The Rising Rebellion of the McDonald's Worker

Fast food workers fight to raise the minimum wage and earn the right to support their families.
By Eric Reed ,

NEW YORK (MainStreet)—Last November over 200 employees at fast food restaurants around New York City walked off the job in what was, at the time, the largest such strike in industry history. Since then, small protests have flared up locally as the movement built momentum, but nothing had happened to seize national attention.

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Until now. Starting Monday evening workers in fast food restaurants began a week long series of strikes in cities across the country. Tuesday's strikes included workers in New York City, St. Louis and Kansas City, while future plans include walk-outs in Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee. Organizers say they ultimately expect thousands of workers striking against an industry which has, up until now, largely resisted any efforts at unionization.

The strike includes a wide range of restaurants and retailers including McDonald's, Wendy's, Papa John's, and the movement largely concerns low pay and poor working hours across the industry. McDonald's in particular has recently come under fire for publishing a financial guide that seemed to indicate that workers need two jobs and an income of at least $15 an hour simply to survive, wages more than double what it pays an average employee.

Fifteen Dollars an Hour

According to representatives, including Martin Rafanan, Community Director for the St. Louis based STL 735, this "Fight for Fifteen" has two main goals. The first is an industry-wide pay increase to reach that $15 per hour. Currently the average fast food employee earns just above minimum wage which, at full time, amounts to $14,500 per year. Even assuming two parents are working full time, this is still considerably below the Economic Policy Institute's estimate for a basic family budget, which ranges from $48,144 at the lowest in Marshall County, Miss. to $93,502 at its highest in New York City.

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"Two weeks ago St. Louis released information on what is required to live even a moderate lifestyle for a family of four," Rafanan said. "And frankly working full time in fast food comes nowhere close. It doesn't even hit 30% of what is needed to survive. And the McDonald's budget calculator that came out recently is, frankly, I think an admission that what you make is nowhere close to what you need."

According to a spokeswoman from the National Restaurant Association simply taking the hourly wages into account doesn't tell the whole story, as the average household income of restaurant employees earning the minimum wage is $62,507. This number is potentially misleading, however, as it represents the average income, not the median. In other words, if two workers make $25,000 per year and the third takes home $250,000, it akin to saying that your restaurant pays an average salary of $100,000 per year.

According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the median number is far lower, with more than half of all families impacted by a minimum wage increase nationwide currently earning less than $40,000 per year.

Still, the argument for higher wages comes at a time when restaurants operate on sometimes razor-thin budgets, and automated customer service has become an increasingly popular feature for retailers. According to a recent advertisement from the Employment Policies Institute, timed to coincide with the strikes, any such raise would make current staffing levels unaffordable for most fast food restaurants and lead to increased automation across the industry.

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It is worth noting the source of this claim, however, as the EPI is entirely funded by Berman & Co., a public relations firm well known for lobbying against both unions and the minimum wage in the past as well as its work for the restaurant industry.

An opposing petition entitled "Economists in Support of a $10.50 Minimum Wage" estimates that, contrary to the EPI's warning of a $2.00 price hike for hamburgers, restaurants could cover the difference by a five cent price raise in popular items.

And a Union

Labor's second goal in these strikes is the right for fast food employees to organize into unions. Although the movement has gained support from groups such as the Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers, fast food employees so far have no dedicated representation of their own. According to organizers, they see that as the key to any meaningful success in the long term.

"The only way that workers get what they want is when they organize themselves to get these demands," Rafanan said. "This is what we're pushing for... the workers themselves have to organize and lead."

Some nascent unions have begun to build, with groups like the St. Louis Organizing Committee and the Worker's Organizing Committee of Kansas City beginning to play a meaningful leadership role in the strikes.

"I want everyone that works in fast food to be protected in their job," said Charles Eden, who at 20 years old is one of the founding members of the St. Louis Organizing Committee. "You shouldn't have to go into a place where the management says you're just fired for no reason, where you don't have any rights. A union would protect us from that."

"We want benefits. We want health care for our families, we want vacation time," Eden added. "We just want rights. We work 40 hours a week, and it's not enough to pay our bills. You shouldn't have to struggle if you're working forty hours a week."

According to Eden, community support has been critical to helping the new union get off the ground. So far no workers on the committee have lost their jobs, and community leaders have largely been able to smooth over any other retaliation.

"We have the support of the community behind us," Eden said. "If the community doesn't go and eat at their restaurants, then they don't have any business. I'm sure they don't want 200 people showing up and protesting outside their store all day."

A Dispute Over Demographics

One of the most important parts of this protest, according to organizers, is to get the message out that these are no longer jobs for teenagers or students working after school.

"[It's] totally a myth," Rafnan said. "The average age of a fast food worker in the United States is 28 years old. 65% of fast food workers are women, and their average age is 32. This is a career job for many people, and this is not a step up job, because there's no where to step up to. The loss of middle class jobs have been largely replaced by these low wage jobs."

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The National Restaurant Association disagreed with this characterization, arguing in a press release that "the vast majority of restaurant employees that earn the minimum wage are not the heads of their household." In fact, according to the trade organization, "77% of those earning the starting wage in the restaurant industry are part-time employees, 71% are under the age of 25 and 47% are teenagers."

At press time, MainStreet had not yet received a response to email requests for clarification about whether the term "starting wage" here indicates all workers in a restaurant at or near the minimum wage, or whether it applies only to workers who not yet worked long enough to receive any form of raise.

Still, low wage service sector jobs, such as those in the fast food industry, constitute one of the largest and fastest growing blocs of employment for workers of any age. The industry is massively profitable, with headline companies posting profits upwards of $3 billion and even sometimes $15 billion per year.

Simultaneously, real wages have fallen so low that some workers employed full-time have had to rely on government programs such as food stamps and welfare to keep afloat.

"This is just the beginning for us, kind of the first step" said Gine Chiala, a Kansas City attorney and spokesperson for Stand Up KC. "We want to continue building our numbers, and we're going to keep bringing workers together from across the city and increasing those numbers."

Written for MainStreet by Eric Reed, a freelance journalist who writes frequently on the subjects of career and travel. You can read more of his work at his website www.wanderinglawyer.com.

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