Chicago Fast-Food Workers to Rally, June 6, as Momentum for $15 Grows

****VISUALS: Fast Food Workers Speak Out, Signs****

*Ahead of Nationwide Fast-Food Worker Convention…*

*Chicago Fast-Food Workers to Rally as Momentum for $15 Grows*

*With New York, St. Louis on Cusp of $15, Local Cooks and Cashiers Call for Chicago to follow suit*

*CHICAGO*– With fast-food workers in New York and St. Louis poised to win $15/hr, cooks and cashiers will protest outside a local McDonald’s on Saturday, June 6 to support those workers and to intensify their own calls for $15 and union rights here in Chicago.

The rally in Chicago, and similar ones across the country, come as a Wage Board appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds its first public hearing to consider a significant bump in pay for fast-food workers. And it also comes as lawmakers in St. Louis introduce a bill to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15.

Workers believe victories in New York, where the Fight for $15 started in 2012, and St. Louis, which would be the first city in the nation’s heartland to pass $15, would catalyze $15 victories for workers nationwide.

*WHAT: * Chicago fast food workers protest at McDonald’s in support of NY, St. Louis workers and issue their own demands for $15.

*WHEN: *Saturday, June 6 at 9:30am

*WHERE: *McDonald’s, 111 W. Jackson Blvd.

Following the protest, workers will board a bus to Detroit to join more than 1,300 fast-food workers at a national convention Saturday and Sunday to develop strategies to build on the unstoppable momentum of the Fight for $15.

After a little more than two years, fast-food workers have managed to entirely change the politics of the country. While some believed that
workers had no shot at winning $15, it’s now a reality in cities like Seattle and San Francisco, days away in Los Angeles, and the minimum pay at leading companies like Facebook and Aetna. The convention in Detroit follows just weeks after thousands of workers descended on McDonald’s HQ in Oak Brook, Ill., to hold the largest protest
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/21/mcdonalds-workers-shareholders-meeting-protest/27705321/>
to ever hit the company’s annual shareholder meeting, and it comes shortly after striking fast-food workers led a 236-city walkout on April 15th, which the Guardian called
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/15/fight-for-15-minimum-wage-protests-new-york-los-angeles-atlanta-boston>
“the largest protest by low-wage workers in U.S. history.”

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*Founded in November of 2012, the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago is a union of fast food and retail workers. The workers’ Fight for 15 campaign seeks a $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. The Fight for 15 campaign is supported by an ever-expanding coalition of community, labor and faith-based groups including: Action Now; Albany Park Neighborhood Council; Arise Chicago; Brighton Park Neighborhood Council; Chicago Coalition for the Homeless; Chicago Jobs with Justice; Chicago Teachers Union; Grassroots Collaborative; Illinois Hunger Coalition; Jane Addams Senior Caucus; ONE Northside; Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP); SEIU Local 1; SEIU Local 73; SEIU Healthcare Illinois; Indiana, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation; United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Western Region; and Workers United.*