Inspiration movement

Protest action has taken place in 20 cities across the UK in support of low paid workers in Fast Food restaurants demanding an end to poverty pay and union rights.

The Fast Food Forward movement which campaigns under the slogan ‘Fight for 15’ was started by 200 McDonald’s workers in New York two years ago and has now spread to 200 cities across the United States.

The demand for US$15 per hour is ambitious when current wages for fast food workers is the minimum US$7.25. In response McDonald’s offered a 10 per cent  pay rise and big increase in paid holidays. But the pay rise only applies to one in 20 workers, at 89 cents its around 50p an hour and the paid holidays are for 20 hours a year.

Paid holidays of that duration would be illegal in McDonald’s restaurants in the UK and across most of Europe where minimum holidays are guaranteed by European wide directives.

The vast majority of those who work in McDonald’s are based in 14,000 franchised restaurants set up as stand alone small businesses. These retaurants hire and fire and set their own pay and conditions.

McDonald’s insists it does not directly employ the franchise restaurant employees. Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary who was at the protest at McDonald’s in Marble Arch, central London told Unite Live, “Low paid workers in the US can’t survive on poverty pay propped up by food stamps. They are the same as low paid workers in the UK relying on tax credits and food banks.

“Whether it is admitted or not, many employers in the UK and the US have the minimum wage as their target normal wage rather that the absolute floor it is meant to be. As in the UK we have a low pay business model being propped up in different ways by the taxpayer.

Inspiration

“These low paid US workers are an inspiration to us all. They have spread their movement against poverty pay from one restaurant to 200 cities and now to the UK.

“The momentum they have built against poor pay and with their target of $15 dollars an hour is phenomenal. They have stirred and awakened low paid workers in precarious employment that were often thought to be too difficult to organise.

“We should show our support and be clear that employers must pay a living wage not the minimum they can get away with. We cannot let multinationals dictate poor pay and worse benefits, that must change.

“These workers are angry that they can’t earn enough to live on, and are bravely organising in the some of the biggest anti-worker and anti-union multinationals in the world. We showed our solidarity by protesting outside McDonald’s at Marble Arch in London and across the UK in support of the global day of action.

“And Unite is looking closely at how this movement has grown up . We want to ensure that low paid service workers in the UK get the benefits of trade union membership.”