Fast food workers plan biggest nationwide strike

Next week, the largest nationwide fast food strike will take place, and this time protesters are hoping to influence the results of the next presidential election. The group representing the workers, Fight for $15, plans to stage protests at restaurants in 270 cities on Nov. 10, the most since it began organizing the demonstrations three years ago. Then, striking fast-food and other low-wage workers will gather at local city halls, kicking off a campaign to encourage voters to cast their ballots in 2016 for candidates who support the minimum wage increase.

“We’re putting politicians on notice that we’re going to hold them accountable,” says Kendall Fells, the organizing director of Fight for $15, in USA Today.

Top Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and progressive underdog Bernie Sanders have both been vocal about their support for higher wages for fast food workers. The Fight for $15 campaign is planning a major initiative to sign up unregistered votes over the next year. According to an article in USA Today, nearly 70 percent of unregistered voters would sign up, and a similar share of registered voters would be more likely to go to the polls, if there were a presidential candidate in favor of a $15 minimum wage and workers’ right to unionize.

New York has already approved a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers to be implemented by 2018, and similar measures have been adopted in San Francisco and Seattle—but workers in many other areas of the country are still hoping to make such an increase a reality.