Organizing the IWW, Erik Forman provides a great history of the fast food industry, tactics corporatist unions and indicates directions to follow to ensure that working and fast food workers to overcome, through an independent organization, the problematic situations it lists.

 

The fast food is America. First founded during the long economic boom of postwar, Industry is required among the highways, outskirts, single family homes, shopping centers, automobile and television as a real living organism in the ecosystem of the American consumer culture. From the dawn of the Cold War in the twilight of the Great Recession, Fast food industry is shaped, then shapes the core values ​​of American society.

Our desire for instant gratification has been filled by a quick service with a smile (strength) drive-thru. The constant carousel of TV commercials showing new and improved drinks and sandwiches has only feed on and the American dependence on unreleased – and best – product. Oversized meals in the image of our seemingly rational calculation that bigger is better. On the mode of production to Taylor through burgers and fries and stuffed genetically modified pesticides, company management has accompanied its products a scientific look, tickling and love e-s-American for the predictability created by the technology. Thirsty by profits resulting economies of scale highly rationalized, managers of fast-food chains have colonized the decoration of the United States with striking symbols of their corporate empires, and a coast to coast. Maintaining a culture and maintained by preferring the image to reality, appearance to the substance and immediate benefit to long-term planning, the American people are easily stopped by the siren song that are advertisements showing shining burgers. US consumers will fatten the coffers of fast food chains for a projected amount of 191 million dollars in 2013. Kept pace believes the fast-food industry in the US, its grip on the values ​​of American society extends. We are what we eat. America is fast food.

In 1993, Sociologist George Ritzer gave its name to this "McDonaldization of society," noting that "the principles of fast food will come to dominate more and more sectors of American society and the rest of the world". Ritzer denounced the establishment not of a growing group of institutions to the four founding values ​​of the fast-food industry: acceleration of human relationships for the purpose of "efficiency", reduce life to a "calculation" confusing quality and quantity, "foreseeability" of a standardized human experience and an obsession with bureaucratic control using technology. Revisiting the diagnostic developed by Max Weber and critical theorists of the Frankfurt School, Ritzer describes the discomfort located in the heart of our society McDonaldisée as the "irrationality of rationality" – the subordination of all concerns the ultimate goal : profit. Of course, the McDonaldization could be the Disneyfication, the Walmartisation or the Coca-colonization… whatever meaning, because behind these logos business runs all the logic of capitalism on a global scale.

Having saturated the US market in the years 70, the fast-food industry has turned its greedy eyes to other lands, seeking to transform quickly into profit machine digestive system of six billion humans. The Two Golden Arches have become a pioneering symbol of globalization. As early 90, a generous amount of McDonald, KFC and Starbucks went extend worldwide, embodying the spirit of the times, the triumph of the free market as a happy ending to the story. In 1997, McDonald shot over overseas operations income home. The neo-liberal New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proclaimed the advent of this McMonde as the dawn of a new world order, where all find justice and freedom, stating that no two countries with McDonald could not make war (he was wrong). But freedom in the eyes of the apologists of global capitalism has always involved a veiled slavery for the working class of the growing services industry.

The operation hiding behind each burger and fries each is no longer secret. During the last year, a wave of "strikes" a very telegenic day in several restaurants helped expose this sad reality. It is a reality that I know personally. From 2006 at 2012, I got involved in two campaigns with union Industrial Workers of the World as a fast food worker at Starbucks and Jimmy John's. I found my own eyes that the astronomical profits of industry are based on the original sins of American society – racism, sexism and exploitation of the working class. The fast-food industry employs a disproportionate number of women and people from visible minorities in roles without future, a turning wages around the minimum wage. My colleagues and I were just goods for our patrons, just as coffee beans or meat, property to use when things go, then set aside when times are harder. Our schedules highly varied from week to week, according to the dictates of the automated system of the company, preventing us to plan or make a budget. The work met all repetitive joys of a factory assembly line, with all the charm of the usual psychological abuse of clients. at Starbucks, the chronic understaffing has transformed our shifts into a frenzy of constant movement to serve lattes and Frapuccinos to a queue of endless customers. Our boss has shown his gratitude by paying us about minimum wage. In the most crowded days, he "asked" for workers to stay after the end of their shift, then faded overtime payroll. Height of insult, he was frequently sexually explicit remarks about my female colleagues. My boss at Jimmy John's was accustomed to decorate its dictates death threats : "I'll stab you" if you do not lay more softly mayo or "I'll take a shotgun and shoot you" if preparing sandwiches is too slow. But if it were not good jobs, But they were hard to keep. Most ridiculous, a colleague Starbucks lost her health insurance, because she was too ill and had not worked enough hours to be eligible. Unable to afford medical treatment, she missed a shift, as numb pain. She could not afford to go see a doctor and get a paper to prove it and was therefore referred. Two of my colleagues have attempted suicide during my six years at Starbucks, succumbing to the stress imposed by the managers too demanding, disrespectful customers and anguish of seeing their dreams escape their hands, as they sank deeper into poverty.

Despite the poor working conditions endured by 3,6 million workers and fast food workers, their main unions have shown no interest before last year. The "Senior Vice President" of the union UNITE-HERE Local Minneapolis told me in 2008, "We will not go to McDonald unionize all workers groups who come to us." He then refused to support our independent organizing efforts at Starbucks. The former president of SEIU (Service Employees International Union), Andy Stern, Starbucks even said he would applaud if they paid their tens of thousands of workers a few cents above the minimum wage. How is it that a labor movement that led the starving masses in battle against autocrats industrialists in the country's bar get to turn your back on those who have the thirst for change?

corporatist unionism
During the postwar period, when churches become cathedrals and where family shops give way to shopping centers, most US unions become corporatist unions, adopting a structure similar to that of their alleged opponents. As the company, corporatist syndicate is led by a small clique of well paid presidents, Vice Presidents and Directors of everything and nothing – short, bosses – which imposes guidelines through an employee-s often exploited-e-s hierarchy even in the base row. Rather than empower members through involvement in their own struggles, union bosses implanted a careerist logic at the heart of the labor movement. SEIU and UNITE-HERE – often, and ironically, perceived as the most progressive unions in the United States – tend to hire as organizers or organizers of young idealists from-e-s middle class and newly graduated-e-s college. These young employee-s tend to burn quickly with requests – and contradictions – employment and go to higher education.

This approach is just the tip of the iceberg. The rise of corporatist unionism in the United States is only a moment in the evolution of a tension simmering within the workers' movement. To quote the Solidarity Federation in Fighting for Ourselves, it is "possible to identify two meanings of the term “union”. The first is merely a workers' association…"And the second is" that of a worker representation and vis-à-vis capital workers. "As an association of workers, union theoretically has unlimited power to stop or transform the economy. As an institution "representative" workers, union acts as an "interest group" seeking to influence using the same lobbying tools, PR and bargaining that any other business.

Rather than rely on the associative power of their member expressed through strikes disrupting production, corporatist unions depend more often the National Labor Relations Act 1935 which sets up a bureaucratic process so that workers can vote for the union "representative". The NLRA is soaked with a policy that is reflected in its preamble : "He said it is a policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of trade and mitigate or eliminate these obstructions when they occur by encouraging the practice and procedure of the conventions collective…"It is worth repeating : the US labor code aims to guarantee the "free course of trade", adopted a goal of any heart by union leaders in the post-war who happily disarmed base, exchanging direct action to bureaucratic procedures, such grievances and opt-strikes. C. Wright Mills even has dubbed "The new men of power", men of enthusiastic pro-workers state to act as small partner capital in the Cold War against communism. With momentum towards the "end of history" of our own time, these supporters of corporatist unionism chased the radicals out of the labor movement, abandoning the qualitative social change and replace it with a vision strictly limited to elementary and quantitative issues, then letting himself be lulled by the account of Keynesian fairy, eternal increase productivity cycles related to wage increases negotiated by unions as a permanent component of the policy and the US economy.

The union bureaucracy has suffered a rude awakening to the late 70. Employers have intensified their resistance to union campaigns, leading to the winning rate of decline in the elections NLRB (National Labor Relation Board). As noted by the veteran union bargaining Joe Burns in Reviving the Strike, the unions have not responded adequately to the challenges of the bosses, Excluding the kind of collective confrontations with employers who made agreements for years 30. Instead, they tried to maintain agreements of "neutrality" with bosses using negotiations to carrots and sticks, often without the knowledge of workers. The carrot : union leaders offer political support in the legislative program of the company and not to swear negotiate other issues, even up to accept wage losses and restrictions on the rights of workers. The stick : the union will interfere in implementing the political program and the growth of the company until it accepts the neutrality. neutrality campaigns do not usually play on the associative power of workers, but rather on advertising campaigns, high-placed friends and lawyers' tricks. Short, on the handling of our society representation system. The task of an 'organizer' union is now down to convince the worker to do what the union boss asks rather than gather to make decisions in common. Most of the time , the involvement of workers in the neutrality campaigns is limited to photo shoots in meetings with politicians, or at most to one-day strikes for television. Even worse, unions sometimes hire "fans" who take "direct action" on behalf of workers. Usually, union bosses will search campaigns in a highly corporatist logic, establishing the costs incurred and profits that will bring new negotiated contributions. For most unions, the chances of success in the fast-food industry seemed too low compared to the benefits envisaged to invest resources.

Strikes in the fast food
Several people left have expressed their hope that the mobilization directed in the fast food by the SEIU and other groups called “Alt-Labor” represent a break with the corporatist logic of trade unionism, or at least an opening to go further than simple strikes in the fast food and create a movement transformer. It was not easy to measure what these hopes are worth face reality; SEIU prevents its staff from talking to the media and let the members of the base in the shade on plans of the union. So I bypassed the official spokesmen SEIU and went to consult workers and staff within the campaign is to understand really happens.
According to the e-s-leader of SEIU, it took that workers and fast food workers organize themselves and themselves and practically break down the door of the union hall to ask for help to organize. In truth, strikes for 15$ are not really spontaneous demonstrations. According to sources, demand for $ 15 / hour was not issued by the Workers, but rather by consultants Berlin Rosen PR Firm working with SEIU. SEIU's projects are in development for at least 2009. According to another internal source, some cities were initially selected for the strikes because the union believed to use media coverage to encourage new laws. The one-day events were therefore not designed as weapons for economic gains, but as bait in the "media market", as noted by Adam Weaver. Several activists have used the wildcat strike term (wildcat strike) to set these one-day strikes. A wildcat strike is a strike by the rank and file against or without bureaucracy. These were the total opposite – directed mobilizations top by bureaucrats. This implies that planners SEIU knew there would be a strike before workers and workers. Therefore, the union is now to convince the base to join a media-oriented project, set up by union leaders, instrumenting the relationship between e-s-employed with workers and lead them to distort the figures to keep their jobs. This dynamic has proven when I spoke with her-workers of three cities that have told me that the real number of strikers was significantly lower than that reported by the SEIU. Given the ineffectiveness of Communications (that is to say lie to the boss to not be expelled) inherent in any corporate hierarchy, it is quite possible that the SEIU even he does not know the exact number of workers who participated in strikes.

Inspired by the corporate model, SEIU has subcontracted unionization fast food to community organizations – a local chapter of Jobs with Justice, some former members of ACORN groups (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and others – in order to partially reduce expenses associated with wages organizers. A fast food worker involved in the campaign told me that "the organizers are working 12 hours a day during the week. When you calculate their income, it makes less than minimum wage. "A former organizer employee had received the order to abandon a group of workers-rs fast food just before a strike and its attention to another site where union bosses thought they could get more media capital. The same organizer was fired just before the time of the following parties to an arbitrary decision by high-ranking union, forcing his family to scrape the drawer bottoms to put food on the table for their young child. It's no surprise that, in at least one city, organizers have formed their own union to fight management model high turnover SEIU.
The shabby treatment suffered by these organizers and hard-e-s organizers demonstrates quite the democratic deficit within the SEIU. Anonymous workers and workers in the country say they are forced-e-s to support the strategy determined by the union leadership, no opportunity to discuss more sustainable and transformative alternatives. A source close SEIU informed me that the high places of the country refuse to organize in order to realize early for fear that too great victory deprives workers willing to unionize. While some cities have adopted a more focused approach to the base, the overall strategy remains elusive latter. SEIU held sacrosanct national gathering in Detroit with workers who had been persuaded to vote "Yes" for the National Day of Action 29 August, regardless of whether it would be used to build a long-term organization in their communities and workplaces. The risk for rapid unionization first requested from the International SEIU is that workers are pushed-his-e-s to risk their jobs to meet quotas set by the bureaucrats at the top, without worrying about building a base that could lead to a real successful social movement. Ryan Watt, Potbelly worker's Chicago, was recently on strike. According to him : "I think that because of that, my manager starts to fight back. Recently, after the last strike, they told me to go home and not come back for five days because I came back five minutes late for my dinner. "The manager Ryan has not recalled after five days, which means a referenced.

The organizing committee of the Chicago workers fight these reprisals, but such stories are likely to breed without a strategy involving more workers in the unionization process before parading before the cameras isolated individuals of different restaurants. Given the recent gutting Our Walmart, when returning more 60 Workers activist-e-s, it looked like the SEIU would take more care by creating a strong base before revealing to the public. The leader-e-s companies do not need training to order the e-s-manager dismantle unions and add employee-s blacklisting. All and all e-s-manager know how to tighten and selectively apply the rules to get rid of workers' maker-his troubles ". Without a strategic turnaround for changing the ratio of forceavec fast food companies, such subtle retaliation will eventually have a significant impact on unionization.
It could be that the SEIU has not simply nothing to do. After all, the union has already achieved its 15 minutes of fame before the cameras during the campaign. A spokesperson for SEIU expressed disconcerting attitude of the union against the price that workers will pay for this strategy, saying they and they can easily cross the street and get a job in another restaurant after being shown the door.
With all major decisions in the hands of international SEIU, the bureaucratic nature of the campaign has generated a disturbing racial dynamics. I spoke with several participants who were appalled by the recurrent es spectacle of employees the union mainly white urgent orders through a megaphone during the strikes at fast-food workers are mostly black or Hispanic. At New York, a white member of the security service SEIU has even prompted several workers racialized s-e-s to prevent them from occupying a McDonald. In the USA, hierarchies are too often subject to a color code. SEIU and its substitutes are no exception.
And told the SEIU workers? If "$ 15 and a union" is a good slogan, problems overwhelming the fast food nation will not be solved by a wage increase of a dollar. Another concession made in the name of media needs of the campaign, Fight for the Fifteen recreated the narrow economic focus unionism corporatist post-war. Especially unhappy, since the fast-food industry is the sinews of war capitalist consumerism. Workers and fast food workers can speak and act directly against the horrors of factory farming, the dehumanization of Taylorized production and absurd hierarchies of workplaces, corporatist monoculture, the scourge of hunger from the working class, among other wounds that result from their work places. Imagine if a union of workers and fast food workers maintained a vision not only for better working conditions in a fundamentally inhuman economy, but also an industry controlled by food workers in the best interests of all humanity and the planet. Such a turn is unlikely as long as the campaigns are run by union bureaucrats who do not see themselves as gravediggers of capitalism, but as his doctors.
An honest assessment of the campaign so far causes us to an inescapable conclusion – corporatist logic of the fast food industry is alive and well within even organizing efforts SEIU. The decision to prioritize the amount of strikers rather than quality of empowering workers and democratization, to focus media events catchy and support legislative change rather than a substantial organization to build a real power. All this through a mock communications methodical thought by consultants, by the centralized procedure SEIU International, by the horrible reality of institutionalized racism within the campaign, by monetary reduction campaign's goal while accepting the foundation of a class society. This is the real unionism fast food.

neo-corporatist unionism
Are there any hope for workers and workers, employee-s and sympathizer-e-s turn unionizing fast-food SEIU into a wider movement and longer term to generate substantial changes, as predicted by several personalities from left?

SEIU is not monolithic. Several prospects confront them on the direction of the campaign 15$ and on the level of autonomy in some sections (though constantly under threat of guardianship). However, we see a higher level of participation and democracy in some cities than others. There are hundreds of brave and courageous workers and dozens of e-s-employed hard-e-s with principles, who do everything in their power to move from a transactional model to a transformative model even within the confines of the SEIU.
It is possible for members of the base and e-s-employee groups to develop a strategy that defeated the logic of fast food unionism, but this initiative will never come SEIU International nor without fighting bureaucracy. The history of the union, trends inherent to neo-corporatism and the employee-s testimony of the union tell us a lot about what can expect the members of the base and their ally-e-s. An article 2010 The Nation summed up the procedure SEIU led by President Andy Stern, "While growth became his only passion, Stern relied on agreements closed with employers and other shortcuts, continuing a robust growth illusion that obscured the failure of SEIU to establish a viable strategy to counter the decline of the labor movement. In doing, unilateral leadership Stern alienated members of the basic and isolated the union of several of his former ally-not-s-e-s. "
While the bill expensive public relations services and the army of staff working on the campaign 15$ accumulate, increasing pressure on the bosses SEIU for a deal that can be presented as a victory. As with any business transaction, this market include a misunderstanding. Research Steve Early on the machinations SEIU, published in his book The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, offer a glimpse of what it means. Through its 339 pages, Early exposes what appears to be an endless parade of corpses out of SEIU cupboards, comprising not only several fingerprints Andy Stern, but Mary Kay Henry and skewer current SEIU bosses.
Driven by the greed of growth at any price, identical to that of companies which face it in negotiations, SEIU turned to a strategy of "partnership" with employers, as well as poaching, to increase revenue with additional contributions. Damn workers' democracy. In most of the cases, recent union is limited to be signed by the employer a pre-agreement that limits the rights of workers to decry or agitate against their problems at work, abandons control of the workplace to the management by allowing one or no-e-e-e union delegate-e on site and limit collective bargaining parameters – all without consulting workers. Even worse, in order to convince employers to sign these "partnerships", SEIU is going to support the implementation of laws benefiting employers at the expense of the entire working class. for example, California and Washington, SEIU lobbied to limit the rights of patients to pursue hospitals and home care services for abuse, in exchange for union recognition easier for workers and healthcare workers.
Once the terms of the agreement negotiated by union professionals and employers, the organizers are responsible es to sign cards to workers, authorizing dues payroll deduction form. This is often the last time they and they will see an organizer. Once syndicated, SEIU low profile, storing its members in local mega kilometers to workplaces. It becomes impossible for workers to low wages to attend meetings where they and they could have a voice, nor even to stand as union-ee-representative or a delegate-e. This work is distributed to qualified professionals. What they have left? A number 1-800 to call if they have questions and or concerns.

The author concluded that the Early SEIU is "an institution increasingly autocratic and deeply flawed that is not up to what it claims, no matter who is responsible. "He seems to be right. While many hope that the SEIU has made a new start under the leadership of its new President Mary Kay Henry and the strike tactic in the campaign for the $ 15 / hr is distanciement the usual corporatist unionism, one look under the hype reveals the same old dynamics and behavioral trends in action. An inside source says that the SEIU has already opened the door to the National Restaurant Association, providing support for the tax cuts on fast-food chains in exchange for any neutrality agreement. This is what seems to reserve us the future.
Beyond the strikes in the fast food

Beyond the criticism of neo-corporatist model union SEIU, there is also the fact that it probably will not work. It is now over 30 years that we are in a war of annihilation of the labor movement by US employers. As in years 30, employers will take a hard line against any employee raid unless facing a real existential threat. The only long enough lever arm to move the mountain of opposition against the workers' power in the fast food industry, is the massive direct action by the principal concerned-es on a scale not seen since the tumulteuse period between the wars. Corporatist unions are not about to operate the lever. In the words of former SEIU strategist Stephen Lerner, "Trade unions have hundreds of millions of assets and collective agreements concerning millions of employee-es never risk their cash and their contracts by engaging in large-scale actions such sit-ins, occupations and other forms of non-violent civil disobedience defying injunctions and political pressures. "We might add that even if they wanted, corporatist unions have long ravaged their militant base, alienating workers by their decision process of top down and by years of stifling door-to-door in support of Democrats. Unwilling and unable to follow the path that could lead to a real victory, SEIU will begin to dilute its slogan of "justice for all", bringing proposals for less justice and under-employed workers (narrowing his vision to fewer cities, less business and asking smaller wage increases) to the negotiating table and to polling stations. If this fails, SEIU will probably try to find a way to withdraw and save face. Ironically, this could give more space for workers to organize themselves and themselves. More tragic, it could also isolate people who took risks against possible reprisals generated.
Fortunately, fast food unionism SEIU is not the first, nor the last word of the class struggle in this industry. Workers and fast food workers fought bosses exploiting them since the beginning of this industry. To name a few examples, to the mid 60, McDonald was so concerned about the unionization of its e-s-employee of the San Francisco Bay, they necessitated taking a lie detector test potential employees to eliminate the union sympathizer-es. The anti-union specialist full-time chain said it had crashed "hundreds" of union organizing efforts in the early 70. In the early 80, ACORN launched a union employee-es fast food in Detroit who briefly won a single collective agreements in the fast food franchisees in the US. In the United States, the enigmatic McDonalds Workers Resistance led an anonymous guerrilla resistance against such patterns between 1998 and the early 2000. Although none of these efforts has led to a long-term organization, they played an important role in the long evolution of class consciousness in the fast food industry.
While I was organizing with the IWW at Jimmy John's and Starbucks, we learned from the experiences of those who preceded us and we created a model of associative organization operating in the fast-food industry. Notr model was built on our own strength Workers : the dependence of our boss to our work. Instead of spending millions (that we did not) to pay PR firms and employee-s full time, we focused on a long-term approach involving our colleagues to become organizers or organizers, giving them the necessary weapons to carry out their own battles, no matter where they find themselves and they, and taking all decisions together democratically. And we won. We did send our boss who stole our wages and sexually harassing our colleagues, We ended the unfair dismissal, we have installed air conditioning and repaired broken equipment. We won a strengthening of staff, we got my reinstatement after I was fired by Starbucks for organizing my workplace and, with a short strike, we even forced our district manager to issue a check for a colleague that has not been paid. During another campaign IWW, we wrote a "Ten-Point Program for Justice at Jimmy John's", bringing together the ten most important requests as identified by our colleagues, going beyond basic issues to address fundamental issues of control of the workplace. Employing an escalation of pressure means through direct action, we won payroll direct deposit, increases, paid holidays, the right of absence due to illness, consistent discipline policy and many other applications, further explained in the New Forms of Worker Organization forthcoming. None of these campaigns was perfect and the labor movement still has much to learn about the organization of low-income workers in the service, but our experience has one thing clear : workers can declare themselves independent-e-s bureaucracy corporatist unions, conduct their own battles and win.
In several cities, militant bases in the campaign for the minimum wage 15$ have already begun to build their own independent organizations bureaucracy, forging links with sympathetic-e-s that are free of all obstacles involved receive a check signed by union bosses. The class struggle did not start with the SEIU and will not end once a contract is signed, a law will be passed, that the minimum wage will be increased or that stop the union bosses to pay the bill of the campaign. The struggle continues; jobs in fast food are the jobs of the future – not just because 58% of the jobs created in the post-2007 recovery period are low income jobs, but also metaphorically – as noted George Ritzler, corporatist logic of fast food has soaked our society more broadly. We work in a McDonald, a desk, a hospital, school, a non-profit organization, the government or anyone aillers, we all saw a colleague suffer abuse or being fired arbitrarily, being forced to do more with less, being told to skimp at public expense and being denied a voice at work and in society in general. Millions of employee-es live their lives in a discreet despair, Seeing their labor disappear into the workings of the capitalist system. A system that turns against them and perpetuate the evils which they and they oppose: Workers and fast food workers see the products they use to poison their communities, bank workers see their employers provide loans with abusive if their neighbors, Hospital workers are witnesses of how the profit is set to lead the well-being of patients and teachers are drowning to see the dehumanization that standardized tests produce their student-e-s. collectively, workers produce all the ills of our society, which means that collectively we can stop producing the. And we will, more and more.
Ryan Wyatt, a striker at Potbelly's in Chicago, well described, "We do not only ask for better working conditions for us, we want to live in a better America. "
The fast food unionism can not change the fast food nation, but it can be a first step towards a movement which may the.
Erik Forman is an organizer and worker writer. You can reach him at erikforman (at) gmail.com. He is on Twitter at @_erikforman.
First issue the 5 November 2013 as exclusive content CounterPunch, republished on 17 November 2013 Redial, then in December 2013 dans l’Industrial Workers. Unionism fast food: unionization of McDonald and the McDonaldization of unions is published for the first time in French on the website of the Local IWW of Montreal, translated by Alexis Kelly and Tristan W.