Rare Vote Set on a Union in Fast Food

[maenads_dance]

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: October 20, 2010

MINNEAPOLIS - The Jimmy John’s restaurants here are known for serving attitude with their sandwiches. Many of their young workers wear nose rings, beards and dreadlocks, and the shops sport mottoes like “The Customer Is Usually Right” and “Subs So Fast You’ll Freak.”

Comments

[akashasheiress]

The Wobbly Spirit

[nikoel]

This is absolutely awesome.

There was a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell years ago for employees working unpaid overtime. I'm pretty sure it happens at every fast food establishment and a union is just what is needed.

[yasonablack]

There definitely needs to be a union for fast food workers. The way the fast food industry treats their workers is appalling. The motto, the customer is always right was at least partially responsible, because when the customer was always right it meant that you, the worker, screwed up and then management would insult you, talk down to you, swear at you, etc after the customer was done. I know that they often kept fourteen and fifteen year olds (I was one of them) working for over ten hours some days (in my state, they can only do that legally if you're sixteen or eighteen I believe). Raises were about ten cents if you were lucky to get one. And yup, if you called in sick then your hours would be cut severely. TL;DR working fast food sucks and unions would be awesome.

[originalpuck]

I'm really cheering them on, and hope that they manage to get a union going, and then that more fast food places get them.

Cool story sis moment, I worked at a cafe inside of a locally owned bookstore for a year and a half. Despite being owned by the same people, the cafe workers earned minimum wage, where the cashiers in the book store earned a minimum of $10. We would work 40+ hours one week, and 10 another, and were sent home without warning if it was a slow day - the bookstore workers had regular hours. We had no insurance, the bookstore workers were offered it after a month.

And ugh, the calling-in sick issues led to me getting a lot of harassment when I had to call-in sick. Eventually I was fired for it: I had to call in sick because of one of my disabilities flaring up, and because of that I wasn't able to call around for a replacement. When I went in the next day I was fired for not following the designated call-in policy. Such bull. I would've loved a union.

[zeborahnz]

I need to ask: how do unions actually work in the US? Because whenever I hear discussion of them, the arguments against them are things that would make no sense in the context of a New Zealand union.

Eg Employees will vote Friday, and if the union wins, and other things make it sound like if a union is created, all employees would have to be members; in New Zealand it's completely optional (just, if you're not a dues-paying member you don't get the benefits the union negotiates). You wouldn't need to have a vote, the union would just say "Oh hi, anyone want to sign up?"

Or “I’m worried that they won’t advocate for a wage increase, that they’ll advocate for profit-sharing or health care, which sadly the employer can’t provide because it would be far too expensive,” he said. “I’m worried the union would be happy to force a strike, and I don’t believe that is a desirable outcome if you’re working on behalf of the work force.” - in New Zealand the union advocates for what the workers want it to advocate for