Fast food worker strike planned for today

The strike is planned from the Fight for 15 movement and will include thousands of fast food workers across the United States. This is going to be similar to the strike back in May, but this one is going to include acts of civil disobedience. If the workers risk arrest then this would be a major escalation in the fight for fair pay and union membership. Ned Resnikoff has a piece over at MSNBC on the strike.

This is the first action since the Fight for 15 convention back in July. Terrence Wise, a Missouri-based Burger King employee and member of the Fight for 15 national organizing committee said, “Thirteen hundred workers unanimously adopted a resolution at our convention in July to do whatever it takes to wine $15 an hour and union rights, including participating in non-violent, peaceful protests in the tradition of the civil rights movement. On Thursday, we are prepared to take arrests to show our commitment to the growing Fight for $15.”

President Obama acknowledged that “America deserves a raise,” which came a few hours before the strike was announced. The push toward civil disobedience is hoping to force the corporations to pay attention to the cause and the workers. 

*Update: JJ always finds the best graphics.

"Fast food workers don't need a raise" Shut up. pic.twitter.com/vOIP1zuHRT
— Pardo (@blowticious) September 4, 2014

SCOTUS says fuck you to care workers.

As I tweeted yesterday, SCOTUS is really just giving working women the finger. The Hobby Lobby decision is about working women. The Harris v. Quinn decision is also about working women. We all knew we were in trouble when SCOTUS Blog announced that Alito was giving both opinions. Think all the way back with me, I wrote about this a long time ago. You can read the ThinkProgress article. This was about whether “partial public employees” can be required to pay union dues for the collective bargaining they benefit from. I know, you’re wondering what the hell is a “partial public employee,” which I’m comfortable defining as low-wage care workers who are largely women of color.

The 5-4 decision could have been worse, but it is still pretty bad. The decision leaves the financial viability of unions in jeopardy, but Alito’s opinion hints at further problems in the future because he says allowing unions to collect dues from nonmembers as “questionable on several grounds.” The home health workers are hired and fired by individuals so they aren’t covered by the law requiring them to contribute to the union if they benefit from the collective bargaining. Technically, this is a First Amendment decision. It is a blow to workers, unions, and a high-five to “right to work.” You can read the full opinion.

The next shot looks like it will be coming out of California where teachers are suing to get out of union dues on First Amendment grounds as well. Part of me wonders if this logic can be applied on a larger scale.

Once again, I’d like to point out who exactly this impacts: unions and women of color. It is almost like the years of discriminating against care workers is coming back to bite unions in the ass. Not that that makes it ok. Really both this decision and the Hobby Lobby decision just reinforce that this SCOTUS’s legacy will be as a corporate champion. Corporations are valued as entities over people and individual rights. This Harris decision is particularly insidious to me because it hinges on classifying a certain kind of employee as not deserving of collective bargaining.

I don’t really know where to go from here. Either the left is going to get serious about workers, people of color, women, trans people, etc or they aren’t. If they are going to get serious there needs to be some kind of organization. I read a tweet about how SCOTUS pissed off women, which is going to be dangerous for the conservative right. Another tweet about how the Democrats are on the side of women. And now, President Obama used on executive order to increase border enforcement. These aren’t the movements of progress. Time to force our team to play ball or go with someone else. I want proof these jerks are on our side or we need to cut the dead weight loose.  And our side is women’s rights, labor rights, immigration rights, voting rights, etc.

Personal news: This is going to be the longest three day week ever. I’m not guaranteeing I’m going to blog Thursday through Monday because I’m taking another anti-media vacation. I’m going to read and write for four days. I don’t know if I can handle trying to be productive as well. I might just say fuck this and read fiction all weekend. On that note special thanks to C, BA, and BigKate for their attempts to help me with this block.

SCOTUS says Fuck You to Women

Coming as a surprise to no one, SCOTUS sides with Hobby Lobby in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. You can read a dozen stories on the ruling so I’m not going to do much on it except it was 5-4, all the women opposed, Alito gave the opinion, and Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench like a boss.

SCOTUS says that Hobby Lobby has the right not to cover birth control because RELIGION! Well, Christianity in the case of reproductive rights of women…because they won’t allow some corporation to deny blood transfusions. ‘Merica. ACA already excludes churches and religious entities, but not corporations can also get in on the exceptions at the expense of women.

Let’s talk about the amazing Justice Ginsburg. Mother Jones’ Dana Liebelson pulled together some of the highlights from Ginsburg’s dissent. They are listed below.

• “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage.”
• “Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.”
• “Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestago’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults.”
• “It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
• “Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews and Hindues); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
• “Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodations could be ‘perceived as favoring one religious over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clauses was designed to preclude.”
• “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

You can read the opinion and the dissent here. However, I do want to move on a bit, and it is going to be hard to do because I’m blogging about Harris tomorrow. Both Harris and Hobby Lobby show how capitalism has gotten out of control. A corporation just got religious freedom over a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. Also, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to how health insurance works. Employees earn health insurance, some even contribute to it so it isn’t like women are making a corporation pay for their “whore pills”. Birth control can be used for a variety of medical issues…which I’m sure everyone who reads this blog is already well versed in…but I need it for sex, which is my decision. Like men who can buy condoms over the counter. Alito singles out women’s health care as “special” because being a woman is deviant from “normal”. After all vasectomies aren’t considered objectionable by Hobby Lobby, which is weird because that’s hella more against nature than a pill.

This is along the lines of why women were being charged a higher premium than men by insurance companies. Well, at least that’s still against the law, but we should give these religious zealots some time. Obviously, there is a boycott of Hobby Lobby, but I don’t think that is enough. So what can we do in addition to a boycott: boycott the brands and vendors that choose to do business with Hobby Lobby (some of those are union made). Also, in a perfect world, wouldn’t you love to see a pro-choice demonstration outside a Hobby Lobby where we are more respectful, but model the demonstration after the anti-choicers at clinics.

Finally, this isn’t an anti-women ruling, I mean it is but not only; it is an anti-worker ruling. People seem to forget that because we considered birth control a women’s issue. Women’s issues are human rights issues and this labor issues. So my dear labor friendly gentlemen, this ruling gives more power to employers at the expense of employees so maybe the United Food and Commercial Workers union should get on this. We can't ignore that women, women of color specifically, are a disproportional portion of the retail labor force. So time to organize them.

Fast food strike expands!

According to Ned Resnikoff, the American fast food strike is going global. On May15th, fast food workers in 150 American cities will again go on strike. They are demanding that these large-low-wage employers pay a base price of $15 per hour and allow the workers to unionize. In addition to workers in the US, fast food employees on six other continents will rally in solidarity.

Word came on Wednesday, and the formal announcement was made at a McDonalds in Manhattan where Naquashia LeGrand and a crowd with a variety of international flags made the announcement. The American fast food workers voted on the date of the May 15 strike via a conference call on Monday. This followed the first day of the international fast food workers’ conference in New York. It was announced to the conference on Tuesday. Resnikoff’s article continues to describe the labor conditions in fast food employment overseas. Also, McDonald’s has released statements referring to the December 5^th strike as being staged by outside forces.

I don’t have a lot to contribute here, except support these workers. I’m curious to see how this plays out on an international scale as well.

The fictitious wealthy white guy plight

Yesterday I wrote about how Sterling’s comments were obviously a racial issue and a little bit of a women’s issue. But today, I want to talk about how they a labor issue (plus, I’d rather talk sports than rape, and JESUS Christ what is happening at AU?!? Nope, too much anger, but it is coming I have a few attempts). Sterling shows himself to be a racist, a sexist, but also as someone who completely subscribes to capitalism.

The comments themselves really highlight why this is a labor issue. See Sterling believes his players own him for their success. We’ll call this the fictitious wealthy white guy plight. He’s the reason they have stuff…except that is in reverse. Players are the reason people come to the games. Players work really hard to play professionally. Players take the physical risks to play. This is capitalism though, the wealthy taking the credit for the labor of others, and the laborers having to take responsibility for the heinous actions and views of their employer.

But let’s go over a few things, first all these guys are laborers and represented by a union, The National Basketball Players Association. Secondly, employees shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions or views of their employers. Thirdly, these guys are under contract so any actions taken by individuals could probably result in a loss of employment. It is my understanding that contracts changed drastically when Stern became NBA commissioner. That said the players covered their logos during warm-up to show their dissatisfaction with Sterling’s statements.

Because we can’t have nice things, some people have taken to criticizing the acts of resistance from the Clippers because this is the world in which we live. *head desk* Don’t get me wrong, I like LeBron James’ suggestion of a sit out because I like big statements of resistance, but we also know these guys need to get paid. So if all the teams wanted to sit out a game forcing the league’s hand, then I can support it, but expecting the Clippers to bare the whole burden because their owner is a racist? Too much friends, too much. Anyway, isn’t having Sterling as an owner punishment enough? Remember everyone on the Clippers is not James, Williams, or Wall. They aren’t all stars; they are working. That isn’t to say James, Williams, Wall, etc. aren’t laborers too, but their pay is going to be very different.

It is reassuring other teams are wearing black socks in solidarity, but if substantial action is to be taken, then it has to be taken by everyone or the Clippers players will be the only ones to suffer for it. Which is why I get real pissy when some media outlets suggest the Clippers aren’t doing enough. They want a big stand, not a gesture, but I have to wonder as they do so much in the article what is a big enough gesture? Refusing to play? Well, then the team suffers for the actions of the owner. How is that fair?

In the end, Sterling is just a wealthy racist with a sketchy history of racist practices.  And I think he sucks, but I don’t think the players should suffer because he’s a racist. I’m a pretty serious basketball fan, but if anyone out there wants to run off about how the Clippers players need to do more, then I fully expect that those individuals won’t be watching-supporting-consuming any of the remaining playoffs. Speaking of enablers, David Zirin has a great article about Sterling’s enablers.