Working in Fast Food, Speaking Out

Naquasia Legrand, a 22-year-old from Canarsie, Brooklyn, works at two KFCs. She washes dishes at one for $7.75 and mops floors at the other for $8. She says she must work four or five hours each week off the clock.

She needed to buy a MetroCard last week so she skipped lunch. She shakes her head. “I think I deserve to eat lunch.”

Michael Powell talked to some fast food workers who earn minimum wage (or fifty cents more as shift managers) who “bob along the poverty line in an impossibly expensive city.” They’re beginning to speak out and tell their stories, organizing labor coalitions, and demanding higher wages. Because when you’re earning so little and are skipping lunch to buy a subway pass to get home, what more do you have to lose?

Photo: Wizan

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