McDonald's workers strike for a lb10-an-hour living wage

Workers from five UK McDonald's restaurants went on strike on International Workers' Day today to call for a minimum lb10 per hour living wage, an end to zero hour contracts and union recognition.

At the picket line in Cambridge at 8am, striking staff and supporters blocked the entrance to the restaurant for an hour and at midday striking workers from all five stores gathered in Watford High Street, home of McDonalds CEO Steve Easterbrook.

"Hold our burgers, hold our fries, make our wages supersize," they chanted.

Full-time student and part-time McDonald's worker Annalise Peters said: "Because we're on zero hour contracts the company isn't obliged to give us any given hours of shifts, so a lot of people who rely on these shifts to pay rent or whatever, they might have to beg, they don't know how much money they are going to be getting from week to week. They cause a lot of instability in a lot of people's lives."