In his latest piece at Salon, Josh Eidelson talks about a planned walkout by fast-food workers in Chicago. 

The walkout began, the Chicago Tribune reports, at 5:30 a.m. local time with workers from some McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts stores walking off the job. The ultimate goal of the walkout is to support the Fight for $15 campaign, whose goal is to secure a wage of $15 per hour for workers. Also expected to join the walkout were workers from Subway, Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret.

Just minutes after yesterday's protest in New York by striking workers, McDonald's announced that the franchise owner accused of exploiting temporary workers in the country on J-1 visas will be selling his three stores and will no longer be associated with the company, the Nation's Josh Eidelson reports. The workers from Latin America and Asia who worked at the Pennsylvania fast-food restaurants allege that store owner Andy Cheung provided them with sub-standard employer-owned housing to live in, forced them to work shifts of up to 25 consecutive hours and threatened them with retaliation if they complained or refused to work.

Following a strike last week at several Pennsylvania franchisee locations, McDonald's workers will rally in New York on Thursday and announce a March 26 mobilization outside the corporation's Chicago headquarters. The workers are students in the United States on J-1 visas from Asia and Latin America who say they were given sub-standard employer-owned housing to live in, shifts of up to 25 consecutive hours and were threatened with retaliation if they complained or refused to work. The National Guestworker Alliance has been working closely with the students.

Sarah Seltzer writes for Alternet and other online publications and sends us this.

Trader Joe’s, the popular food chain, which caters to the socially conscious set, had been falling short of its healthful and “progressive” image recently—by refusing to sign onto an agreement to protect tomato pickers. But after a tireless campaign by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the company has agreed to sign on, and planned protests in front of a Trader Joe’s were canceled.