Fast-food workers stage protests for higher wages

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/14/food-workers-strikes/2159047/

Fast-food workers are staging unprecedented one-day walkouts in cities across the country. Milwaukee workers plan to join Wednesday as nearly 200 demand $15 an hour and the right to unionize.

A recent wave of strikes by fast-food employees in four cities is expected to spread to Milwaukee Wednesday as demands for higher pay shake up an industry previously insulated from worker unrest.

Front-line, limited-service restaurant workers, a category that includes fast-food employees, earned a nationwide average $9.05 an hour in March, up 2.7% the past three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, the pay of all private-sector non-management employees is up 5.7% in that period.

Adjusting for inflation, fast-food wages have fallen 36 cents an hour since 2010, even as the industry has raked in record profits.

Saying they can’t live on such meager pay, the workers are demanding $15 an hour and the right to form unions without fear of reprisal. Although all U.S. workers legally have that freedom, many who try to organize are fired or punished with reduced hours, says Dorian Warren, an associate professor of political science and public affairs at Columbia University.

Some restaurants have said they’ll trim the hours of employees this year to get below the 30-hour threshold that will make them pay health insurance, starting next January, under the new health law

Until recently, there had been no efforts to unionize fast-food employees because the industry has been beset by high turnover and largely populated by teens and young adults working in part-time or seasonal jobs. The recession and sluggish recovery, however, has given rise to a new class of adult fast-food worker who can’t find other employment.

“It’s a job for adults supporting families,” says Tsedeye Gebreselassie, staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project.

The ranks of limited-service restaurant workers have increased 11.5% to 3.8 million since the job market hit bottom in February 2010, nearly twice the rate of all private employees.

Since early April, fast-food workers in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit have staged one-day walkouts and rallies. In Milwaukee,180 workers at outlets such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and KFC are expected to walk off the job.

“We’re inspired by what’s happening in other cities,” says Jennifer Epps-Addison, an official at Citizen Action of Wisconsin, one of the groups coordinating the protest, which unlike the others, will include some retail workers.

Milwaukee Burger King employee Tessie Harrell says she earned the state minimum wage of $7.25 an hour from 2008 through 2012, even after she was promoted to shift supervisor in 2011. Last year, she got a raise to $8.25 an hour. But she says that’s not enough to pay the $650 monthly rent on her two-bedroom apartment and support her six children.

“I can’t afford to buy my kids shoes,” says Harrell, 34, who gets food stamps and $150 a month from her mother. “There’s no way I should be struggling to make ends meet.”

In a statement, Burger King said its restaurants “have provided an entry point into the workforce for millions of Americans,” including many franchisees. Burger King and McDonald’s say their wages are in line with the rest of the fast-food industry.

Job actions in other cities already have made an impact. In New York, half the 70 restaurants affected by walkouts in November and early April have boosted wages from 25 cents to up to $2 an hour, says Jonathan Westin, head of New York Communities for Change.

In St. Louis, local clergy accompanied striking workers back to their jobs last week to ensure they wouldn’t be fired, says Martin Rafanan, head of the local workers’ campaign, “St. Louis Can’t Survive on $7.35.”

Workers, he says, have begun to feel empowered. “We are much stronger,” he says.

Fast-food workers stage walkouts over wages

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/11/fast-food-workers-stage-walkouts/2152603/

The protest in Detroit follows similar walkouts in St. Louis, New York and Chicago.

Fast-food workers and labor activists staged sporadic walkouts and protests at various chain eateries in Friday as part of an organized nationwide protest to gain better wages and working conditions.

Organizers in Detroit said several hundred food workers participated in the walkouts, which succeeded in disrupting operations at six chain restaurants in the city, including two McDonald’s, a Subway, a Burger King, a Long John Silver’s and a Popeyes.

Workers at more than 30 fast-food restaurants in St. Louis walked off the job Thursday in a similar one-day strike. That followed strikes at fast-food chains in New York and Chicago.

The Detroit strike was organized by a coalition of labor, faith and activist groups calling itself the Michigan Workers Organizing Committee. Strike relief payments of $50 per striker were offered to those who walked off their jobs, organizers said.

Detroit pastor Charles Williams II of the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church said workers want better working conditions, the right to unionize and an increase in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour from the current $7.40.

“There’s really nothing you can accomplish in terms of taking care of a family with that wage,” Williams said.

The one-day protest started early this morning at a McDonald’s on Gratiot, one of about 50 eateries organizers said they planned to target.

The day’s activities concluded with a large rally and march outside a McDonald’s in New Center. An estimated 200 marchers shut down rush hour traffic for several minutes before the group moved to the sidewalks after police arrived.

Demetrice Kidd, 35, of Detroit said he skipped his Taco Bell job to take part in the strike day and march. A single father of a 7-year-old son, Kidd said he barely gets by on his hourly wage of $7.75.

“Unfortunately, here in Detroit, the cost of living is pretty high, but not a lot of people are being paid well,” he said.

Brandishing a bullhorn, Pastor W.J. Rideout III of All God’s People Church in Detroit helped lead marchers up and down a stretch of West Grand Boulevard.

“(Fast-food chains) make $200 billion a year, and they’re crying about giving minimum-wage workers $15 an hour?” Rideout said later. “It’s time to stop giving them slave wages and give them something that they deserve.”

A McDonald’s corporate representative was not immediately available for comment this afternoon.

Mike Telly, manager of the McDonald’s in Detroit, said several protesters stood outside his restaurant from early Friday morning to about 11:30 a.m. He said the activists arrived on a bus that later returned to pick them up.

According to the manager, some of the activists entered the restaurant and offered workers $50 to walk out and join them.

Although Telly said that none of his workers walked out, a spokeswoman for the strike coalition, Darci McConnell, said at least 13 workers at the McDonald’s either walked out or never showed up.

Aris Lynch, 21, who worked the front counter register at the McDonald’s, said activists came inside and urged her to join, but she turned down their offer.

“My job is more important than losing it,” Lynch said.

McDonald’s employee Keith Bullard, 29, of Inkster said he walked out of work to join the strike wave. A married father with two young children, Bullard said he makes $7.50 an hour and has trouble getting more than 16 hours a week. But he said he works hard during those hours.

“We deserve $15 an hour because we work hard for it,” he said.