Unions are making a comeback and have been driven by the low wage fast food workers, the ones who suddenly became essential workers during the pandemic. They recognized their worth and began the fight for $15-an-hour wages. It looks like with the new California fast food law, they could be looking at $22 an hour and a chance to unionize the entire fast food industry.
The next stop would be vacations, healthcare and pensions.
If this happens in California, the next states to follow would be Florida, Texas, New York, and Idaho. In California, there are a half million fast food workers. This law targets bonafide abuses, but also furthers union goals of collective bargaining with the entire industry instead of trying to organize fast food restaurants one at a time.
Workers are now thinking about what is best for them and their families, and are willing to fight for them adjoining or forming unions is the best way to go. The more workers that join unions will join because people tend to follow the path of those who lead the way, and everyone likes to be on the winning team.
California unions now need to go out into the counties with the largest cities, but have lost the north and east sides of the state to the nonunion people.
Now is the time for the AFL/CIO to work together with the fast food workers, that include Starbucks and Amazon to unionize.
When people are hungry they turn to the fast food for a quick bite or drink so if you’re dependent on that convenience, you should be willing to pay for it. The costs should skyrocket unless the corporations continue their greedy reign of cheap wages for strenuous work.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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