NEW YORK – Earlier this week, fast-food workers outside a McDonald’s in New York City announced a planned series of protests and delivered a letter that called on the QSR to raise wages and respect workers' rights worldwide, according to a report from CNN.

The protest movement, which originated in 2012 in New York, has since spread to about 100 cities, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and Memphis. Workers from QSRs like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC have been walking off their jobs, calling on employers to pay them a minimum wage of $15 an hour and allow them to form unions without retaliation.

Currently, the median pay for the fast-food workers across the country is just over $9 an hour, or about $18,500 a year. In the past year, many states and cities have taken action by raising the minimum wage, including Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii and New Jersey. Organizers see these actions as a testimonial to the success of their campaigns.

The latest protests are backed by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, a federation composed of 396 trade unions in 126 countries representing a combined 12 million workers. Earlier this year, workers in three states filed class-action lawsuits against McDonald's, alleging widespread and systematic wage theft.

Labor experts say there have been scattered attempts to organize in previous decades, but very little in the fast food industry has stuck. Many say that's because there is a high labor turnover rate in the industry. In its latest annual report, McDonald's acknowledged that the threat of strikes could potentially have an impact on earnings and sales.

In a statement, McDonald's said it offers "part-time and full-time employment, benefits and competitive pay based on the local marketplace and job level." The company and its franchisees "are committed to providing our respective employees with opportunities to succeed." McDonald's also said that about 80% of its restaurants globally are independently owned and operated by small business owners.