of the movement for higher pay point to studies saying that the average age of fast-food workers is 29 and that more than one-fourth are parents raising children. According to Mary Kay Henry, the president of service employees international union “fast food workers in many other parts of the world face the same corporate policy. Low pay, no guaranteed hours and no benefits”. According to her, such unfairness in the wages exist due to the lack of opportunity for these workers to unionize. According to one of McDonald’s workers, the minimum wages is not enough to take care of his kids and their education. However, some analysts says that increasing the wages will have harmful consequences on the hiring rate which could cause a large number of unemployed people. Even though, there have been appealing protests inside US and overseas but it will not bring any changes in the fast food wage system unless the employees are unionized.

Julie Sherry, an organizer of the protests in the United Kingdom, which have taken place on a several occasions since January, projected that 100 workers would meet at 4pm London time at the McDonald’s in Trafalgar Square. They planned to carry signs declaring, “Fast Food Rights” and “Hungry for Justice” and to chant, “Zero Hours, No Way” — a reference to contracts in the UK that an estimated 90% of McDonald’s workers have signed that don’t guarantee them any hours but expect workers to come in whenever they are called. Organizers say that in the Philippines, workers held a flash mob inside a Manila McDonald’s, singing and dancing to “Let It Go,” from the movie Frozen, urging McDonald’s to “let go” of its low wages and allow workers to organize. Protesters in Brussels shut down a McDonald’s at lunchtime, and protesters in Mumbai who were threatened with arrests by local police were undeterred. Japan saw protests in nearly every prefecture and showed solidarity with U.S. workers by calling on McDonald’s to pay Japanese workers 1,500 Yen.

This is not the first time that the workers protested against the low wages. On November 29,, 2012 about 200 workers protested at a McDonald’s at Madison Avenue and 40th Street chanting “Hey, hey, what do you say? We demand fair pay”. According to Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the workers global campaign is not a new idea. To determine the origins of this approach, you have to take a trip back to the 1800s, when workers in Britain and India jointly protested the way the East India Company treated its Indian workers.