Fast Food Strikes Hitting Fifth City: Milwaukee

[Omaha Steve]

Source: The Nation

Josh Eidelson

Hundreds of Milwaukee workers plan to walk off the job starting at 6 AM Central Time this morning, launching the nation’s fifth fast food workers’ strike in six weeks. Today’s work stoppage follows strikes in St. Louis and Detroit last week, and in New York and Chicago last month. In each case, workers are demanding a raise to $15 per hour, and the right to form a union without intimidation.

“I’m so amped up and ready,” Milwaukee McDonald’s employee Stephanie Sanders told The Nation last night. Sanders, a 33 year-old who recently returning to working at McDonald’s following a stretch in retail, said that she would be striking “basically to help my generation out, and the next generation to follow.” Along with low wages and the lack of job security, Sanders said she wanted to do something about punitive management: “Just because you have on a blue shirt doesn’t mean you’re better than me.”

As I’ve reported, these recent work stoppages share several common characteristics: Each is a one-day strike by fast food workers, backed by a coalition of unions and community groups, lasting a single day, targeting major companies throughout the industry, and mobilizing a minority of the workforce in hopes of building broader support. While different local organizations have been involved in each city’s actions, the Service Employees International Union has played a significant role in all of them.

The campaign expects today’s strikes to involve workers from fast food chains including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Like Chicago’s, the Milwaukee strike involves retail as well as fast food: workers from companies including TJ Max, Dollar Tree, and Foot Action plan to strike. Both industries are increasingly prevalent in – and representative of – the US economy, and both are overwhelmingly non-union.

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174335/fast-food-strikes-hitting-fifth-city-milwaukee#

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The OP wasn't displaying correctly, so I deleted it.

It's doing it again with this same message after posting it: Query failed: UPDATE tags SET posts = '|1014483807' WHERE id = '2' I had this a couple times yesterday too.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for labor. n/t

-Laelth

[Cal Carpenter]

2. Stay strong people! Keep it up!

I hope the momentum really does build. A revitalized labor movement in this country is a dream come true. These young people are way smarter than a lot of people give them credit for. Class consciousness and solidarity - woot!

[dotymed]

3. Maybe it will help others also.

When I was an active Union Carpenter, I earned around $31 an hour, plus benefits. This was about 7 years ago. It was very hard work, better pay than most, non-union trades and allowed me to raise 4 children in a middle class lifestyle ( I still had to work a lot of overtime). Most of the Carpenters Unions have had to re-organize and represent many states because their membership has decreased dramatically. This is mainly due to "right to work" (right to be fired for no reason and accept lower wages) states. These states have also determined that Union members ( or open shops where the employees are making Union wages, do not have to pay Union dues. A great way to kill a Union especially with short-sighted people saving $25 a month and ensuring the demise of their Unions.
Anyway, immediately after Hurricane Katrina, nearly all of the fast food restaurants were advertising jobs. Starting pay $10-$12 an hour, plus benefits. it shows what "they" can afford to pay if labor is in short supply.
This will still hurt Trade Unions, as 'muricans start to believe that $15 an hour is a good, living wage. It will not hurt the bottom line of these business'.

[Scuba]

4. Kick

[midnight]

5. Scott Walker's Act 10 is turning Wisconsin into a right to work state, and then it is coming to the

rest of the country..... So we would all be smart to support labor....

[AllyCat]

6. Talked with some of the organizers of this by teleconference this week

They are fired up. Wish I could be there with them, but many from my union are going to support!!

[snacker]

7. Raise Up MKE

http://raiseupmke.org/

You can sign a petition in support here if you can't be there. If you are in or near Milwaukee:

Kickoff Rally to Raise Up Milwaukee!
4:30PM, Wednesday, May 15
Milwaukee County Courthouse
901 North 9th Street

[raccoon]

8. Way to go! I only wish such things would happen in my state. nt

[Eleanors38]

9. K&R. Do you get any sense MSM is covering this spreading labor action?

I was trying to keep up with the Chicago action through Google searches and for a time everything was "6 days ago."

[patrice]

10. KICK

[navarth]

11. If anyone wants to support the strikers don't make the mistake I made

I kinda missed the 'one day only' part....my wife and I drove to the McD's on the East Side of Detroit to support the strikers and found no strike! We were all ready to get coffee, food for them....oh well. The strike was Friday, we went Saturday.

I thought this thread might enjoy a small chuckle. The trip was worth it, we had a little tour of the neighborhoods of my childhood and got a bite in Midtown. Good stuff.

[Starry Messenger]

12. k&r

[The Stranger]

13. Retail and Fast Food

The only industries Big Corporate can't outsource overseas.

[Sunlei]

14. I support Wisconsin workers!also want Wisconsin to raise min wage & Pres. Os call to raise fed min.

President Obama asked congress to raise the Federal minimum wage. Once this is done ALL states must raise their minimum wage to match the Federal minimum wage.

I don't think states want to raise the minimum wage because that pay level is attached to what they have to pay all the thousands of foreign visa workers they hire. Even fast food places are hiring foreign visa workers instead of local people.

[Mosby]

15. from a state POV

Higher wages would bring concurrent increases in payroll and workmans comp tax. Foreign workers don't factor into this at all.

The reason many states won't raise min wages is because of the efforts of business lobbies.