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posted by martyb on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-win-for-workers-everywhere dept.

The International Socialist Organization reports

The Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) in Portland, Oregon, has become the first federally recognized fast-food workers union in the U.S.

With a vote of 18-4 in a National Labor Relations Board election, workers at Store #41 notched an important victory in the drive to organize the 1,500 workers at all 42 Burgerville sites located in Oregon and southwest Washington. BVWU spokesperson Emmett Schlenz says that six of the company's locations now have publicly active unions. Workers at another store have already filed for an NLRB election.

[...] The union has been pressing for a $5 an hour raise, stable scheduling, affordable health care, paid maternity/paternity leave, free childcare and transportation, and an end to the employer's use of e-verify to exclude undocumented immigrant workers.

Using direct action tactics, including mass picketing with community allies, occupations and a three-day strike at four restaurants, the all-volunteer BVWU has drawn the support of dozens of local unions, many community and faith-based organizations, and some elected officials.

The union called a boycott of Burgerville after a number of union activists were fired.

[...] The union's announcement of its victory stated:

In this moment of victory, we want to celebrate, yes, but we also want to turn our attention to the 4.5 million other fast-food workers in the United States. We want to speak to everyone else who works for poverty wages, who are constantly disrespected on the job, who are told they aren't educated enough, aren't experienced enough, aren't good enough for a decent life. To all of those workers, to everyone like us who works rough jobs for terrible pay, we say this:

Don't listen to that bullshit. Burgerville workers didn't, and look at us now.


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:40AM (3 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:40AM (#674996) Journal

    at the point you are organised, can manage staged strike action, and act like a union, you get to *be* a union?

    The US is weird.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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  • (Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:18PM (1 child)

    by Oakenshield (4900) on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:18PM (#675013)

    at the point you are organised, can manage staged strike action, and act like a union, you get to *be* a union?

    Isn't that pretty much the definition of a union?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:04PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:04PM (#675023) Journal

      Usually it happens in reverse order: you unionised first and trigger negotiations with the employers after (because, yeah, the employer has no warranties the group it bargains with is representative and will stick with the negotiated agreement).

      What's weird in this case: they shot first and organised as for negotiation later.

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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:02PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:02PM (#675147)

    Under US law, you have to be a recognized official union in order to have protections against anti-union tactics by management. Before the National Labor Relations Act of the 1930's, you could be and usually were fired and then blacklisted (i.e. informally all the other employers in the area were told not to hire you) for even saying the word "union".

    That's true even if the union action you're taking is "work-to-rule [wikipedia.org]", where the employees all take full advantage of their rights under labor law and follow every management dictum perfectly rather than cutting corners to get their friggin' job done.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.