San Francisco airport restaurant workers strike amid California storm

SAN FRANCISCO -- Restaurant workers at San Francisco's airport went on strike Thursday as a severe storm pushed across parts of Northern California, CBS San Francisco station KPIX-TV reports.

With signs covered in plastic wrap, the workers picketed outside the airport to demand higher wages, KPIX-TV reports. The restaurant workers' union, Unite Here Local 2, said nearly 1,000 workers would be on strike for 48 hours, returning to work Saturday.

"We're on strike because it is so difficult for our families to make ends meet in the Bay Area," Jesse Johnson, a bartender at an airport restaurant, said in a statement. "When restaurants slash our health care or deny us job security, we just can't get by."

Thursday's storm was expected to be one of the windiest and rainiest in five years and had already resulted in about 150 flight cancellations at San Francisco International Airport by Thursday morning.

For travelers whose flights were taking off, the union urged them to bring their own food to the airport.

However, an airport spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle that 80 percent of the airport's restaurants would be open.