Breaking Down This Week's Fast Food Strikes in St. Louis and Detroit

2013-05-11 · first published in marxsite · 202 words

This was not a Socialist Resistance publication. marxsite was Phil Hearse’s own long-form site, run alongside the paper he helped edit. It is kept here with his agreement, recovered from the Internet Archive after the domain lapsed and was taken over by someone else; nothing here links to the address it now points at.

Only part of this piece survives. The capture it was recovered from is truncated, so the text below stops before the article did.

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The new labor movement spreads to two Midwestern cities. ( AlterNet )

May 10, 2013

A new movement of fast food workers demanding better wages and the right to unionize spread to two Midwestern cities this week, St. Louis and Detroit, bringing the total number of such actions to four in five weeks. Similar strikes occurred last month in New York and Chicago. As we did during the strike in New York , we’ve put together a breakdown of what’s happening in St. Louis and Detroit:

Who is striking this week?

According to MSNBC, organizers estimate up to 400 fast food workers from at least 60 different restaurants in Detroit walked off the job today, possibly a record-high for this type of action. Josh Eidelson reports for The Nation that at least four restaurants were forced shut down due to strikes, including two McDonald’s, a Long John’s Silver and a Popeye’s. At one McDonald’s location, management reportedly brought in additional workers to replace the striking employees, only to have them join the action.

More than 100 St. Louis fast food workers walked off the job Wednesday and Thursday, reported MSNBC’ Ned Resnikoff , including employees of McDonald’s, Jimmy John’s, Wendy’s and Domino’s.