Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by qzm on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:37AM (15 children)

    by qzm (3260) on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:37AM (#674995)

    It is good and reasonable that private sector employees have the right to collective bargaining when they want to.
    As long as people have the right to work there without joining the union, and without penalty, then its great!
    Personally I would also like Unions to provide their members with income insurance for a reasonable period in the event that their actions result in the shutting down of the business, but that is a bit too worker focused?

    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:18AM

      Naw, everything you mentioned is perfectly reasonable. Especially the creation of a private unemployment insurance; they may very well need it after some of the other demands they're making for jobs that should be going to (and be paid like they're going to) idiot highschool kids.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:49AM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:49AM (#675008)

      Stupid is as stupid does:

      an end to the employer's use of e-verify to exclude undocumented immigrant workers.

      If successful, union employees will be fired in favor of low paid illegal immigrants with zero bargaining power.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:13PM (#675011)

        And does the union reimburse the fines if the Feds come down on Burgerville for hiring people ineligible to work in the US?

        • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:52PM (#675020)

          Nah, the Feds will give them housing, education, healthcare, welfare, and social security.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:57PM

        by Sulla (5173) on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:57PM (#675088) Journal

        Apparently virtue signaling is more important than their jobs. An end to everify sounds like a great out for the company when faced with increased hourly pay.

        --
        Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
      • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:20PM (2 children)

        by fritsd (4586) on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:20PM (#675157) Journal

        What does "e-verify" mean?

        Is it another word for "one-time photocopy of my valid passport/driver's license/photo ID card, that my employer must keep in their safe, in order to satisfy the demands of the immigration police that all their employees are citizens and/or legally allowed to work here"?

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:53PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:53PM (#675183) Journal

          What does "e-verify" mean?

          Yeah, that's a weird one. The unions I've worked with (Teamsters, USW) have always been in favor of measures intended to ensure jobs go to citizens/visa holders.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:17PM (#675200)

          It's a tool put out by the feds, allowing employers to get a sort of sanity check on the papers provided by their prospective employees.

          People whose papers are in order: no problem.

          People who flag the system: say hello to ICE.

          I see no legitimate union purpose being served here.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @02:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @02:18AM (#675438)

        From http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-tns-bc-everify-workers-20180123-story.html [chicagotribune.com]

        it's essentially a political fig leaf, with so many significant flaws and loopholes that it allows employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers with little repercussions for doing so.

        Sounds like a good way to get easy control over workers. You still hire them, but they know you can turn them over to ICE at a moment's notice. Interesting that in both cases, the word used is "workers" not "applicants."

    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:24PM (3 children)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:24PM (#675069) Journal

      How very British :-)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:17PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:17PM (#675314)

        From the parent comment: in the event [of] the shutting down of the business

        A key element of the platform of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is The right of first refusal.

        That is, if a company wants to sell out or move elsewhere or whatever, before any other action is taken, the current workers get the right to buy the assets and continue the operation where it is.

        ...and ferchrisake, if the business is wavering on a knife's edge such that paying the workers a living wage is a breaking point, it's clear that their existing management totally sucks.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:02PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:02PM (#675349)

          At Suma Corporation (a worker-owned cooperative in the UK) the worker-owners voted that ALL worker-owners would receive the SAME compensation. [google.com]
          (It was already above market average.)

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:20PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:20PM (#675387)

          ...and ferchrisake, if the business is wavering on a knife's edge such that paying the workers a living wage is a breaking point, it's clear that their existing management totally sucks.

          Or that the business is simply not viable. You do know that small business owners are usually the first to forego salary when their business falls on bad times?

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:52PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:52PM (#675117)

      These aren't just private groups of voluntarily associated people; federally recognized unions are legally recognized special-interest groups that are given certain special treatment by the government.

      These unionists are celebrating because they've now got Uncle Sam's gun-toting grunts on their side.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:48PM (#675141)

        For all you arm chair geniuses who were born knowing everything you ever needed to know....... https://www.history.com/topics/labor [history.com]

  • (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
    • (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.

        --
        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.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:42PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:42PM (#675017)

    I personally cannot wait till the fallout from this debacle catches up with them.

    Say goodbye to the $10 Entree selections and hello to the $20 burgers.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:07PM (4 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:07PM (#675024) Journal

      Say what? A worker there needs to work 4 hours to afford buying a burger and 2 hours for an entree?
      Maaan, you're totally fucked up.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:27PM (3 children)

        by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:27PM (#675070)

        TFA says they're asking for a $5 and hour raise. Is that $5 extra, or an increase up to $5?

        • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:27PM

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:27PM (#675072)

          * $5 an hour

        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:21PM

          by Freeman (732) on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:21PM (#675106) Journal

          Minimum wage is higher than $5, so that would be an extra $5 an hour.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 04 2018, @01:43AM

          by Sulla (5173) on Friday May 04 2018, @01:43AM (#675424) Journal

          Portland metro is 12/hr minimum wage, so they are wanting at least 17/hr.

          --
          Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:15PM (5 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:15PM (#675030)

      I'm generally pro-worker, but I also recognize cold, hard economic reality. I'm really curious how things would play out if this "Burgerville" (WTF???) place actually agreed to all the workers' demands.

      Some of the demands are actually very reasonable, such as "stable scheduling" (this should be a given in almost any job, unless they're going to pay you a lot more to compensate for odd hours), and "affordable health care" (every decent employer has some kind of healthcare plan for their employees, and it's relatively cheap for the employer because of their large size and negotiating power). "Free transportation" is probably reasonable if they just mean a bus pass; lots of employers in metro areas do that for their employees and it only costs maybe $100/month. But $5/hour more, free childcare, and paid paternity/maternity leave are all rather costly expenses for what's basically a minimum-wage job at a fast-food chain. Unless you can get ALL the fast-food chains to adopt this stuff simultaneously, then this one is going to be forced to raise their prices, which would probably make them immediately uncompetitive and force them out of business. Even if you got all the big chains to adopt this stuff, it would probably raise their prices to be at or more than small, independently-owned eateries, and again make them uncompetitive, though I guess they'd probably stay in business because people are stupid and go for marketing and brand names over quality.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:25PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:25PM (#675034)

        Unless you can get ALL the fast-food chains to adopt this stuff simultaneously, then this one is going to be forced to raise their prices
        [...]
        Even if you got all the big chains to adopt this stuff, it would probably raise their prices

        At first I thought it was a mistake but then you repeated it. You are saying that if just one or a few fast food places pay their employees more then those will have to raise prices (to get more money to pay the employees). However, if all of them do it then somehow they no longer need to get more money to pay the employees more.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:24PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:24PM (#675205)

          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

            by frojack (1554) on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:20PM (#675286) Journal

            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.
      • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:09PM

        by Whoever (4524) on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:09PM (#675097) Journal

        and "affordable health care" (every decent employer has some kind of healthcare plan for their employees, and it's relatively cheap for the employer because of their large size and negotiating power).

        Not sure what you mean by "relatively cheap". My heath insurance costs (between me and my employer) about $24,000/year. That's for a high-deductible (crappy) plan to cover myself and my wife.

      • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday May 04 2018, @02:36AM

        by dry (223) on Friday May 04 2018, @02:36AM (#675447) Journal

        It's a point to open negotiations at. Hopefully the union is realistic and will give up the childcare, or settle for a subsidy, perhaps settle for a job after they go on UI for their paternity/maternity leave (does America support paternity/maternity leave and allow employees to collect unemployment insurance?) and that $5 raise over a few years.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:14PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:14PM (#675154)

      Your math is hopelessly wrong.

      To make up some numbers here: Let's say this place serves 30 meals in an average hour, for $10 each, and employs 6 people making $8.30/hr to keep sales and production going at that pace. That means, pre-raise, there is a total revenue for that hour of $300, and a labor cost of $50 and change, leaving $250 to be split between profits and the other expenses of running the business. If we now give each of those 6 people a $5 raise, and pass along the entire cost of that raise to the consumer via increased prices, labor now costs $80, the $250 is unchanged, so the total revenue on those meals needs to be $330, which divided among 30 meals is $11 each.

      The more general formula here: wage change * number of employees / items sold per hour = price change per item. Or, in shortened form, dW * E / S = dP.

      To get the kinds of price increases you're implying, for a $5 wage increase, you'd need to have E/S >= 2, which would mean there's an awful lot of employees selling not a lot of burgers. Which would mean the place is already in trouble.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:35PM (1 child)

    by Knowledge Troll (5948) on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:35PM (#675080) Homepage Journal

    Burgerville is a rather expensive fast-food place to eat at already. You do get what you pay for - the food quality is high and the menu choice is decent but anyone can easily call BV a premium fast food place. The most basic cheeseburger, more tasty than but roughly the same size of, a McDonalds basic cheeseburger, is $2. A bacon cheeseburger on it's own is about $7 - add the fries and a drink and it's about $11 for that quick meal. 3 piece fish and chips is about $11 bucks as well.

    It is already almost $20 for a bacon burger combo with a seasonal shake!

    I can't fathom how BV can remain competitive in the face of cost increases like this.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:32PM (#675164)

      See Thexalon's post in the thread above. It may sound like a massive increase but the impact to consumers wouldn't be as big of a % jump. Our consumerist drive for lower and lower prices has become quite detrimental to society. The only benefit was for China and other developing nations who gained some benefits by exploiting their own desperate people, and it is hard to say whether allowing the corporate slavery resulted in better outcomes than if those countries simply focused on developing themselves internally.

      More to your topic, I prefer to pay a bit more for better food and knowing the employees aren't miserable. Not surprisingly they seem to go together.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:53PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:53PM (#675084)

    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.

    It's a fast food job. Let me repeat, it's a very low skill fast food job. Entry level for almost all other jobs. If you expect to make a living on the compensation from a fast food job, you need to be in their management training program, or you need to re-evaluate your situation and expectations.

    • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:03PM (6 children)

      by Sulla (5173) on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:03PM (#675093) Journal

      I think what frusterated me with this whole fast food career movement is that increasing fast food jobs from 10/hr to 15/hr will have a market adjustment on prices, but the more skilled labor making between 15-20 wont see their wage adjustment until even later to that. Semi-skilled labor will be punished to help unskilled labor. Why bother going to trade school if I can make the same amount, have stable hours, and do easier work?

      But thats marxism for you, the Kulaks are evil and must be gotten rid of because their ability to work hard ruins the ability of the lowest abled workers to feel equal. Skilled factory workers need to be put in line too because they value ability over equity.

      From each according to their ability and too each according to their need. You need to work harder because i'm lazy and dumb and unable to do so. Then we can all be equal as we all starve to death.

      --
      Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:15PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:15PM (#675155)

        You make a good point about the wages across all professions and the impact it would have.

        However, these would not be such big issues if people such as yourself would stop blocking universal healthcare and other societal support programs. Across the board all societal benefits have been slashed for decades and the one attempt at universal healthcare was really a giveaway to insurance companies! No one is advocating for pure equality, NO ONE except maybe the crazies no one pays attention to.

        Maybe stop with the 100% meritocracy bullcrap which anyone who has worked for a while realizes is untrue once they encounter their first pointy haired boss. Start realizing that labor regulations were created for a very real reason, wage slavery. If it were true that anyone could just go out and get a better job then you wouldn't have tons of skilled people working shit jobs that have no prospects.

        The US has a real problem with individualism to the point that it is detrimental. Social conscience is gone, beaten out of people by the cold hard economic realities foisted upon us by the ever growing corporate behemoths. The efficiency of scale means it is no longer feasible to compete, thus all the local bookstores went out of business and a ton of other local businesses have continued to go under. Stop buying the illusion that anyone can "make it" with some hard work. Yes some people can, but there is a very limited number of small businesses that will be viable.

        Also, no job should be only for "idiot highschool kids" as our resident genius puts it. I've seen too many old people working as walmart greeters or cashiers with shitty schedules and no benefits. Either such people as the aforementioned "genius" need to admit they're sociopaths who don't value community or they need to shut up and help even out our economic imbalance.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:31PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:31PM (#675209)

          I would have liked universal health care, until I lived under it for a while.

          Universal health care means that a bunch of people get to make decisions about my health care that are not linked to medical efficacy, on the logic that they're paying for it.

          So I get to pay more in taxes to have less choice and worse care.

          Call me an evil worker-oppressing hyper-individualist exploitative monster if you like, but I did not consider this to be a good outcome.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:13PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:13PM (#675246)

            That is in no way different from the US unless you're quite rich and can afford to pay 10k+ for small stuff. Primarily people go without the medical care they should get due to the high deductibles and max price coverage. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the "not getting proper care" is a total red herring, and if you're rich enough to afford US healthcare then just fly over.

            The data speaks much more clearly than your anecdotal complaints, maybe you're just an entitled boomer? ;)

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:16PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:16PM (#675247)

            Where did you live that banned private healthcare?

            I've always had socialised healthcare, and never lived in such a place.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:41PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:41PM (#675334)

        So, then, you're saying that Ronnie Raygun's[1] "A rising tide lifts all boats" was a lie??
        Neoliberalism is a sham??
        ...or are you saying that The Fiscal Multiplier Effect only works when you give more money to folks who already have giant piles of it[2]?

        [1] ... and Jack Kennedy before him.

        [2] We have 4 decades of empirical data which shows that trickle-down doesn't.
        For a change, let's try making sure that people who actually WORK have money that they will actually go out and SPEND into the actual economy buying ACTUAL STUFF (which requires another worker to PRODUCE another widget to fill the empty spot on the shelf left by the worker/consumer).

        ...rather than increasing rich folks' ability to speculate, overpay for someone's stock certificates, and inflate the stock market^W^W speculators' market.
        ...and, of course, their ability to buy even more politicians.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:09PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:09PM (#675352) Journal

          Trickle down worked for Bill Clinton, until that blue dress got in the way.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Sulla on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:55PM (1 child)

    by Sulla (5173) on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:55PM (#675087) Journal

    My problem lies not with unions or workers who want to be unionized but the bane on society that is union middlemen. I have worked places where the union members do not and have not worked for the unionized company and themselves just work for the separate union. This caused problems for the unionized workers when the union workers would take worse deals because it got the union more money. I imagine some places have protections against this but mine did not.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:45PM (#675337)

      A union is a democracy.
      Everyone gets a vote and every vote is equal to any other vote.
      If you don't like what's being done, VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:53PM (2 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:53PM (#675182) Journal

    I have experience both as a fast food cook and as a fast food customer.

    As a cook, I usually got the grill* orders right, sometimes not. Sometimes the not was my fault.

    As a customer, I rarely receive an order from a fast food place that isn't wrong in some aspect. (This week's example: "Would you like scrambled McEggs, or a folded McEgg portion?" "Scrambled please." (time passes) "Here is your order, have a great day!" "These eggs aren't scrambled. This is a folded egg portion. This isn't rocket science.")

    The numbers are off in the industry. At least in my area, customers are a zillion percent** more likely now to receive a wrong grill order than decades ago when I was making them. And we didn't have the fancy computers controlling everything. The majority*** of the time I put in a grill order at a fast food restaurant, it comes back wrong.

    So how about this:

    If your (shift|store) has good stats like friendly, professional, with >= 98% accuracy for a (week|month) as reported on our feedback survey, then you become eligible to apply for the $5 raise.

    And none of this nonsense [freworld.info] (Actual example! From the restaurant whose cook(s) did not know the difference between scrambled eggs and folded egg portions). Real feedback.

    As a fast food owner or manager I would cheerfully institute such a policy right now, even without a union:

    • Vast majority would never be eligible and just complain about it instead of improving their commitment to accuracy
    • But the eligible ones would be ones I'd want to keep

    Can't do sustained accuracy? No raise. Can't do accuracy at all? No job.

    I am not saying fire people who can't read (unless they lied about it)--mentor them, help them develop necessary skills. But don't keep people that can't "add bacon" and *certainly* don't give them a raise.

    ----------
    * A "grill order" is a special order, or an order with a special request. "Add bacon", for example, or "no onions".
    ** A zillion, give or take a few orders of magnitude.
    *** "Majority" means more than 50% across multiple restaurants (ex. McDs, Hardees/Carl's Jr, Burger King, Bojangles, Wendys)

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:23PM (#675258)

      And none of this nonsense [freworld.info] (Actual example! From the restaurant whose cook(s) did not know the difference between scrambled eggs and folded egg portions).

      When I used to see things like that, I would think that it was because someone didn't know what they were doing. These days I'm more inclined to think: "Someone's bonus was based on how many "highly satisfied" surveys got sent in".

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:58PM (#675307)

      This happened last month: My son was looking for his first job. He applied to the local McDonalds and was called by the manager and asked to report for an interview. He showed up on time and was told the manager had left for the day. He was asked to come back the next day. He returned the following day. Same issue. No manager. He was then given a website and a code to enter to schedule his interview. He followed his instructions and was never called.

      While eating there this month, he saw one of his friends had been hired. He explained his problems getting his interview and his friend said the same thing happened to him. He said you just have to keep coming back. Eventually they will hire you.

      When we sat down, he told me, "Dad. That guy I was talking to is retarded." I told him that they are the only ones who would put up with such poor managers and hiring practices. I asked him if it is any wonder that this place always seems to be run by idiots? You have to really really want to work at McDonalds. My son has already found work at another place.

(1)