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 The protests demanding pay increases to $15 an hour kicked off at
dawn outside a McDonald's Corp <MCD.N> restaurant in New York with
several hundred demonstrators.
Marching behind a banner reading "Raise wages, Raise the city,"
protesters carried placards with "Fight for $15 on 4/15."
In Chicago, hundreds of protesters rallied at the University of
Illinois, their ranks swelled by healthcare and college workers.
"I have no benefits, I have no stability from semester to semester
in any way being able to calculate out if and where I'll have a
job," said Alyson Warren, 34, an adjunct writing professor at both
Columbia College Chicago and Loyola University Chicago. She said
Loyola pays $4,000 to $4,500 per 15-week course, and her group seeks
$15,000 per course.
Roughly two dozen people were arrested for civil disobedience after
blocking a street near Seattle University in protest, including some
students, according to labor group Working Washington.
Plans called for rallies to be held in 230 cities across the United
States.
Jumal Tarver, 36, said he cooks and cleans at a franchised
McDonald's in Manhattan but cannot make ends meet on his pay of
$8.75 per hour.
He said he must rely on public assistance on top of his wages.
"It's hard for me to provide for my daughters with $8.75," he said.
Organizers said they chose to mobilize on April 15, the U.S.
deadline for filing federal income tax returns, to highlight their
complaint that many workers must rely on public assistance.
The campaign for a living wage has been building on low-paid
workers' position that the U.S. federal minimum wage of $7.25 an
hour is not enough to lift them from poverty.
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Fast-food and retail chains are starting to respond, but their wage
increases are generally less than organizers demand.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc <WMT.N> this year said it would raise its
minimum pay to $9 an hour in April, and $10 in 2016. Target Corp
<TGT.N> and T.J. Maxx <TJX.N> said they would increase pay to $9 an
hour.
McDonald's has said it would raise hourly pay at company-owned
stores to $9 but this would not necessarily apply to the more than
90 percent of its 14,000 U.S. locations operated by franchisees.
Wages are expected to emerge as an issue in the 2016 presidential
election campaign.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton this week said it was unfair
that many families face financial hardship "when the average CEO
makes about 300 times what the average worker makes."
(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Chicago; Writing by Ellen
Wulfhorst and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Mohammad
Zargham)
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