Fast-food workers march to the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association

A chant — “We work. We sweat. Put $15 on our check.” — filled the heart of Westport’s restaurant district at noon Thursday as about 50 fast-food workers marched to the office of the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association.

Participants in the rally, identifiable in the red T-shirts of the Stand Up KC movement, walked from Broadway and Westport Road to 4049 Pennsylvania and spent about 20 minutes in front of the red brick office building that houses the restaurant association.

Upstairs in the office building at Suite 204, the association’s office door was locked, lights were turned off and there appeared to be no one in the office.

The restaurant association’s executive director, Shannon Hickey, later said that she was unaware in advance that the event was planned and that she and other employees had all left the building before it began.

“Our association’s position is the discussions about minimum wage should be handled at the state level,” Hickey said. “We support a sensible conversation about increasing the minimum wage, but we believe that it is illegal to talk about it at the municipal level.”

The worker rally was the seventh in a series of major local rallies that began in 2013 in Kansas City. Thursday’s gathering was smaller than some previous marches that attracted several hundred participants. Some marchers said it was difficult for fast-food workers to get off work during the lunch hour.

Andrew McConnell, 32, a McDonald’s employee who earned a 7-cent-per-hour raise to $8.32 per hour after two years on the job, said the Kansas City workers were standing in solidarity with others in a “day of action” around the country.

As workers rallied in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration formally approved a plan to gradually raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 per hour. That’s the first time any state has set the minimum that high. The wage hike for fast-food workers in New York will be phased in over three years in New York City and over six years elsewhere in the state.

In Minneapolis, rallies were held at SuperAmerica and McDonald’s stores. Last week, the Democratic National Committee adopted a $15-per-hour platform.

“We take our jobs seriously, and our pay should reflect that,” McConnell said. “We want to be able to pay our bills on time and in full. We want to participate in building the economy in our own neighborhoods.”

The Rev. Rodney Williams of Swope Parkway United Church of Christ spoke about the recent Labor Day celebration and employee benefits that were won by the labor movement.

“The movement is not dead,” Williams said. “Lifting the wage of low-wage workers is simply the right thing to do, and it makes economic sense.”

Largely ignored by the lunch crowd in nearby restaurants, the rally did raise a few approving honks from passing cars, and about a dozen passers-by paused to hear the remarks.

The sidewalk rally ended with a different chant: “Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Fast-food workers march to the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association."