Fast Food Workers Strike In 4th Major City

If you want to understand why 400 fast food workers protested in Detroit on Friday, even though they risked being fired, just ask Jamal Harris. The 21-year-old Detroit man (pictured at right) works three jobs at three fast-food restaurants: Burger King, Long John Silver's and Checkers. Logging more than 80 hours a week, at just $7.40 an hour, Harris says he does whatever is needed, from working the cash register to flipping burgers. None of his employers provide him with benefits. "Tripling up is the only way I can provide for myself," he says in an interview with AOL Jobs.

Still, Harris was on the picket lines Friday, the largest protest held by fast food workers in the U.S. Detroit was the fourth American city in which fast food workers staged walkouts, starting with one in New York in November 2012. The Detroit workers, like fast food workers in the three other cities, are calling for a doubling of the minimum wage to $15 an hour. They're also demanding full-time schedules so that employers will provide medical benefits. "Workers should be treated fairly for their work," says Harris, who is single. "The more we stand together, another form of enslavement will be broken."

The Detroit workers represent 60 different fast-food chains, according to the Michigan Workers Organizing Committee, a coalition of community and labor groups that led the protest. By Friday afternoon, the strikes causes the early closing of at least four fast-food restaurants in the Detroit area, according to the organizers.

Employers including Burger King have yet to respond to requests for comment from The Detroit News and The Associated Press.