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For the third time in five weeks, non-union fast food workers in a major American city are headed out on strike. Starting at 5 p.m. Central Time today, dozens of employees plan to walk off the
“I just feel that if we don’t stand up now, it’s never going to happen,” said Tomecka Wilson, a 32-year-old who works for the seafood chain Captain D’s. “They’re making billions off of us making little to nothing. So they can afford to share a little bit more.”
Organizers expect 50 to 70 St. Louis workers to strike over the next 24 hours, including workers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Hardee’s and Domino’s. The strike got an early start this morning, when a group of workers at a Jimmy John’s went out on strike in protest over alleged humiliation by management: They say their boss required them to wear signs stating that they worked too slowly. “It’s clearly getting national traction,” said Ed Ott, a lecturer in labor studies for the City University of New York, consultant for unions, and board member of New York Communities for Change, the group spearheading fast food organizing in the nation’s largest city. “This is potentially the largest organizing drive in decades.”
Like the strikes by fast food workers in New York, and by a mix of fast food and retail workers in Chicago, the St. Louis campaign is backed by coalitions of unions and community organizing groups. The Service Employees International Union is a significant supporter of each of these campaigns, and of similar efforts elsewhere that have not yet gone public. According to organizers, last month’s strike in New York drew about 400 strikers, double the turnout from a previous strike in November. The Chicago strike drew about 300 (before that walkout, a leader of a group spearheading the effort had told Salon she expected 500).
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