McDonald’s Can’t Hide Behind Franchise System – A Troublemakers Handbook: How To Fight Back Where You

McDonald’s Can’t Hide Behind Franchise System

 

– See more at: http://labornotes.org/2014/08/mcdonald%E2%80%99s-can%E2%80%99t-hide-behind-franchise-system#sthash.VB5H4lMQ.dpuf

McDonald’s workers demanding “$15 and a union” have reason to cheer. A move by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Office of the General Counsel on July 29 throws a big wrench in the corporation’s franchise system and could open the door to more worker organizing.

The news follows several one-day strikes by fast food workers, most recently in May, when restaurant workers walked off their low-wage jobs in 150 U.S. cities in a campaign coordinated by the Service Employees (SEIU). Workers charge that on top of paying unlivably low wages, the restaurants break the law by stealing wages and retaliating against those who speak up.

THREE THOUSAND BOSSES

While 761,000 people work for McDonald’s in the U.S., they have more than 3,000 different bosses. These bosses are franchisees—individuals or companies that pay McDonald’s for permission to use the brand and set up shop. McDonald’s also directly operates 15 percent of its stores.

Individual franchisees have little power over how to operate the restaurants. They sign an agreement to follow McDonald’s guidelines and even to purchase supplies only from the corporate office, where menu item prices are also set.

For McDonald’s, the largest burger chain in the world, it’s a dream deal—guaranteed income without having to shoulder the risk of, say, getting caught breaking labor laws. They’re free to plead ignorance, much like employers who hide behind layers of subcontractors.

Supposedly franchisees decide workers’ wages. But in reality headquarters controls wages “by controlling every other variable in the business except wages,” explains a report from the National Employment Law Project. It’s no coincidence those wages all hover around the minimum. So if workers want to raise the wage, they’ll have to get the corporation to the table.

JOINT EMPLOYER

By calling McDonald’s a “joint employer” with its franchisees, the General Counsel—that’s the prosecuting side of the NLRB—sided with workers, who argue the corporation exerts so much control over store operations that it should be held accountable for what happens under its Golden Arches. The agency’s judicial side—the actual Labor Board—is independent of the prosecuting side, so there’s no guarantee it will ultimately agree with this interpretation.

But this is a big first step. Several dozen unfair labor practice claims, alleging unpaid wages, work off the clock, and retaliatory firings, have been on hold in local NLRB offices across the country. The General Counsel’s announcement will clear the way for local NLRB offices to hold the corporation, not just franchisees, accountable for the workplace abuses. That should help turn up the heat on corporate.

If rulings start coming out against the corporate office, that should help turn up the heat on McDonald’s. Maybe enough to push them to cut a deal with the union.

NOW WHAT?

Though the news is good, it probably doesn’t mean workers will soon be negotiating their working conditions with McDonald’s Corporation. After all, fellow low-wage employer Walmart directly operates its stores—yet unions have been unable to keep a toehold there.

Just before the NLRB announcement, fast food workers held a convention, underwritten by SEIU, near McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago. There 1,200 workers from many fast food chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, pledged to escalate their tactics, including to civil disobedience.

These workers are in for a long fight, but there are victories they can look to for inspiration. It’s not impossible to win agreements that bring three groups—in this case the corporation, the franchisees, and the workers—to the table.

After five years of organizing, farmworkers in North Carolina tobacco fields forced R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to the table in 2012. They used a sustained attack on the Reynolds brand to get the attention of both growers and the corporation that buys their crop. This summer they’re upping their organizing, seeking to produce enough pressure to actually win a joint contract, as other farmworkers have done.

Tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida organized in the fields and with allies for decades before finally winning three-way contracts with growers and the fast food chains that buy from them.

The same possibility exists at McDonald’s and other franchised fast-food corporations. Some day we may see multi-sided contracts crisscrossing the whole fast food supply chain, uniting farmworkers, meatpackers, truckers, and retail workers against a single brand. But it’s going to take a lot more than the NLRB’s opinion to get there.

A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #426, September 2014

http://labornotes.org/2014/08/mcdonald%E2%80%99s-can%E2%80%99t-hide-behind-franchise-system

A Troublemakers Handbook: How To Fight Back Where You

A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win! (review)

Bruce Nissen

From: Labor Studies Journal
Volume 30, Number 3, Fall 2005
pp. 108-110 | 10.1353/lab.2005.0063

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Labor Studies Journal 30.3 (2005) 108-110

A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win! Edited by Jane Slaughter. Detroit, MI: A Labor Notes Book, 2005. 372 pp. $24 paper.

A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 is a successor to the popular A Troublemaker’s Handbook, which was published in 1991. The earlier volume had become a widely used reference book for union “troublemakers” who worked to put more activism into the labor movement. It had also been extensively used in many labor education programs, primarily through photocopied chapters dealing with particular issues and tactics.

The new edition is bigger and broader than the last one. At 372 pages, this large book with its double-column format is equivalent to a 550-600 page book of normal dimensions. This sampling of chapter titles should give a sense of how widespread its contents are: Organizing New Members, Shopfloor Tactics, Fighting Discrimination, Saving Good Jobs, Organizing for Health and Safety, Strikes, Corporate Campaigns, Allying with the Community, Bringing Immigrants into the Movement, Reform Caucuses, Running Your Local, Dealing with the Media, International Solidarity, and Troublemaking on the Home Page. About a dozen of the 72 authors are full-time labor educators, so the educational aspect of many of the above topics gets full attention.

Troublemaker’s 2 is a massive resource volume that can help activist labor leaders, rank-and-filers, and their allies develop a stronger, more activist labor movement. There is no comparable book on the market that has as much useful information in one place. Many of its individual chapters will be extremely useful in labor education programs, and I highly recommend that that all labor educators get a copy and make good use of it. Any type of labor activist should find it equally useful.

Depending on the reader’s interest or need, different parts of the book will be more valuable or useful. For example, this reviewer found the chapters on dealing with the media and doing work on the worldwide web particularly enlightening, because those are areas of current interest combined with relative ignorance. Others with an interest in contract campaigns or labor-community alliances may find those chapters most useful. In short, this book could be seen as something of an “encyclopedia” that can be consulted piecemeal, topic by topic.

That said, some issues in the book are likely to ignite controversies. For example, a number of national unions are portrayed in a very critical light, usually because the book’s viewpoint is for the most part a rank-and-file perspective. Some readers who may disagree with an assessment of a particular union might be tempted to reject the book in whole. I think this would be a mistake. Whatever disagreements one might have with one of the book’s 72 authors, its cornucopia of strategies, ideas, tactics, and resources are immensely valuable to anybody trying to build a more activist and engaged labor movement. Readers would be well advised to “get over it” on any particular disagreement and put the many helpful parts of this book to good use.

Some parts of the book are already outdated, as is probably inevitable in a book of this nature. For example, a reform Teamsters local in Washington State that is a centerpiece “success story” in the book has been decertified after a vicious and lengthy employer assault. In addition, a few of the case write ups contain minor inaccuracies. Neither of these issues constitutes a major problem.

This is an enormously useful book to the labor movement and to its activists. I recommend it highly.

Bruce Nissen

Florida International University

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lab/summary/v030/30.3nissen.html

US fast-food workers on strike over pay – controappuntoblog

Excusive: Fast food strikes in 150 cities and protests in 30 countries planned for May 15 ; la lunga lotta degli schiavi del fast food

http://www.controappuntoblog.org/2014/05/15/exclusive-fast-food-strikes-in-150-cities-and-protests-in-30-countries-planned-for-may-15-la-lunga-lotta-degli-schiavi-del-fast-food/

Usa, la protesta dei lavoratori dei fast food non si arresta

New York Fast Food Workers in Historic Strike for $15 an Hou

US fastfood workers on strike over pay – controappuntoblog

Napoli: Scioperano i lavoratori dei McDonald’s e ottengono ..

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