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U.S. fast-food workers are today waging their biggest-ever strike -  one year from the U.S election day. They are taking their Fight for $15 and union rights to the ballot box to show candidates of all political stripes that the nearly 64 million Americans paid less than $15 are a voting bloc that can no longer be ignored.

UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said, "UNI Global Union stands in solidarity with these workers. U.S. politicians must listen to their voice or face the consequences on election day. 64 million Americans is a powerful new voting bloc. November 10 2015 may well become a significant date in the history of working people in America."

Walkouts in a record 270 cities, from Detroit to Denver, in red states, blue states and swing states, will culminate in massive protests outside city halls—local symbols of political power— where fast-food, home care, child care, and other underpaid workers will demand that elected leaders nationwide stand up for $15/hr and union rights. In cities like New York and Los Angeles, where workers have already won $15, workers will be striking to reiterate their demand that companies like McDonald’s respect their right to join a union without retaliation, and to show support for McDonald’s and other fast-food workers across the country who are still fighting for $15. In Milwaukee, following the strikes and city hall protest, members of Fight for $15 WI will march on the Republican debate at the Milwaukee Theatre.

In addition to the strikes and city hall protests, auto parts workers, farmworkers, grocery clerks, FedEx drivers, nursing home workers and others will show their support for the Fight for $15 at hundreds of additional rallies across the country, sending a message to candidates that higher pay and union rights are urgent issues for our country that need to be addressed now.

“Workers need a raise now,” said Latifah Trezvant, who works at McDonald’s in Kansas City, MO, is paid $8.65 and plans to vote for the first time next November. “McDonald’s and other large corporations need to step up and pay more. Politicians need to use their power. We can’t wait. We’ve got one message for anyone running for office in 2016, whether it’s for dogcatcher or president: Come get our vote. Stand up for $15 an hour and the right to a union, and we’ll stand behind you.”

The November. 10 nationwide fast-food strike and city hall protests are part of the growing political engagement by the Fight for $15, a group of workers BuzzFeed said, “could make up a powerful new voting bloc,” and the Associated Press said is showing, “increasingly potent political muscle.”

A recent poll of workers paid less than $15/hr commissioned by the National Employment Law Project showed that 69% of unregistered voters would register to vote if there were a candidate who supported $15/hr and a union; and that 65% of registered voters paid less than $15/hr would be more likely to vote if there were a candidate who supported $15/hr and a union. Seventy-six percent of the underpaid workers surveyed said they would pledge to vote for candidates who support $15 and a union. That’s 48 million potential voters paid less than $15 who could turn out if there were candidates who backed higher pay and union rights.

A New Voting Bloc

Over the next year, workers in the Fight for $15 will engage the roughly 64 million Americans, or 46% of the workforce, paid less than $15 around higher pay, union rights, improved child care and home care, racial justice and immigration reform—issues identified by underpaid workers as key factors in whether they will go to the polls for a candidate. They will put politicians on notice that, as a voting bloc, workers paid less than $15 could swing elections all across the country.

“The Fight for $15 has shown it can influence the politics around wages and the economy,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress. “This movement is creating a new voting bloc that frankly has too often been ignored by the political process.”

The expansion of the Fight for $15 into the 2016 political arena marks the latest sign of the mounting political power of underpaid workers who, just three years ago launched their movement for higher pay and union rights in New York City. The demand for $15/hr is already helping to define the 2016 presidential race. All of the major Democratic presidential candidates support the Fight for $15, and the Democratic National Committee voted in August to make $15/hr an official part of its 2016 platform. In June, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told fast-food workers at a national convention in Detroit, “I want to be your champion,” and said that “what you’re doing to build the Fight for $15 movement is so important.” In recent months, Clinton has held round-table meetings with home care and child care workers fighting for $15/hr and union rights.

Politicians across the country, from Los Angeles to New York, have responded to the workers’ demands by hiking pay to $15/hr. But in other cities, the political system has not worked for workers. In Kansas City, for example, an increase to $13 was blocked by the state legislature. And leading presidential candidates have questioned the need for a minimum wage.

Over the last month, workers have held “People’s Wage Board” meetings in dozens of other cities, demanding $15 by any means possible. And in 2016, the Fight for $15 aims to dive deep into the universe of the 48 million voters paid less than $15 who would be more likely to vote if there were candidates who back raising pay and union rights.

“Elected leaders are sitting on their hands while we’re paid so little that we are forced to rely on public assistance to support our families,” said Tonya Harrington, a home care worker from Durham, who will also vote for the first time next November. “At $7.25 an hour, I can’t scrape by and I just can’t wait any longer for more. We need higher pay by any means possible – whether it’s billion dollar corporations like McDonald’s raising pay, politicians increasing minimum wages, wage boards, or other methods. And we need it now.”

The Fight for $15 has built a growing awareness that $15/hr is the minimum wage level American workers in every part of the country need to survive and pay for the necessities to support their families. The Nov. 10 strike is the first by fast-food workers since 200,000 fast-food workers in September won a pay raise to $15/hr following a recommendation from a Wage Board appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The governor is now pushing to make New York the first state in the nation with a $15/hr minimum wage. Cities including Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have raised their minimum wage to $15/hr. And home care workers in Massachusetts and Oregon won $15/hr statewide minimum wages earlier this year. Companies including Facebook, Aetna, Amalgamated Bank, and Nationwide Insurance have raised pay to $15/hr, or higher, this year, while workers demand that fast-food companies like McDonald’s do the same.

“A full-time worker with two kids needs at least $30,135 this year to be safely out of poverty,” Robert Reich, a former labor secretary, recently wrote. “That’s $15 an hour for a forty-hour workweek. Any amount below this usually requires government make up the shortfall – using tax payments from the rest of us to finance food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, and other kinds of help.”

Noting how the Fight for $15 has changed the politics of the country, the New York Times declared that “$15 could become the new, de facto $7.25,” and the Washington Post said that $15/hr has “gone from almost absurdly ambitious to mainstream in the span of a few years.”

The Nov. 10 strike hits as workers, elected leaders, and regulators in the U.S. and abroad increasingly point to McDonald’s – the world’s second largest private sector employer and its largest franchisor – as the company most responsible for driving a global race to the bottom, citing an extensive record of labor law violations and bad corporate citizenship. From Brazil, to Europe to the United States, governments are looking to hold McDonald’s accountable for tax avoidance, violating labor laws, and anti-competitive behavior.

Louder Calls for a Voice on the Job

The strike coincides with heightened demands for stronger worker unions and more protections for collective bargaining to address America’s low-wage crisis. 

Seventy-two percent of workers in the U.S. who are paid less than $15/hr approve of labor unions, according to the NELP poll. The survey found that 72% believe unions can make a real difference in whether or not workers like themselves get raises, and that 66% say they would have a better chance of making $15/hr an hour and being able to support their families if they could join a union. A recent Gallup Organization poll found a sharp rise in the past year—to 58 percent—in approval of labor unions among all Americans.

Responding to findings showing that union membership increases social mobility, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in August called for greater collective bargaining to rebuild the middle class, writing in the Washington Post that, “strengthening collective worker voice has to be an important component of any realistic American inclusive growth agenda.”

In October, the White House held the first-ever Summit on Worker Voice, stressing the importance of collective bargaining in promoting greater opportunity in America. Kansas City McDonald’s worker Terrence Wise introduced President Obama, who praised him and the Fight for $15 for leading the way.