Fast-food workers plan to Strike Nationwide Tuesday, aim to sway election

Fast-food workers, already a potent political force, are planning their largest nationwide strike yet next week and this time will leverage their crusade for a $15-an-hour wage in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election.

The group representing the workers, Fight for $15, plans on Tuesday to stage protests at restaurants in 270 cities, the most since it began organizing the demonstrations three years ago.

Striking fast-food and other low-wage workers will then gather at local city halls, kicking off a campaign to prod their colleagues to vote next November for local, state and national candidates who support the $15 pay floor. Labor and other groups will simultaneously rally in about 200 other cities, and the daylong blitz will culminate with a protest by several thousand workers at the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee...

..Nearly 70% of unregistered voters would sign up, and a similar share of registered voters would be more likely to go to the polls if there were a presidential candidate in favor of a $15 minimum wage and workers' right to unionize, according to a recent poll by Harris interactive and YouGov for the National Employment Law Project. NELP estimates those factions represent about 48 million potential voters.

[link to www.usatoday.com]