Read

User menu

Search form

Fast Food Strikes and Protests to Hit 150 U.S. Cities And 30 Countries on May 15

Fast Food Strikes and Protests to Hit 150 U.S. Cities And 30 Countries on May 15
Tue, 5/13/2014 - by Josh Eidelson
This article originally appeared on Salon

On May 15, fast food workers plan to mount one-day strikes in 150 U.S. cities, accompanied by protests in 30 countries, labor sources tell Salon. Organizers expect the walkouts to spread for the first time to cities including Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, and Sacramento, and to involve thousands of total workers, including hundreds each in cities including St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Abroad, May 15 fast food protests – many of them targeting McDonald’s in particular – are planned in cities including Karachi, Casablanca, London, Sao Paolo, Dublin, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Geneva, and San Salvador, as well as locations in India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Japan.

Activists plan to hold a teach-in outside McDonald’s head office in Auckland, New Zealand; to stage flash mobs at five McDonald’s locations in the Philippines, and to shut down a major McDonald’s during lunchtime in Belgium. The following day, fast food workers in Italy plan to mount their own strike, staging protests in Rome, Milan, and Venice and shutting down stores for the day.

The actions were discussed last week in New York at an international gathering of union leaders and fast food workers from dozens of countries, called by the global union federation IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations). They mark the latest escalation in the showdown between an embattled U.S. labor movement and a fast food industry whose jobs are increasingly prevalent and representative of work in America’s post-crash economy.

“I’m tired of trying to make ends meet and they’re not meeting…” Richmond, Virginia, Burger King employee Crystal Travis told Salon before joining a 100-city strike last December. “I don’t make enough to even have Christmas.”

As I’ve reported, the campaign’s demands are $15 per hour wages and the chance to freely form a union; its primary funder and director is the Service Employees International Union; and its tactics include a mix of media, legal, political, and workplace pressure on the industry. Like high-profile recent organizing efforts against non-union targets including Wal-Mart, the campaign has sought to use short-term strikes by small minorities of the workforce as anchors for broader campaigns to engage co-workers and embarrass management, even without generally shutting down places of business.

Over the past two months, the campaign has hailed the filing of wage theft lawsuits against McDonald’s, the announcement of a mayor-backed plan to raise Seattle’s minimum wage to $15 over the next decade, and the release of research showing a 543-to-1 fast food CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2012.

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The National Council of Chain Restaurants dismissed last August’s walkout on the grounds that “a few scattered protests organized by outside labor groups hardly amounts to a nationwide ‘strike’ or movement”; McDonald’s emphasized prior to the subsequent December walkout that both the corporation and its franchisees are “committed to providing our employees with opportunities to succeed.”

In a March report filed with the SEC, McDonald’s acknowledged that labor efforts including strikes and protests “can adversely affect us.” A December internal memo from the National Restaurant Association, obtained by Salon, concludes that “almost none of the protesters” at that month’s actions “were actual workers,” but that organizers “were able to manufacture ‘rent-a-mob protests in more cities,” and their efforts “are becoming more coordinated and centrally organized” than before.

Originally published by Salon

3 WAYS TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

ONE-TIME DONATION

Just use the simple form below to make a single direct donation.

DONATE NOW

MONTHLY DONATION

Be a sustaining sponsor. Give a reacurring monthly donation at any level.

GET SOME MERCH!

Now you can wear your support too! From T-Shirts to tote bags.

SHOP TODAY

Sign Up

Article Tabs

The American people clearly spoke, and the drubbing Democrats received requires looking beyond just issue polls, voting patterns, campaign strategy, or get-out-the-vote tactics.

The recent decisions by two of the most influential national newspapers of record to not publish their endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris says a lot about how seriously they take Trump’s threats to democracy and his promises of vengeance against his enemies.

On the eve of the historic November vote, it seems important to ask: What's wrong with men, how did we get here, and can we change this?

As Trump’s campaign grows increasingly bizarre, his team appears to be more tightly controlling his movements and carefully scripting his public appearances to minimize the negative impact his erratic behavior may have on undecided voters in swing states.

Throughout history, fascist governments have had a similar reliance on the use of lies as a weapon to take and retain power.

The American people clearly spoke, and the drubbing Democrats received requires looking beyond just issue polls, voting patterns, campaign strategy, or get-out-the-vote tactics.

The recent decisions by two of the most influential national newspapers of record to not publish their endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris says a lot about how seriously they take Trump’s threats to democracy and his promises of vengeance against his enemies.

On the eve of the historic November vote, it seems important to ask: What's wrong with men, how did we get here, and can we change this?

As Trump’s campaign grows increasingly bizarre, his team appears to be more tightly controlling his movements and carefully scripting his public appearances to minimize the negative impact his erratic behavior may have on undecided voters in swing states.

Throughout history, fascist governments have had a similar reliance on the use of lies as a weapon to take and retain power.

On the eve of the historic November vote, it seems important to ask: What's wrong with men, how did we get here, and can we change this?

Posted 3 weeks 4 days ago

Former President Donald Trump is now openly fantasizing about deputizing death squads against Americans.

Posted 1 month 1 week ago

The 2024 Republican ticket’s incitement of violence against Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, is revealing in more ways than one.

Posted 1 month 3 weeks ago

Throughout history, fascist governments have had a similar reliance on the use of lies as a weapon to take and retain power.

Posted 1 month 6 days ago

What Britain needs now is more politics, not more police.

Posted 1 month 3 weeks ago

The recent decisions by two of the most influential national newspapers of record to not publish their endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris says a lot about how seriously they take Trump’s threats to democracy and his promises of vengeance against his enemies.

On the eve of the historic November vote, it seems important to ask: What's wrong with men, how did we get here, and can we change this?