Jason Lewis/ Village Voice

Workers and supporters pack 42nd Street in Times Square.

Hard-hats and picket-signs flooded 42nd Street yesterday evening as thousands of workers and social activists from around the city gathered in solidarity to fight for better working conditions.

The demonstration came on the heels of last week's Fast-Food Forward protest -- where employees at different fast-food establishments across the city walked off of the job in order to demand higher wages, benefits and the right to unionize.

Fast-food strikers joined forces yesterday with other fed-up workers -- in health-care, construction, security, service industries and other marginalized sectors -- in order to let the rest of the city know that their plight will no longer be ignored.

"Like you fast-food workers, I make $8/hour, no benefits [and] no sick days. Like you Wal-Mart workers, we JFK Airport security officers are fed up too," Prince Jackson, an employee of airport security company Air Serve, told the crowd. "We're here today united because we are faced with the same challenge: 'how do we make our country [and] our economy work for working people?"

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via Twitter

Protestor celebrates rehiring of employee at Downtown Brooklyn Wendy's.

Management at a Downtown Brooklyn Wendy's probably thought it was sending a stern message to its staff after one of its employees was fired this morning for participating in yesterday's city-wide walkout.

Well, just hours after laying down the law, it appears that the owner stepped in and hired the worker back. Surely the decision wasn't solely out of the kindness of his heart, but perhaps more directly inspired by the wellness of his wallet.

Hours of protesting and boycotting staged by the worker's fellow employees and passersby left business at the Wendy's on 425 Fulton Street rather barren for most of the day.

City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who traveled to different fast-food joints around the city to lend his support to workers, announced the news of the rehiring on Twitter this afternoon:

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James King

About 50 Mitt Romney haters gathered in front of the midtown offices of Bain Capital -- the controversial private equity firm co-founded by the presidential candidate -- to protest "the Bain way of outsourcing jobs" this afternoon.

Specifically, they were protesting the moving of Bain-owned Sensata Technologies' headquarters from Illinois to China, which will likely lead the the firing of 170 Sensata employees.

So it was a bit confusing when the protesters started chanting, "Jobs for America, not for Japan."

After about five minutes of protesting the nonexistent outsourcing of Sensata jobs to Japan, one of the organizers told the woman leading the chant that, "I think it's China, not Japan."

"Oh, that's right," she responded.

Oops.

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