Marching on Chicago’s far West Side for $15 an hour and a union
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Yesterday March 22, several hundred people shut down a McDonalds at Laramie and North Ave on Chicago’s Far West Side and then marched on and through a Food 4 Less store located further east. It was a major Fight for $15 action. Fight for $15 is the national movement of low wage workers whom are working for a minimum wage of $15 an hour and union recognition. Chicago’s far West Side is a predominantly African American and Latino working class area and the numerous horn honks demonstrated the popularity of the action as far as local residents were concerned.
Rally at the McDonalds. We shut down the store.
Run, Karen Run….with Chicago’s working class
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Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis
at the 2014 Mexican Independence Day parade in Chicago
When the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) denounced Chicago’s traditional racism and segregation as “education apartheid” and linked school closings to corporate privatization of schools and real estate speculation, it helped provide a clear narrative that I heard over and over again from Chicagoans at rallies, hearings and meetings all over the city.
Apartheid is a harsh word, but it was accurate and on point.
So when CTU President Karen Lewis came out in support of Fight for $15 and expressed strong opposition to cuts in vital city services that hit hardest at Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, she helped cement her reputation as a leader of the working class against racism and class exploitation.
Clarity on race and class is essential for her to win a mayoral election in Chicago. Because what is good for the working class is good for the city as a whole. Read more
Stop the abuse of women workers at McDonalds and Whole Foods: Fight for 15!
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“Unlike nations which have rational labor policies like sick leave, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, vacation time, generous retirement and which protect the right to organize a union, the USA has chosen the opposite course. This has led to some of the worst inequality in the developed world, which because of our rampant gender and racial discrimination, falls heaviest on women, particularly women of color.”
International Women’s Day (IWD), March 8, was originally inspired by the historic 1909 “Uprising of the 20,000”, a garment workers strike of women in NYC, many of them immigrants. They demanded better pay, better working conditions and the right to join a union.
So it made sense that the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC), which leads the Fight for $15 campaign in the city, should celebrate International Women’s Day by standing up for the rights of women workers in 2014.
A Chicago McDonald’s worker named Carmen Navarrette had been told that she “should put a bullet through her head,” because she had requested permission to go home after become very ill at work. She is a diabetic and had just been released from the hospital.
As a result, dozens of WOCC members and supporters marched into a North Side McDonald’s on International Women’s Day to demand an end to this kind of discrimination and verbal abuse.
On the morning of March 8, a smaller group of WOCC members and allies picketed a North Side Chicago Whole Foods and demanded the reinstatement of Rhiannon Brochat. She was fired after she stayed home with her special needs child when Chicago schools were closed on the worst day of the Polar Vortex.
McDonald’s and Whole Foods may seem like very different companies, but their attitude toward women workers is remarkably similar.
Chicago sandwich workers fired 3 days before Christmas: Fight for $15!
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Workers at a Snarf’s Sandwiches, located inside of the Groupon Building on Chicago’s North Side, received a nasty surprise on the night of December 22. Based on an e-mail they received, they logged into the online scheduling website only to find that Snarf’s was closing for a 2 week “remodeling” period and they had been “terminated”
All 14 workers (or 20 according to the Huffington Post) had been fired without warning or just cause. Sara Mergenthal was among those Snarf’s workers who reacted with anger and disappointment:
”It’s just so upsetting to me the way they would do that. I never thought of them as a fantastic corporation doing great things for the world, but I never thought they would do that to people who make money for them.”
Most of the Snarf’s workers at her location support the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC) and had joined both the August and recent December 5 Fight for $15 strikes.Some workers had been at Snarfs for as long as 3 years. At the December strike Snarf’s worker Kate Zieglar told me she had been there for 2 1/2 years and still only made $9.50 an hour.
Snarf’s workers had gotten 500 signatures supporting their demands on a petition circulated among other people in the building. The December 5 strike was able to shut down the store for the day.
The strike issues were low wages, no sick leave, no vacation days and no rational system for raises. Snarf’s did institute a complicated rating system so that if a worker scored in the 90th percentile, they might get a raise. One Snarf’s worker told me that most people never got one.
Monday morning at the shuttered Snarf’s
As soon as WOCC organizers got the word about the firings, they began contacting members and supporters to assemble at the Groupon Building on Monday morning, December 23. By around 9 am, more than 30 people had arrived.
Kevin Brown, a Snarf’s worker and WOCC organizer Hannah Joravsky laid out the strategy. Two of us would leaflet people around the building and urge them to call Snarf corporate HQ to protest the firings.The rest of us would go in quietly as a delegation and ask the Snarf’s manager inside to call corporate HQ and tell them to rehire the workers and pay severance.
The shop was closed with a heavy iron gate adorned with a sign saying the it was being “remodeled”, though there was no sign of that inside. William Ravert, the manager finally appeared, and peered out through the grate as a WOCC representative told him:
“We are demanding that you put these workers back on schedule because you did not warn them and let them know there was going to be construction going on and we feel you are retaliating against them. There are more than 30 people here and there are going to be even more people here if you do not call corporate and give these people their money back for the weeks that you took off. You also need to to give these people their jobs back.”
Hannah Joravsky then explained to the manager that WOCC will be filing formal charges, and will let all of the customers in the building know what happened to the employees who had stood up for their rights. Ravert then disappeared into the darkened depths of the store, after saying he would call corporate HQ. Snarf’s workers were skeptical that he would actually do it and figured he was probably just “running away”.
By this time a building security official was in the lobby and clearly unhappy. After some negotiations, the WOCC organizers decided that we should go to the other Snarf’s location at Prudential Plaza near Michigan Ave downtown and demand that the manager of that store call the corporate office.
We meet the manager of the Snarf’s at Prudential Plaza
There were no customers in the shop when we gathered around the front counter of Snarf’s at Prudential Plaza. After some haggling, the manager did agree to call corporate HQ in front of us. He even told us that he agreed with most of WOCC’s demands.
We left chanting, “We’ll be back! We’ll be back!” and gathered outside to plan the call-in to Snarf’s corporate HQ. As I left, WOCC was meeting with the Snarf’s workers to plan further actions. This is the first mass retaliation against a WOCC protest and WOCC does not plan to let this happen without a fight.
In addition, WOCC believes that Snarf’s actions violate federal labor laws and plan to make a case for that. WOCC has already filed an official complaint for a 3 day company enforced lockout after the December 5 strike, claiming that it was retaliation.
Huffington Post reported that Snarf’s corporate HQ finally did issue a response. Director of Marketing Jill Preston said that business had been bad and that the store would reopen as a hamburger joint. She said that while the company could not afford to pay $15 an hour, she also claimed that the workers “…do make a lot of money on tips.”
She expressed regret that no notice of the firings was given, but urged them to collect unemployment and ‘”…keep an eye out for the grand opening of the new store.”
Since she would not guarantee that workers would be rehired at the “new store”, this cheery message came as cold comfort to employees like Kevin Brown, Kate Zieglar and Sara Mergenthal, all of whom had worked so hard to improve conditions at Snarf’s.
As we walked up the stairs away from the Prudential Plaza Snarf’s, Sara Mergenthal told me that while Snarf’s management had always claimed that the workers were a part of the Snarf’s family she now knows that,”They really don’t care about us.”
Like several other Snarf’s workers she will be flying home with news for the family,” Merry Christmas, Mom. I’m unemployed.”
Sources consulted
Snarf’s Sub Shop Just Fired All The Employees At A Chicago Location Via Email, 3 Days Before Christmas by Kim Bellware
The Snarf’s At 600 W. Chicago Just Laid Off All Its Employees Via Email by Meg Graham
Fight for $15: The New War on Poverty
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“Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”– Nelson Mandela
The USA has a new War on Poverty, but this one is not led by a US president, but by the low wage workers of this country. The Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC) is a part of this national movement, demanding $15 an hour and a union for retail and fast food workers. This Fight for $15 campaign is a key part of the larger low wage workers movement.
Way back In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared in his State of the Union address,”This administration today, here and now, declares an unconditional War on Poverty in America.”
As part of his War on Poverty, Johnson proposed an ambitious set of social programs rivaling those of Franklin Roosevelt during the Depression of the 1930‘s. Johnson’s War on Poverty ended in surrender beginning in 1968 because of the costly Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon.
Although it did not end poverty, the first War on Poverty was not the total failure that many critics label it. Largely a response to the Civil Rights Movement, it gave us such critical social programs as Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and the Food Stamp Act. Today the USA has some of the worst poverty of any wealthy nation, but it would be far more devastating without these programs. Read more
A Child’s Paradise Lost
“Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate. In all my works I take the part of trees against all their enemies”.—- J.R.R. Tolkien
It was the largest tree my seven year old eyes had ever seen. Stately thick limbs spreading out into a huge leaf canopy that seemed to reach skywards forever. Beneath was a small clearing of grass and dirt where I could admire the tree house that the big kids had built, complete with small boards attached to the tree to make a ladder upwards.
The tree house was sturdily built with a strong platform, a roof of boards and a glassless window where one could look out on the rest of the forest. And best of all, the big kids who built it told me I could use it anytime. I have no idea how old these kids were, probably no more than 12 or 13. But they were nice big kids, not the like the bullies I often encountered in Glenmont MD of the 1950’s.
These big kids were also kind enough to reveal another wonder of the forest. The nearby creek. It was not especially wide, maybe 6-8 ft across and no more than a foot deep. But it ran crystal clear with glittering flecks of mica and small stones scattered across its sandy bottom.
It also contained marvelous creatures I had never seen before. Crayfish. They were small, no larger than the minnows that swam nervously about. The big kids would hold crayfish in their hands and watch them snap their tiny claws in defiance. I had no desire to catch one myself. Seeing one amidst the rocks was enough for my curiosity. Besides they were fast and experts at concealment when they detected any motion from above.
It was a Child’s Garden of Eden. And I had no idea someone actually owned it. I was familiar with peoples’ yards. They surrounded the small bungalows of the neighborhood and were clearly part of each family’s property. Some even had fences around them. Read more
Uptown Uprising and the Right to the City
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“The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” — David Harvey , The Right to the City
The 1968 French student-worker uprising popularized the phrase “The Right to the City” from philosopher Henri Lefebvre‘s book Le Droit a la ville. According to Lefebvre the right to transform the urban environment cannot be restricted to people who own substantial property, hold citizenship papers or are otherwise deemed to have a higher social status. It means all of us, regardless of race, gender, age, economic status or any narrowly defined category. The city is a place of possibilities and we have a basic human right to make those possibilities realities.
May 1968: Beginning of a long struggle
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Entrance Blocked As Protesters Criticize Huge Tax Break(Updated!)
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Seniors, people with disabilities and health care workers blocked the front entrance to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange(CME) Wednesday around 9:30 this morning, as well the adjacent Jackson and LaSalle Streets. Police moved in about half an hour later and ordered people to clear the streets or face arrest. Demonstrators were protesting the CME’s parent company (CME Group) which was awarded multi-million-dollar tax breaks while human services were being cut by the State of Illinois.
Protesters block Jackson Blvd in front of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Most of the demonstrators moved on to the sidewalk, but some continued to block the street by sitting down or not moving their wheelchairs. They were arrested and escorted to an impromptu arrest area next to the CME building, given citations and then released from custody. According to arrestee Jim Rhodes, a total of 15 people were arrested and processed.
The War Against Economic Recovery
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Phillip Wilson is a foot soldier in the war against our economy recovery. It’s not a one man war, Wilson has help from politicians like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker(Republican) and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel(Democrat), from powerful corporate leaders like the Koch Brothers and the Pritzker family, plus organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.
His weapons are not guns or remotely piloted drones, but his laptop, his books and his videos. He is also a seasoned warrior, one with many years of experience. He’s even testified in Congress. Phillip Wilson (photo on right) runs the Labor Relations Institute. Its innocuous sounding name conceals its actual purpose. It is a “union avoidance consulting firm”. Labor activists use the term “unionbuster”, usually with several NSFW epithets attached to it.
Breaking unions or smashing organizing campaigns pushes down wages and reduces pensions, making it more difficult for people to buy products and services. This lack of spending holds back an already weak economic recovery and threatens to unleash what financial writers like to call a double dip recession. Even certified OnePercenter Fed Chair Ben Bernanke says this:
“The fundamentals that support spending continue to be weak: real household income and wealth were flat in 2011, and access to credit remained restricted for many potential borrowers. The job market remains far from normal.” from the Financial Times 2-29-12
Strong healthy unions raise wages and preserve pensions so that people buy the goods and services crucial to a sustained economy recovery.
