(KMOV.com) — More than 20 fast food restaurants in the St. Louis region are expected to strike Thursday pushing for higher wages, better working conditions and a union.

The fast food strikes in St. Louis come after other cities including Chicago and New York have experienced similar strikes.

Two restaurants in St. Louis had employees strike Wednesday.

Rasheen Aldridge and a couple of his co-workers did not report Wednesday for their 11 a.m. shift at the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop in Soulard.

Instead, they stood outside carrying protest signs with a group of supporters while four community activists entered the shop and notified the manager that those workers were on strike.

Later Wednesday, a handful of McDonald’s workers did the same at a location in Ferguson.

These employees said they are expected to be joined by dozens of more fast food workers on Thursday in the St. Louis region in a push for higher wages, better working conditions, and the right to form a union without retaliation.

This is the third strike among fast food workers to hit a big city in recent weeks.

As in those efforts in others cities, the St. Louis workers are asking for $15 an hour instead of wages that hover closer to the minimum, which is $7.35 an hour in Missouri.

“I realize I’m not the CEO of a fast food company,” said 19-year-old Aldridge, a student at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park.

But he said the $8 an hour he makes at Jimmy John’s is not proper compensation for his work. It’s not enough, for example, to pay for repairs to his car, which he sometimes uses to deliver sandwiches.

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