Fast-food workers from Los Angeles to New York City are escalating their fight for better pay Thursday with strikes, rallies and acts of civil disobedience.

More than 100 workers converged on a McDonald’s in L.A.’s Exposition Park before dawn to join the nationwide protests. They went inside the store for 10 minutes as workers stood stone-faced behind the cash registers.

The protesters held up signs and chanted slogans like “Get up! Get down! Fast-food workers run this town!” near a scrum of media trucks outside the empty McDonald’s.

Fanny Velazquez, 36, said she was participating in the rally to fight for better wages to support her family. A single mother with three children, ages 11, 14 and 16, she said she struggles to make her $9.34-an-hour pay cover all the bills.

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