Inspiring stuff:
From New York to several Midwestern cities, thousands of fast-food workers have been holding one-day strikes during peak mealtimes, quickly drawing national attention to their demands for much higher wages.The amount of courage it takes to go out on strike with no protections from a minimum wage job is jaw dropping.
What began in Manhattan eight months ago first spread to Chicago and Washington and this week has hit St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit and Flint, Mich. On Wednesday alone, workers picketed McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Popeye’s and Long John Silver’s restaurants in those cities with an ambitious agenda: pay of $15 an hour, twice what many now earn.
These strikes, which are planned for Milwaukee on Thursday, carry the flavor of Occupy Wall Street protests and are far different from traditional unionization efforts that generally focus on a single workplace. The national campaign, underwritten with millions of dollars from the Service Employees International Union, aims to mobilize workers — all at once — in numerous cities at hundreds of restaurants from two dozen chains.
One day, I should show you my thesis research. The welfare participants I interviewed spoke at length about how easy it used to be to get low-wage food jobs, but that has drastically changed during the recession. As a result, the situation these workers find themselves in by walking out is all the more heroic.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would really love to see that
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