Striker: ‘To them, we’re not human beings’
NEW YORK — Tomorrow [Dec. 4], hundreds of fast-food restaurants throughout the country will have to change their description, because they’re not going to be very fast.
The reason? Thousands of their employees will leave their work stations in what will be the industry’s largest strike ever.
This will be the ninth time that thousands of the men and women who work hard for miserly wages at McDonald’s, Burger King, Papa John’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Domino’s and other restaurants like them are going on strike. Their demands could not be more reasonable: a fair wage and the right to unionize.
“There are times when all I have in my pockets is 10 cents, and it seems to me that, to them, we’re not human beings,” says Bienvenida Pichardo, a 57-year-old Dominican immigrant who, after 12 years as a cashier at a McDonald’s in Manhattan, earns $8.35 an hour.
“In all that time, they’ve raised my salary 10 cents, and what they pay me is not enough to pay the rent,” she says. “That’s why I’m going on strike. We have to fight for our rights.”
Two years ago, on a cold November morning, 200 workers at more than 30 fast-food restaurants in New York walked out in what was the first strike ever staged against those companies. The strikers demanded a salary of $15 per hour and the right to form a union without fear of reprisals.
More than 4 million people work in the fast-food industry in the U.S., 50,000 of them in New York. They are part of the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy, which, at the same time, is the worst paid.
Employees in these restaurants earn between $10,000 and $18,000 a year, which is not enough to support a family in New York or many other places in the country.
In an infuriating contrast, the CEOs of McDonald’s and Yum Brands, the owners of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut pocket more than $10 million a year. Incredibly, these gentlemen earn in one day more than twice the yearly wages of most of the workers in their companies.
That is why it’s no surprise that, despite the fact that when the first strike took place, on Nov. 29, 2012, few people could imagine its consequences, that brave action was the spark that lit a national movement that has already made important achievements.
On one hand, with the support of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the powerful union of the service sector, the struggle for a $15 wage has extended to more than 150 cities and inspired other workers to fight for better working conditions and fairer compensation.
In addition, cities like Seattle and San Francisco raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
School workers in Los Angeles also got the $15, as did hospital workers in Baltimore. Employers as important as Ikea and Gap voluntarily raised the salaries of the workers who earned the least.
Since that first stoppage in New York, more than 7 million workers throughout the country have received raises through local voting, municipal and state laws, and contract negotiations.
Tomorrow, it will not be 200 but thousands of workers in 160 cities — the largest number so far — who will leave their posts to demand wage justice and the labor rights that have been denied to them for years.
This happens one week after employees at Walmart — one of the nation’s most abusive employers — staged a series of unprecedented national stoppages on the days prior to the famous Black Friday, in protest for the illegal threats against their demands for a $15 per hour wage.
In addition to New York, Rochester, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Miami, Tampa and Orlando are other cities where strikes will take place.
This time, the stoppages will be joined by airport workers and care givers for the elderly and the sick, elected officials and community leaders, all with SEIU support.
Two years from the presidential election, the inequality looms as a fundamental issue in the campaign. So much so, that President Obama mentioned the fast-food industry workers in his Labor Day speech, and Hillary Clinton, who clearly will be the Democratic candidate to the presidency, has also referred to the labor movement very favorably.
Despite the gains achieved, Bienvenida Pichardo is living proof that a lot remains to be done. Fortunately, if anything has become clear in these two years, it’s that the workers are not going to hold back in their struggle.
“We can’t live on what they pay us,” said Pichardo, reflecting the feelings of thousands of her colleagues. “And we shall never give up.”
