Union Perspectives

The fast food and restaurant industry today is as bad in working conditions as what author Upton Sinclair wrote in “The Jungle,” a 1906 classic about the meatpacking industry. The fast food and restaurant industry is the 21st century's version of "The Jungle"—a sweatshop where workers are enduring horrible health and safety conditions with no paid sick leave and no healthcare. Workers work sick with ailments like cuts, burns, flu, pinkeye and H1N1—do you think these maladies miraculously stay out of your food? It’s not the workers fault; it’s the owners for putting greed above your health. This is not good for the wage slaves nor their families and not to the healthy customers putting their trust in the food they receive. Owners expect customers to tip to compensate for the low wages. Tipping dates back to slavery and originated in Europe. When tipping was brought to America in the late 1800s to 1900s, the Americans at that time rejected the practice as undemocratic and...

Countries that have a democracy-type of government have to be a country of laws and the laws must be equal for all. Of course, the laws are made by the government, who the people vote for. Here is the problem—with the laws now that let the 1 percent buy the people we elect and these elected politicians sit in the pockets of the corporations. This is how the restaurant lobby, run by Darden Restaurants, which is the largest owner of restaurants, such as Olive Garden, Yard House, Capital Grill, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Longhorn Steakhouse, and Eddie V’s. It pays a base pay of $2.13 an hour; all other wages must come from tips. The $2.13 pay was a deal brokered between the restaurant lobby and Congressman John Boehner’s Republican Congress. The deal was that restaurant lobbyists would not oppose a little minimum wage hike and in turn the government would freeze the $2.13 base wage just for restaurants. Darden has 2,100 restaurants with 200,000 employees, and paid out $14 million in fines...