Industrial Workers of the World - Foodstuff Workers Industrial Union 460

Announcing the Little Big Union!

IWW.org Editor — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 23:23:09 +0000

Originally Published Here.

Workers at Little Big Burger know that our safety, well-being, and voices are important. Every single day we serve customers, cook food, bus tables, and wash dishes. We have formed the Little Big Union to ensure Little Big Burger is truly inclusive of our collective voice as workers.

Portland, Oregon is ground zero for fast food organizing. We love this city and call the Pacific Northwest our home. However, rent and the cost of living have continued to increase while our wages have not. Now, it is increasingly difficult to live in the neighborhoods we serve. This is why we are proud to stand in solidarity with the Burgerville Workers Union, as members of the Industrial Workers of the World, in the fight to make food service an honest, dignified, and dependable job.

Little Big Burger is no longer a small business, they were acquired by North Carolina-based multinational corporation Chanticleer Holdings in 2015. Us workers and our families depend on this job for our livelihood, and we hope those who prepare the food, serve the guests, and create the environment that has built Little Big Burger stand to grow with our company. Workers continue to struggle by stretching our paychecks month to month, surviving off minimum wage, unreliable tips, and inconsistent schedules released often a day or two before we work. We are proud of the hard work we provide Little Big Burger, which is why we demand:

$5 raises
Fair and consistent scheduling
Safe and Healthy workplaces
Respectful and professional conduct from management
Benefits like child care, paid parental leave, quality healthcare, food boxes, bus passes, parking passes, and shift beers
Paid sick leave and vacation time
Worker autonomy to refuse service to abusive/dangerous customers
Holiday pay
Transparent hiring and firing policies
Sanctuary workplaces

New York: Wobbly Waiters Stage “Sip In” to Demand IWW Recognition

IWW.org Editor — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 00:52:25 +0000

By Stardust Family Unted - It's Going Down, January 17, 2018

This following report and video comes from the Stardust Family Diner, which is a group of workers who are fighting as part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) to be in a union. Recently the workers won the rehiring of several dozen employees who were fired in an anti-union campaign conducted by management.

Some footage (video, above) from (January 16, 2018) “Sip In” at Stardust diner, where servers and former staff are fighting for the right to join a union (that’s right, they don’t even have the right to fight for their rights), along with a laundry list of other abuses perpetuated by management.

The idea was to disrupt the Saturday dinner rush—several arrived, were seated, and only ordered water (with copious amounts of lemon), stayed for an hour or so, tipped the server generously (so that they wouldn’t be punished financially), and then as we left, told the manager that they should allow the servers to join the union.

The very talented singing staff started the action by singing Twister Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (feat. in the musical “School of Rock”), then went into Woody Guthrie’s “Union Maid.” During the chorus (“Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union…”), those participants in the diner, stood up, held their waters and ketchup bottles aloft and sang along (To the wtf-bewilderment of all the tourists). Then one of the servers who was fired last week for joining the union came in off the streets, grabbed a mic, and somehow turned “New York, New York” into an accusatory political anthem. She stood on the booth, pointed to the patrons, and after she belted the final note, raised her fist, and shouted “Worker’s Rights!”

Best dinner in quite a while…

Report Back from DC: Standing in Solidarity with Fellow Worker Julia Flores

IWW.org Editor — Thu, 25 May 2017 23:59:00 +0000

By Anonymous Contributor - It's Going Down, May 20, 2017

On April 30th, the DC Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) staged a picket in support of fellow worker Julia Flores, a member of the IWW and the Comité de Apoyo Laboral y Poder Obrero (the Comité), who was wrongfully terminated by Whole Foods in September 2016. After 15 years of service, Whole Foods retaliated against Julia for collectively organizing to win back a fellow worker’s job. Since Julia’s wrongful termination, she has made several appeals to the company’s local and regional leadership only to be dismissed without justice. In December 2016, the manager who terminated Julia, Victor Vazquez, was fired along with eight other managers, for ‘stealing bonuses’. Our picket was not only in support of Julia’s Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) claim but to demand her reinstatement as well as restitution. Our message to Whole Foods and the surrounding employers was clear: We, the workers of the District of Columbia, will not tolerate repression of fellow workers, retaliation for organizing our workplaces, or wage theft. An injury to one is an injury to all!

Our coalition was comprised of around sixty comrades including members of Many Languages One Voice (MLOV), the Comité, the IWW and its General Defense Committee (GDC), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Alternative, Future is Feminist, DC Stampede, DC Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), and the Socialist Snack Squad. We assembled at 10:30 am to review our overall strategy, our contingency escalation plan, and individual roles. The fulcrum of the action was a delegation of five comrades that accompanied Julia to Whole Foods to present her demands to the store manager in advance of the picket. Unsurprisingly, Whole Foods refused to negotiate and demanded the delegation leave the store. While we had no illusion that the bosses had any intention of conceding, workers organizing an effective picket should clearly articulate their demands to both the bosses as well as to the wider community. The delegation relayed the details of their meeting to the picket and then proceeded to canvas nearby businesses to put pressure on Whole Foods. At each stop the delegation explained the circumstances of Julia’s wrongful termination, Whole Food’s history of worker repression, and the delegation’s recent treatment by the store manager.

IWW blockades Street in front of Whole Foods Demanding Reinstatement for Worker

x344543 — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 01:16:46 +0000

By DC Direct Action News - It's Going Down, January 14, 2017

Julia Flores is a 15 year employee of the P St Whole Foods who was fired from her job for organizing workers and informing them about such laws as the minimum wage. On the 13th of January, the IWW escalated the campaign demanding her job back by blocking the streets in front of another Whole Foods in Foggy Bottom.

Whole Foods is trying to claim that Julia stole an item worth less than $10 after working there for 15 years. Nobody is believing this spurious claim, but this is how Whole Foods is attempting to stave off legal proceedings for violating labor laws. Firing workers for attempting to organize a union is illegal but a common practice, employers always make up some other reason for firing and dare workers to prove otherwise in court.

In addition to the legal proceedings, the IWW is holding Whole Foods accountable to the public with actions like the Jan 13 street blockade and picket that educate the public, drive away business, and create public relations problems with the surrounding neighborhood. There is a strong probability that Whole Foods will be hearing from other businesses in the area whose customers had trouble getting to them.

Activists from DC Stampede (an animal rights group) joined the IWW in this protest as a solidarity matter. Whole Foods has come to the attention of DC Stampede and Direct Action Everywhere (XDXE) in the past for ripping off their customers with meat alleged to be “cruelty-free” that was proven by a video to be from ordinary factory farms. Still earlier, the P st Whole Foods (the one that fired Juilia) played a role in the gentrification of Shaw. They were the first grocery store in that area to keep dumpsters locked up and use compactors. They absolutely refused to give a single scrap of discarded food to homeless service organizations in that time period (circa 2007). Finally. anarchists raided the P st Whole Foods during the October Rebellion (fall 2007 IMF protests), expropriated a large amount of food, and served it to the needy. In short, Whole Foods should be considered a repeat offender, a “frequent flier” for social justice campaigns.

Beyond the Fight for 15: The Worker-led Fast Food Union Campaign Building Power on the Shop Floor

x344543 — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 01:35:35 +0000

By Arun Gupta - In These Times, October 25, 2016

Last year, at age 17, Eli Fishel moved out of her parents’ house in Vancouver, Washington, squeezing into a three-bedroom apartment with five other roommates. To pay her bills as she finished high school, Fishel landed a job at Burgerville, a fast-food chain with 42 outlets and more than 1,500 employees in the Pacific Northwest.

Founded in 1961, Burgerville has cultivated a loyal following by emphasizing fresh, local food, combined with sustainable business practices like renewable energy and recycling. But Fishel quickly realized she wasn’t part of Burgerville’s commitment to “regional vitality” and “future generations.”

After 16 months on the job, she earns just $9.85 an hour, barely above the Washington State minimum wage. Her hours and shifts fluctuate weekly, with only a few days’ notice, and every month she goes hungry because she runs out of money to buy food.

Speaking of the privately-owned Burgerville, Fishel says, “We’re poor because they’re rich, and they’re rich because we’re poor.”

Disgruntled Burgerville workers began covertly organizing in 2015. The Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) went public on April 26 with a march of more than 100 people through Portland, Oregon, and the delivery of a letter to the corporate headquarters in Vancouver. BVWU demands include a $5-an-hour raise for all hourly workers, recognition of a workers organization, affordable, quality healthcare, a safe and healthy workplace, and fair and consistent scheduling with ample notice.

Some BVWU members call their effort “Fight for $15, 2.0,” playing off the name of the fast-food worker campaign launched in 2011 by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

SEIU has won plaudits for making the plight of low-wage workers a national issue and igniting the movement for new laws boosting the minimum wage to $15 an hour. But the campaign has not, thus far, included efforts to unionize individual workplaces.

Unlike Fight for $15, which Middlebury College sociology professor and labor expert Jamie McCallum describes as “a fairly top-down campaign,” BVWU is a worker-initiated and -led project backed by numerous labor organizations. The group of Burgerville workers who came up with the idea includes members of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a militant union with West Coast roots that date back to the early 1900s. The campaign has the backing of the Portland chapter of IWW and the support SEIU Local 49, the Portland Association of Teachers, and Jobs with Justice.

This scrappy approach enabled BVWU to leapfrog Fight for $15 by declaring a union from the start. While BVWU has not yet formally petitioned for recognition and Burgerville has not chosen to voluntarily negotiate with it, the union has established worker committees in five stores, is developing units in a similar number of shops and counts scores of workers as members.

BVWU is full of lessons in how organizing works. One member likens the campaign to “low-level guerrilla warfare” with workers maneuvering to increase their ranks, build power on the shop floor, expand the terrain from shop to shop, while skirmishing with managers over the work process, and suffering casualties as some members have quit or say they were pushed out of their jobs at Burgerville. In the workplace, the strategy is to develop leaders, form committees for each store, and nurture trust and respect between workers. Outside, BVWU uses direct action to empower workers and bring suppliers into the conversation. The union also works to build community support by mobilizing social-justice groups, clergy, and organized labor to win over the public and pressure the company.

McCallum says that BVWU an example of social movement unionism. “It’s about organizing as a class against another class,” he says. “It’s to win demands not just against a single boss or to change a law, but to engage in class struggle.”

WINE RACK FIRING UNFAIR! - MUST NEGOTIATE WITH THE IWW OR FACE BOYCOTT

x344543 — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 05:26:09 +0000

By a member of the Ottawa-Outaouais IWW, January 23, 2016

OTTAWA—The Industrial Workers of the World are picketing Wine Rack to defend a member unfairly fired on September 6, 2015.

Our member engaged in his legally-protected right to organize and was publicly engaged in a card-signing campaign by another union in efforts to certify a bargaining unit for Wine Rack locations in Ottawa, Ontario.

Wine Rack is owned by parent company Constellation Brands, a US-based multinational corporation with two billion dollars of profit in 2013. Front-line employees of Wine Rack are paid minimum wage and given only conditional yearly increases lower than the rate of inflation, compounding the difficulties posed by a part-time and unpredictable schedule for workers.

According to the Labour Relations Act, all workers have the right to form, select, and administer a union without interference from the employer. In response to our member’s organizing efforts, Wine Rack manufactured a spurious reason to terminate his employment without following their established disciplinary processes.

The IWW will continue to picket Wine Rack to demand fair treatment for our member until our demand for our member’s reinstatement on the job with back pay is met. All employees deserve to be able to organize without reprisal.

The IWW is calling on Ottawans to not cross our picket line and to respect a boycott of Wine Rack locations until management meets with our union to negotiate.

This is yet another instance of arbitrary firings and disrespect for the Labour Relations Act happening here in Ottawa. Workers can win these fights when they unite and take action. The IWW is a member-run union for all workers and is dedicated to organizing on the job.

Demand An End to Worker Retaliation at Ellwood Thompson's!

IWW.org Editor — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:43:20 +0000

Richmond, Va - On behalf of Rain Burroughs, the Richmond, Virginia General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Food & Retail Workers United (FRWU) delivered a formal letter to Rick Hood (owner) and Tommy Langford (store manager) on December 21, 2012 requesting that Ellwood Thompson's Local Market reinstate Rain Burroughs immediately to an equivalent job with comparable pay, benefits, responsibilities, and hours of work. We have yet to receive any response, and we ask for your support.

Summary

Rain Burroughs was granted, via the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), leave in order to assist her mother who was struggling with severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Burroughs' leave ended on November 20, 2012 when she returned to work at Ellwood Thompson's Local Market. Rather respect a loyal worker and honoring the commitment that had been made to them, Ellwood Thompson's chose to label Burroughs as a new hire and placed her on 'probation'. This action by Ellwood Thompson's violates federal law which
states:

Beverage Distribution Workers Win Nearly $1 Million in Wage Theft Case

IWW.org Editor — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:25:16 +0000

By to Focus on the Food Chain - September 27, 2012

A federal judge has awarded a group of immigrant workers over $950,000 in unpaid wages for work at a Queens-based beverage distributor. A group of Latino warehouse workers and truck drivers brought the class action lawsuit against Beverage Plus and its owners after years of disrespect and systematic violations of state and federal law, violations which the judge found were intentional. The workers are members of Focus on the Food Chain, a coalition promoting good jobs and a sustainable food system in New York City's growing food processing and distribution sector.

"My co-workers and I were deprived of our pay and badly exploited but we finally learned about our rights," said Richard Merino, who drove a delivery truck at Beverage Plus for six years and was a named plaintiff in the case. "We stood up together and now justice has arrived for us and more importantly for our families."

Beverage Plus employees were worked as many as twelve hours a day, deprived of overtime, and subjected to unlawful deductions from their pay.

The Dominos Fall

IWW.org Editor — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:16:19 +0000

By Ryan Faulkner - September 18, 2012

Domino’s Pizza sucks. Not just in the sense that it treats its workers heinously, the pizza itself is of a low quality. Eating a slice of Domino’s pizza is a similar experience to swallowing a salt shaker. So its not surprising that on a Saturday night in Berkeley, the Domino’s storefront was dead. A delivery car would run out the back every 15 minutes or so, but business was not booming.

Us Wobblies posted up at a Chinese restaurant next door, waiting for 6 PM, when our demonstration was set to begin. We had committed to stage an action in solidarity with Domino’s Delivery Drivers in Australia, who have received an arbitrary wage cut of 19%, a punishment for the 23 delivery drivers who raised complaints over a trend of paychecks that came up short of their promised salaries.

The consensus in the Chinese restaurant was that this was going to be a git ’er done and out kind of deal. Walk around with signs in front of the location for a couple hours, chant some angry chants, and flyer passersby. Hopefully, by the end of the night, we’d cost Domino’s a few customers, get the workers thinking about the stability of their own wages, and bother the boss enough that they’d give corporate management a call.

But we got so much more.

Flaum workers win in biggest victory yet with IWW support!

IWW.org Editor — Thu, 24 May 2012 01:55:55 +0000

By Daniel Gross - May 7, 2012

We are overjoyed to announce the biggest victory yet from Focus on the Food Chain! Workers at Flaum Appetizing, with your unwavering support, have won their campaign with an exemplary global agreement. Our members have recovered $577,000 in unpaid wages and compensation for retaliation along with a binding code of conduct ensuring Flaum comports with all workplace rights going forward including anti-discrimination and health & safety protections.

You can check out some of the press coverage on today's victory:

New York Times: Kosher-Food Manufacturer to Pay $577,000 in Settlement

Crain's New York: Settlement paves way for end of hummus boycott

Jewish Daily Forward: Uri L'Tzedek Celebrates Flaums Victory

For over a decade, workers at Flaum Appetizing worked grueling sixty to eighty hour work weeks without overtime pay and sometimes not even the minimum wage. Latino workers were subjected to constant verbal harassment and forced to work at unsafe speeds. Focus on the Food Chain, a joint project of Brandworkers and the NYC IWW, helped the workers launch a powerful campaign that persuaded over 120 grocery store locations to remove Flaum products from their shelves and convinced the world's largest kosher cheese company to stop using Flaum as a distributor until workers' rights were respected. In the process, Flaum workers won a precedent-setting victory at the Labor Board in D.C. helping workers nationwide fend off unfounded allegations into their immigration status.