I asked commenter VidaLoca to give us an update on the fast food strikes and he was kind enough to do so. This report is from Saturday.
I wrote you earlier this month about the events surrounding the second one-day strike of fast food workers here and the “walkback” actions that followed on August 1 and 2. We had a third strike and walkback yesterday and today, and inasmuch as there seemed to be some interest among BJ readers regarding the second strike I thought there might be similar interest regarding the third.
As most people who have been following this story are probably aware, the strike movement is growing nationally. I was told that yesterday saw strike actions in 77 cities (which is an increase over the 50 cities I had previously heard reported). In Wisconsin there were strikes in Madison (new, but not a big surprise if you are familiar with the People’s Republic of Madison) and Wausau. The latter is of interest because it’s kind of a big deal here when political activity of this sort gets outside of the Milwaukee-Madison axis. Locally we saw growth both in the number of workers and the number of businesses involved. Also whereas previously the affected economic sectors were fast-food and retail, yesterday saw the first call-center workers walk off the job.
Aside from growth in numbers and spread across economic sectors the most notable new development this time is the growth of confidence among the strikers. In the first two strikes, the rule was unconditionally that workers returning to their shifts the following day were “walked back” by supporting delegations from the community. This time that rule was relaxed — the veteran strikers were confident enough about their degree of vulnerability (or lack thereof) that they basically said “you guys cover the newbies, we got this” and took a pass on the walkbacks. So this time we were only doing walkbacks for first-time strikers. And it seems to have worked — I was doing walkbacks from 6AM this morning until noon, and I didn’t hear about any cases where strikers had problems getting back to work with promises of no reprisals.
Best,
VidaLoca
We looked at some pictures from Fight for 15 on Friday. This is Low Pay Is Not OK.
Dee Loralei
I love what they are doing. And it’s awesome that it is spreading. And it’s hilarious the ad they took out in the WSJ, it means they are scared.
Yatsuno
This is awesome. And I hope the call center trend spreads.
fuckwit
@Yatsuno: To India?
Kay
@Yatsuno:
Their twitter feeds are great. I’m addicted to them, as a lurker. Today they’re mad because McDonalds is offering 2 for 1 burgers on labor day in NY. They can give away food but they won’t give the workers a raise!
Twitter is the best organizing tool ever.
shelly
Tired of conservatives bleating ‘Raise the minimum wage? where is the money going to come from?” Ummm, the all-time high corporate profits?
Yatsuno
@fuckwit: India is sooo 2009. Nowadays it’s the Philippines. With the same quality control issues companies had before. Why do you think they’re bringing them back over here?
@Kay: I love it when they smacked Paul Schaettner in the face by showing how his pizza giveaways cost more than giving his workers healthcare. Of course he just raged about him being a jerb creator and Galtian bullshit in response. The fact his pizza sucks too doesn’t help.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
Bless them a zillion times.
LanceThruster
I don’t see what the problem is. I eat plenty of value menu food items and despite my own financial situation, am willing to pay whatever increase is needed to provide workers with a living wage.
Villago Delenda Est
The fat Nazi fuck and his fellow stormtroopers on Faux are just shitting bricks over the strike.
Villago Delenda Est
@shelly:
It’s going to come out of the greedy hides of Ferengi shitstains.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s funny how media celebrities were all raving populists for about a week and a half after the bank bailouts. Now they’re back to whatever they were doing before that fad blew thru.
Populism involves all these icky PEOPLE who want…stuff. Back to the deficit! Austerity, now!
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
The worst part is that it probably isn’t. If it were just one business that was raising wages, they’d have to pay for the raises out of profits, since raising prices would drive price-conscious customers to their competitors. But if the minimum wage goes up so that everyone has to give out raises, everyone’s prices will go up, and customers will stay about where they were. Most of the money for the increased wages will come from customers paying higher prices, with owners only losing out if there’s a drop in overall sales. That drop isn’t even guaranteed, since the minimum wage increase will put more money in the hands of poor people, who are the biggest customers of those same minimum wage paying businesses.
Chris
@Yatsuno:
Businessmen entitlement is ruining the country. The culture they live in just hands them so many scapegoats and excuses to conveniently blame (some combination of “the unions,” “the government,” and “the lack of work ethic in the unruly masses”) that it’s become the crutch they reflexively lean on every time something goes wrong. They don’t even pause to ask themselves “what could I have done differently?” They just jump straight to talking about how it’s all the scapegoats’ fault. And the entire media and political scene will usually have beaten them to it in any case.
Seriously, when was the last time a business went under and one of the VSPs wondered “gee, is it possible that this is the result of bad decisions on the part of the management?”
MomSense
This is some of the best grassroots organizing that is happening right now. Hotel workers are also doing some great organizing and I am still hopeful that Walmart employees will get going.
Here in Maine our governor vetoed attempts to raise the minimum wage. The independent candidate, Cutler, also opposes raising the minimum wage. I just can’t understand how they expect people to pay for housing, food, heat and transportation–the basics on less than $8 per hour. LePage really makes me crazy as he has opposed Medicaid expansion as well. When he was campaigning in 2010 he told a story about a great employee of his at Mardens and how he wanted to give her a raise but then she wouldn’t have qualified for Medicaid.
The business model for fast food companies, Walmart, hotels, etc is to pay workers as little as possible and rely on taxpayers to subsidize their bottom line by providing the health, housing, and food assistance that their low wages don’t cover. Shit is fucked up and bullshit!
? Martin
@MomSense:
Simple. They don’t. They expect them to starve.
If that sounds too cruel, what do you think slaveowners expected their property to do? We fought an entire war because 1/3 of the country at the time had that attitude. And there are still assholes waving flags in support of it.
JPL
@MomSense: A handy-man that I had help a few times, mentioned oh no, food stamp people buy steaks. I mentioned that I’m sick of paying taxes towards food stamps and health care because the Walton’s are to cheap to pay a living wage. I said that every time you eat at a fast food joint, you pay extra taxes just to provide food stamps and health care for their workers, while the owners get rich. I said we need a living wage in our country. He said, hmmmm. The next time he told me that he wasn’t shopping at Walmart anymore. I haven’t seen him again cuz he actually did crappy work..
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
And this is why you put CEOs (and their families) on tumbrels.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Chris:
Remember the joke about Chrysler back when the bailout was proposed?
Q: Why does Chrysler need a bailout?
A: Because they build ugly cars that no one wants.
Chris
@MomSense:
You know, it would be one thing if they actually expected the federal government to pick up the tab for things like health insurance and the like. Heck, that’s what I (and many of us) want in the first place; that these kinds of things be provided by the feds as a basic right, not as a service subject to the whims of the Market-God or your employers. But no, they don’t want that either, because they’re also the ones furiously lobbying against any expansion of the government role in those respects (their taxes might go up a few points, poor babies).
They really do want an army of disposable serfs whose basic services are provided by no one and that they can exploit like third world labor.
Suzanne
I worked at McDonald’s part-time for a year when I was in high school. Used my money to pay car insurance for the little used Corolla my mom bought me so I could drive to school, and bought clothes and CDs, and put a little bit away for college textbooks. I absolutely cannot imagine trying to live life on that.
The McDonald’s I worked at was in a relatively poor part of town. We would routinely find children in the play land area who had been dropped off there by their parents and were told to spend the entire day there, because their parents couldn’t afford daycare. Lots of homeless people and behavioral health patients, since there was a psych hospital across the street. We caught a grown man masturbating in the play land once. I had to physically restrain a drunk man who tried to jump my eight-months-pregnant manager for kicking him out after he passed out in the restaurant. I got sworn at, and food thrown on me, and hit on, and told I was stupid.
In short, that was probably the hardest I have ever worked. Ever. I would get home reeking of French fries, even though I didn’t eat them, and my joints would ache and my back would be sore. And I was just a bratty teenager working in order to have extra spending cash. The people I worked with all worked so hard, and put up with SO MUCH SHIT, and the idea that they don’t deserve even enough money to feed themselves and their families, or for bus fare to get to work just enrages me.
hildebrand
I am very glad to hear that this is moving beyond Madison and Milwaukee. I am especially glad that it has moved to the north – Wausau is tough to paint as some radicalized burg in Wisconsin (the knuckle-draggers can’t even kvetch about ‘college towns’ with this location). Folks around the state never really take anything seriously until it moves out of the ‘liberal’ hotbeds of Madison and Milwaukee. I would love to see the strikes move to Green Bay – perhaps a few places not far from Lambeau Field, that would get some serious media attention, I would think.
debbie
@LanceThruster:
I don’t remember which NPR show it was I was listening to yesterday, but it was pointed out that if wages were raised, it would result in a 25-cent increase for a burger. This makes McDonalds et al’s resistance that much more offensive.
FlipYrWhig
@Suzanne: I worked for Burger King as a summer job in high school, 25 years ago or so, basically because my parents wanted me to learn something about work. Two things stick with me: one, that my favorite job responsibility was breaking down boxes by the dumpster, because no one would bother me when I was doing that. Two, that there was an actual Holocaust survivor working there, tattoo and everything. Talk about what people deserve. Wow. Something other than filling ketchup bottles for snotty teenagers.
debbie
I believe it is in this interview that Joe Olivio (as ugly a representative of corporate America as there is) of the NFIB tells his NPR interviewer that he thinks, “frankly,” some people are only worth $1 to $3 an hour. The interviewer was so surprised, he had Olivio repeat his statement to make sure he’d heard him correctly:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156458470/raising-minimum-wage-a-help-or-harm
VidaLoca
I just booted up my computer and headed over to Balloon Juice — and found Kay’s post here. So I guess the first thing I should say is that I’m embarrassed to be late to the conversation.
One thing I did want to share with you all — in the comments following the Aug. 3 “Message From Milwaukee” post that Kay put up I told the story of a 19-year-old woman who was fired from her job at a McDonald’s for going out on strike the day before. Essentially what had happened was that a delegation of about 10 people had walked her back to start her shift on the morning of the day following the strike and the manager refused to discuss the matter, told her she was through. That afternoon, 50 people came back with an attorney and she got her job back.
I had the good fortune to meet her yesterday. Although she was scheduled on the evening shift she had spent the morning on walkbacks for other people from her shop as well as other from places. She’s both proud of what she is doing, and fired-up about spreading the strike and getting more people involved. And she starts back at school Tuesday — she and her boyfriend have already persuaded their history teacher to invite the union organizer in to talk to the class…
VidaLoca
@hildebrand:
True, ‘dat.
Yeah, in addition to geographic spread of the kind you’re talking about the other thing the movement is going to need is to have some hides nailed to the barn door — bargaining units in place in shops or (better) whole chains, with contracts in place.
Do that and we’ll be in a position to consider attacking Walmart.
LanceThruster
@debbie:
I remember similar numbers kicked around; $.10-.25 more for value menu items and $.60-.80 for a Big Mac.
Make it rain!
Kay
@debbie:
I hope they keep that up. They talk a good game about a work ethic but they are incredibly disrespecttful to working people.
The name of the Wal Mart worker campaign is “RESPECT”
They should take a hint from that. It’s more than wages.
VidaLoca
@debbie: I spent 3 hours yesterday morning at a Farmers Market in a way predominantly white, modestly-to-extremely-well-off suburb of Milwaukee, gathering signatures on a petition in support of a “Living Wage” for Milwaukee County employees currently making minimum wage. In that time I ran into exactly one person who made an argument similar to the one you’re describing. Meanwhile, I was pulling in a little more than 20 names per hour, from people who agreed that County employees should be guaranteed a living wage.
We’ve been running this petition campaign for two weeks now and that’s consistent with previous results.
I’ll admit to some amazement at this, because previously I had expected that the idea of a “Living Wage” for County employees would be a hard sell out in the suburbs. It’s not. In fact I’m becoming more and more convinced that Olivio’s ideas get little traction even in areas where one might expect that they’d have some impact.
Cold comfort that may be, because he’s getting interviewed on NPR and we aren’t, but we’re winning and he isn’t.
Yatsuno
@VidaLoca:
Doesn’t fit Teh Narrative. Teh Narrative sez jerb creators are special snowflakes that must be revered and honoured but lowly workers are just leeches off their Galtian genius. Plus interviewing normal people is BOOORING.
VidaLoca
@Yatsuno: Yep, but what we’re starting to see here is that Teh Narrative is losing its power. And people are starting to realize that there is an alternative narrative that they can pick up and act on.
Scotius
@debbie:
It was Bill Dunkelberg the chief economist of the NFIB, although Joe Olivo is pretty vile in his own right.
gene108
@VidaLoca:
75% of the country favors raising the minimum wage. Whenever raising the minimum wage has come up on a state ballot referendum it passes easily. In 2004 Florida had a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage, and despite Bush, Jr. carrying the state easily, 2/3’s of Florida voters also voted to raise the minimum wage.
The problem isn’t that people aren’t in favor of raising the minimum wage.
The problem is the people, who are opposed to it are willing to work a lot harder to keep it from going up, than most of the 75% who support raising it.
I’d sign a petition in a heartbeat, but in all honesty, if you expect me to take time off work to protest outside a fastfood joint don’t expect me to do much.
This goes for a lot of issues, where most people think it’s a good idea but are too busy or otherwise indisposed to do the work needed to move the political machinery of this country in that direction. The post-Sandyhook legislation that got defeated for expanding background checks is a good example of a focused minority getting their way over an unfocused majority.
VidaLoca
@gene108:
You’re right on this. There’s a backstory — the petition campaign is very specifically targeted at getting some vacillating elected officials to vote the right way on legislation that is going to start moving soon. Net result: the contributions made by people who are “too busy or otherwise indisposed” are going to have an impact this time.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think it makes more sense if you understand their interest in work ethic to be completely self-serving. Our Galtian Overlords want people who will work without any external motivation because it saves the overlords from having to provide motivation in the form of living wages and decent working conditions.
MomSense
@VidaLoca:
The narrative loses power when people talk to each other, hear each other’s stories, without the asshole media and corporate spokespersons and Republican politicians in the middle filtering the information.
You are an inspiration, VidaLoca. I’m so grateful for what you and your colleagues are doing. You give me so much hope!
VidaLoca
@MomSense:
Exactly this. Everyone has hopes, everyone has dreams, everyone thinks their hopes and dreams and fears and disappointments are theirs and theirs alone. To share and discuss them is incredibly powerful. Then elaborate a vision of how things could be different, how common hopes and dreams and aspirations are within reach — and try to organize people around a realistic plan to realize the vision.
mclaren
This is the kind of thing we need to see nationwide. But much more intense. Rings of businesses getting shut down around the struck fast food restaurants in sympathy. Masses of people lying down in the streets to shut down traffic. So many people getting arrested that the jails fill to capacity and the police have to start using sports arenas to house the arrestees. All those things happened during the anti-war protests in the 1960s.
My prediction? Emboldened by their success in the crackdown on the Occupy protests, police will use massive force, including “pain compliance” (AKA torture, deliberately breaking the arms and legs of strikers and then hauling them away by their broken limbs, tasing the strikers dozens of times, pepper-spraying and macing the strikers until paramedics have to be called, aiming rubber bullets at the protesters’ eyes in order to blind them permanently, and so on). As before, the DHS will be mobilized and will use military weapons like the LRAD sound cannons against the strikers.
Unlike the Occupy movement, however, the savage nationwide crackdown against these strikers will backfire badly because these people are striking for a living wage and have mobilized the entire community behind them.
Incidentally, the fast food corporate owners were huge contributors to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. So this nationwide ever-growing strike is in large part a pushback against the neoliberal policies which Romney openly advocated in his presidential run, and which Barack Obama has quietly embraced throughout his first and second terms.
mclaren
@gene108:
Raising the minimum wage won’t do anything to fix our broken economic system. All it will do is force jobs to get automated or offshored more quickly.
Think about it: if the minimum wage goes up to, say, $15 per hour, the first result will be a massive new wave of offshoring and automation. The secondary result will be a huge nationwide raise in the cost of housing, the price of food, and so on, to gobble up all the gains from that minimum wage increase.
The problem is the system of capitalism as it currently exists, not this or that particular part of capitalism. You can’t fix the broken system of Western capitalism by tinkering around the edges, as in raising the minimum wage, or passing laws to prevent supervisors from firing workers arbitrarily. The entire system as it currently exists is rotten to the core and will have to be either replaced or so drastically modified that it is unrecognizable as capitalism as we know it.
That includes: [1] eliminating legal corporate personhood; [2] nationalizing and turning into non-profit organizations many businesses that are currently run for profit and offer stock to the public, like big pharma (nationalize ’em all and offer drugs to the public at cost), banks (nationalize ’em all and turn ’em into credit unions), fast food businesses (make ’em all employee-owned non-profits), giant media monopolies (break ’em up into their component businesses and make into employee-owned non-profts); [3] enacint a 90% marginal top tax rate for the highest brackets, with VAT and capital gains taxed at the same rate; [4] death penalty to tax evasion by overseas bank accounts (if the NSA can track our emails, they can surely track the movements of American billionares’ cash overseas to the Cayman islands); [5] the reconstruction of all American cities to eliminate the requirement for owning a car, which will prevent a lot of problems poor people have in finding and keeping jobs that require a 4-hour-per-day bus ride; and the forced requirement that all boards of directors reserve at least one out of 5 of their seats for representatives of labor unions, as is required in Germany; [6] establishment of a nationwide open apprenticeship training program in skilled professions like numerical machine tooling etc.
Obviously these are just a start, but simple easy fixes like “raise the minimum wage” won’t do anything to change the current broken economic system in America. The homeostasis of the current corrupt broken system will simply react to nullify any minimum wage increase by raising all the other prices of rents, food, etc, while offshoring and automating all current fast food jobs at an even faster pace.
There are now entire fast food restaurants which are largely automated in other countries. As robotics gets exponentially better, this trend will rapidly increase in America.
See this article, “Could fast food automation replace low wage workers?”