Fast-food strikes set in several cities

Fast-food strikes set in several cities

NEW YORK

Fast-food customers in search of burgers and fries today might run into striking workers instead.

Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s to pay workers higher wages.

It’s expected be the largest nationwide strike by fast-food workers, according to organizers. The biggest effort so far was over the summer when about 2,200 of the nation’s millions of fast-food workers staged a one-day strike in seven cities.

Today’s planned walkouts follow a series of strikes that began last November in New York City, then spread to cities including Chicago, Detroit and Seattle. Workers say they want $15 an hour, which would be about $31,000 a year for full-time employees. That’s more than double the federal minimum wage, which many fast food workers make, of $7.25 an hour, or $15,000 a year.

Oil price highest in more than 2 years

The price of oil climbed to its highest level in more than two years Wednesday as the U.S. edged closer to taking action against Syria for the purported use of chemical weapons.

Benchmark oil for October delivery rose $1.09, or 1 percent, to $110.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That’s its highest closing price since May 3, 2011. Earlier, oil climbed as high as $112.24.

Oil has surged 27 percent since touching a low for the year of $86.68 on April 17. Political unrest in the Middle East and the threat of U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war have been big factors behind the price increase. Neither country is a major oil exporter, but traders are concerned that the violence could spread to more-important oil-exporting countries or disrupt major oil-transport routes.

Associated Press