New York, NY--As hundreds of thousands of fast food workers walked off the job today in protest of low wages and poor working conditions, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez issued this statement in solidarity with them:

"Today I stand with hundreds of thousands of fast food workers across the nation to demand a living wage of $15 and the right to organize a union. These workers, making $8.71 an hour on average, often work in poor conditions and have to make tough choices, particularly those with young children. Several weeks ago, I joined a citywide campaign designed to highlight the realities of low wage workers. I found out firsthand what it is to live on minimum wage, spending a week on a limited budget, forced to miss meals and eat very little and unhealthily. For thousands of fast food workers in New York City, this is a relentless daily struggle to do a thankless job to make ends meet. It is time for the multi-hundred billion dollar fast food industry to increase the wages of their workers to $15 an hour so that they too can work more towards the middle class of this country; so that they too can become consumers; so that they too can contribute to our country's economy in a meaningful way, that will bring them greater representation and allow them to make decisions to better their lives. On the day following the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the March on Washington for jobs and freedom, his words still resonate, but it is something he said that sticks with me, he said 'What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't buy a hamburger.' It was always and still is always about more than civil rights, because civil rights are inconsequential if economic rights are not also upheld. This is about economic justice and we must drive these issues home if we want to see a more just and successful society."