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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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:24PM (1 child)
What he's trying to say (I think) is that if one fast food joint has to raise its prices to cover higher wages, it loses business to its competition and goes away. However, if they all do at the same time, then they all have to raise their prices in parallel, not creating a pricing disadvantage for any given one of the chains.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:20PM
That's the only interpretation that make sense.
Further this union (22 people strong) only represents workers at this ONE restaurant. (Not all 1300 workers).
There are 42 locations in the chain. They claim they are wage competitive, and provide health care.
So if the Union starts making them non-competitive, the cheapest thing to do is close this one store.
On the other hand, Burgerville is privately held, not a franchise chain, so this could spread to their other locations.
So demanding wages rise by 5 bucks across the board could topple the entire chain. The smart move, if that starts to happen would be for the parent company (The Holland inc) would be so sell the chain to the employees, and move on.
Further, unlike the TFS says (typical unreliable leftist rag Gewg_ posts) this is NOT the first unionizd fast food instance. The Service Employees International Union, (SEIU) [buzzfeed.com]represents a lot of people in this industry.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.