The first, historic fast food strike was November 29, 2012, in New York City. Now it's spread across the country to 100 cities.
Today is expected to be the biggest day yet of the fast food strikes that have swept the country for the past year, with walkouts planned for 100 cities. By now, fast food and retail workers have held one-day strikes in enough cities and enough times that it may be starting to seem almost routine, but it's important to remember how unprecedented this is: Just over a year ago, the strike by 200 New York City fast food workers was a historic event, and every escalation—like today's—similarly represents something new. What's not new are the
reasons workers give for striking or the intimidation and retaliation they face for their actions:
“I’m tired of trying to make ends meet and they’re not meeting …” Richmond, Va., Burger King employee Crystal Travis told Salon in a pre-strike interview. “I don’t make enough to even have Christmas.” Richmond is one of dozens of cities where fast food strikes are expected today for the first time. Prior to her three years at Burger King, Travis said she’d spent a decade working at fast food chains including Wendy’s and McDonald’s, and found “not much of a difference” between them. When she first watched last year’s New York walkout, Travis told Salon, her question was, “Is it real? Are they going to make a difference?” But having watched the strikes spread, said Travis, “you see a reflection of yourself.” Travis, who’d never struck before today, has been visiting fellow fast food workers who live in her public housing complex to urge them to join her, and said others have shown up at her door wanting to know more about the strike. She said her organizing efforts have drawn attention from her store’s general manager, who told her in front of co-workers, “You’re crazy. Ain’t nothing gonna change.”
It's a guarantee that nothing will change—except maybe for the worse—if workers
don't fight. Fighting is an uphill battle given the differential in power between giant, profitable corporations and low-wage workers struggling to make ends meet. But building worker power is the only choice if these particular workers want to have a chance at getting ahead, and it's the only real chance at stopping the economic race to the bottom in the country more generally.