A national strike for a living wage and the right to unionize in the fast food and retail sectors has recently spread across seven cities in the US. Hundreds of workers walked off the job Thursday in Milwaukee, and before that in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Flint and New York City. Leading the strikes were the Service Employees International Union and its worker center, Fast Food Forward, also known as Fight for 15, which called for $15 an hour wages and a union. Most fast food workers make the hourly minimum wage of $7.25 and have not voted to be represented by a union. There is no better example of how unions are organizing these strikes than the story of Terrance Wise, age 35, who apparently works two jobs in fast food, at Burger King for $9.30 an hour and at Pizza Hut for $7.47 an hour. He has been employed in fast food jobs since the age of 16, and ostensibly he has three daughters and a fiancée who works as a home health aide. He is described as homeless or living in substandard housing without heat.
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