"We know that it's not just New York and California struggling, but it's everyone in our nation," she said.
Thousands of low-wage workers marched in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S.
cities on Thursday calling for minimum pay of $15 an hour in a cause
that has scored major legislative victories in California and New York
state in recent weeks.
The union-backed "Fight for $15"
campaign has expanded since its inception in 2012 from a movement
mostly centered on the fast-food industry to encompass other low-wage
sectors, such as home health care, retail outlets and hospitals.
Much of the attention in Thursday's rallies, in what some organizers called a national day of action, was on McDonald's Corp fast-food eateries, the world's biggest restaurant chain by revenue.
Demonstrators
said they want to get to a $15 minimum in any they can, whether that
happens at the state or city level or even via individual companies.
In New York City, demonstrators rallied in Times Square and later protested outside a Republican
gala featuring the party's three candidates for the 2016 presidential
race, while in Los Angeles protesters held aloft large balloons and
marched behind a banner that read, "McJobs hurt us all."
Governor Andrew Cuomo
spoke at the rally in Times Square, on a day that also saw Democratic
presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders express
support for the marchers.
On the West Coast, organizers said more than 2,000 people marched through downtown Los Angeles.
Anggie Godoy, 20, a cashier at a McDonald's in Los Angeles, said the campaign to raise wages must be national in scope.
"We know that it's not just New York and California struggling, but it's everyone in our nation," she said.
And
even though California and New York have recently passed legislation to
raise their state minimums to $15, protesters said those measures
aren't enough because both states will take time to phase in the
increases.
Similar demonstrations in dozens of
other U.S. cities, including Chicago and Miami, drew thousands of
workers to the streets, organizers said.
Protests
were also held overseas, including at a McDonald's at Disneyland Paris
and outside the headquarters for the South Korea division of the
fast-food giant, organizers said.
Last year,
McDonald's raised its employees' base pay at company-owned U.S. outlets
by $1 over the locally mandated minimum wage. That measure does not
affect the employees of the almost 90 percent of McDonald's restaurants
run by franchisees.
McDonald's spokeswoman Lisa
McComb also cited the company's participation in a program that helps
employees earn a high school diploma and obtain tuition assistance for
college.
Earlier this month, both California and
New York enacted $15-an-hour minimum wage laws, going beyond the
federally mandated $7.25-an-hour wage floor that has been in effect
nationally since 2009.
Opponents have argued that
raising the minimum wage puts an undue strain on businesses still
struggling to rebound from a prolonged U.S. economic slump.
Supporters
say such measures are necessary to help low-paid workers who have been
slipping into poverty due to stagnant earnings and rising living
expenses.
Kendall Fells, organizing director of
"Fight for $15," said the movement combines a push to raise wages and
unionize low-paid workers.
"Workers demand $15 and they want a union, they don't care how it happens," he said.
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