Food & Retail Workers Organizing

A general catch all for all food & retail campaigns not otherwised covered in Starbucks, Jimmy Johns, or NYC iu460.

Demand An End to Worker Retaliation at Ellwood Thompson's!

Posted Sun, 01/20/2013 - 3:43pm by IWW.org Editor

Richmond, Va - On behalf of Rain Burroughs, the Richmond, Virginia General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Food & Retail Workers United (FRWU) delivered a formal letter to Rick Hood (owner) and Tommy Langford (store manager) on December 21, 2012 requesting that Ellwood Thompson's Local Market reinstate Rain Burroughs immediately to an equivalent job with comparable pay, benefits, responsibilities, and hours of work. We have yet to receive any response, and we ask for your support.

Summary

Rain Burroughs was granted, via the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), leave in order to assist her mother who was struggling with severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Burroughs' leave ended on November 20, 2012 when she returned to work at Ellwood Thompson's Local Market. Rather respect a loyal worker and honoring the commitment that had been made to them, Ellwood Thompson's chose to label Burroughs as a new hire and placed her on 'probation'. This action by Ellwood Thompson's violates federal law which
states:

Demand Paid Sick Days!

Posted Thu, 10/04/2012 - 6:39pm by IWW.org Editor

* PAID SICK DAYS NOW! * RALLY AT HOLLADAY PARK * SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 4PM *NE MULTNOMAH & 13TH AVE *

Email: paidsickdaysnow [at] gmail.com

Phone: 971-266-1891

Saturday, October 6, 2012 4pm, at Holladay Park, the Portland Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World and the IWW’s Food & Retail Workers United will hold a rally as part of a campaign to win paid sick days for all workers in Portland, Oregon. This event is sponsored by Laborers 483, American Friends Service Committee, We Are Oregon, Portland Jobs with Justice, Portland Central American Solidarity Committee, Portland Restaurant Workers Association, and the International Socialist Organization.

Featured at the rally will be speakers and musical acts, including Mic Crenshaw, The Crossettes, and I Wobble Wobble, as well as worker testimonies and opportunities to learn more about the campaign and get involved.

The rally officially kicks off our campaign, which is founded on the following mission:

We, the workers of Portland, acting in solidarity across industries, seek to improve the health and well-being of our fellow workers, families and communities. Therefore we demand that all employers within Portland provide all employees -- whether full-time, part-time or temporary -- with paid sick and safe days commensurate with hours worked.

Our Five Point Demand:

1. All of us -- full time, part time and temporary workers -- deserve paid sick and safe days to care for ourselves and our families as members of the community.

2. We call on all employers to provide paid sick and safe days immediately.

3. We need paid sick and safe days to care for our own:

● illness, which includes physical and mental health issues

● injury

● preventative care

● safety when experiencing domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking

● and bereavement for our family members.

We -- as caregivers, parents, and partners -- need paid sick days to care for our:

● spouses & domestic partners

● biological, foster, or adopted children, stepchildren, and children of domestic partners

● and other family members under our care

4. Employers will implement a standard accrual rate of paid sick and safe days for all

employees. The rate must be compassionate to the need of workers to care for both ourselves and our families.

5. Employers will not interfere, discriminate, or retaliate against our request for or use of paid sick and safe days to care for ourselves and loved ones.

We cannot wait until it’s politically convenient for paid sick & safe days. A grassroots campaign led by the workers, families and communities who are most affected by the lack of paid sick days is a necessity to ensure we acquire a policy which meets our needs.

We call upon all workers and community allies interested in learning more and participating in our campaign to attend the rally on October 6 in Holladay Park!

“An illness to one is contagious to all!”

For more information please visit http://paidsickdaysnow.org

The Dominos Fall

Posted Thu, 10/04/2012 - 6:16pm by IWW.org Editor

By Ryan Faulkner - September 18, 2012

Domino’s Pizza sucks. Not just in the sense that it treats its workers heinously, the pizza itself is of a low quality. Eating a slice of Domino’s pizza is a similar experience to swallowing a salt shaker. So its not surprising that on a Saturday night in Berkeley, the Domino’s storefront was dead. A delivery car would run out the back every 15 minutes or so, but business was not booming.

Us Wobblies posted up at a Chinese restaurant next door, waiting for 6 PM, when our demonstration was set to begin. We had committed to stage an action in solidarity with Domino’s Delivery Drivers in Australia, who have received an arbitrary wage cut of 19%, a punishment for the 23 delivery drivers who raised complaints over a trend of paychecks that came up short of their promised salaries.

The consensus in the Chinese restaurant was that this was going to be a git ’er done and out kind of deal. Walk around with signs in front of the location for a couple hours, chant some angry chants, and flyer passersby. Hopefully, by the end of the night, we’d cost Domino’s a few customers, get the workers thinking about the stability of their own wages, and bother the boss enough that they’d give corporate management a call.

But we got so much more.

Victory! ‘Unfair Labor Practice’ Confirmed at Forest Hill Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream

Posted Wed, 11/23/2011 - 4:00pm by x370724

 

The National Labor Relations Board reached a decision (case 05-CA-062891) this week bringing justice to a fellow worker wrongfully fired from the Forest Hill  Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream in Richmond, Virginia.
On August 18, 2011  (see 'Unfair Labor Practice'  at the Forest Hill Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream?) an 'Unfair Labor Practice' was filed against the local establishment for a violation of an employee's right to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid protection, as found in Sec. 7. [§ 157.] of the National Labor Relations Act.
 
The boards decision will require Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream to pay the fellow worker a settlement for lost wages, which includes an agreement that they will not return to their former position with the employer.  Furthermore, Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream must visibly post, for all current workers, and email all former workers, an apology and notice of an employee's right to unionize.

WATCH OUT: Kansas City is Organizing (with the IWW!)

Posted Sat, 09/10/2011 - 1:15am by IWW.org Editor

By FW Zachary M.- September 9th, 2011

A new organizing campaign is in full swing at a sub-sandwich shop. No, it’s not Jimmy Johns, but a local Kansas City deli and pizzeria. The campaign, initiated by a brand new member in a brand new branch, started about four months ago when a worker joined the Wobblies and then realized that the IWW is the perfect platform for making changes at the oppressive restaurant he works at. I am that worker, and this is the beginning of our ongoing struggle to take over our workplace.

I started working at the shop about two years ago but only started to organize after becoming a Wobblie in April. After a mixture of stabbing in the dark, taking advice from the group that would later become the Greater Kansas City Branch, attending a wonderfully helpful meeting with some Wobblies from the Starbucks Union in Omaha in May, and then receiving an exceptional Organizer Training in June, some real organizing started to take place. Energized and educated by the Organizer Training, I started to rally my co-workers to defend each other at work. These activities lead to our first meetings where we committed to solidarity in the workplace and began to figure out the concrete problems at our shop. After a few more weeks of organizing and trying to establish some concrete ground from which to move forward, management decided to rearrange the structure of the store and started clamping down; enforcing new and old policies alike. This new enforcement of the rules led to understaffing as workers were fired or left due to frustration over harassment in the workplace. Management refused to replace these workers and then expected the few remaining workers to pick up the slack.

Then, at the beginning of August, things at our workplace started to heat up. Corporate management decided that they want to open more locations so they need a whole new set of rules and a rigid cost cutting strategy to squeeze every last penny out of every store. To do this they are using our location as a guinea pig and transferred in a management loyal worker who has worked for the company on and off for the last 20 years. This person, whom we refer to as the Corporate Manager (CM), for lack of a better term, is not a manager but is in charge of enforcing the new rules and cutting costs. During this transition, the assistant manager was fired due to rumors that he was taking home extra food.

The weekend after the firing, I was away on vacation, so the store was more understaffed than usual because the precedent is that no one is called in to cover shifts no matter how much notice is given that a worker will be off. On Saturday there were only two line cooks, Fellow Worker Charlie and another worker. The other line cook was sent out on a catering delivery. Our store never does catering on Saturday and the worker who was sent out had never done catering before. This left FW Charlie alone to do the work of what normally is done by three workers. The store starts to get busy with the lunch rush, so FW Charlie starts running back and forth between the lines making sandwiches and running them down to our expo line which is being worked by our store manager. FW Charlie forgot to write the name of a sandwich on the wrapper (writing the names on the wrappers is a new, superfluous policy being enforced as one of the many brand new “corporate” rules because the manager refuses to read the tickets we give him with the sandwiches). The manager picks up the sandwich and yells “WRITE THE NAME ON THE GOD DAMN SANDWICH!” and throws the sandwich at FW Charlie. Not surprisingly this upsets FW Charlie. He calmly takes off his hat and apron, clocks-out, and leaves without saying a word.