Fast-food workers continued demonstrating for better conditions Friday, protesting a Wendy’s shareholder meeting just one week after the New York Attorney General announced an investigation into claims of widespread wage theft in the industry.
Two labor rights groups, Fast Food Forward and the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers, organized rallies Thursday and Friday outside
the Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where Wendy’s executives
had gathered for an annual conference. The crowd chanted “$15
and a Union,” reiterating their basic demand for higher wages
and the right to organize without fear of retaliation.
Hourly workers in the roughly 5,900 Wendy’s locations across the
US often earn between $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage
standard, and $7.45, according to the Village Voice. An average
fast food worker earns approximately $11,300 annually, a sum far
below the national poverty line.
“I’m tired of working all week, going to cash my check, and
the check bounces,” Marcus Rose, a Wendy’s worker in Brooklyn,
told the Voice. “A lot of people have children out here, but
don’t have enough money to put clothes on their
back.”
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) also called on Wendy’s
to join Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Chipotle to
provide better wages for the Florida farmworkers who supply the
major chains with tomatoes.
Wendy’s released a statement claiming, “All of our Florida
tomato suppliers participate in the Fair Food Program, and are
required to operate in a way that is safe and lawful for all our
workers ” – a misleading assertion, according to Gerardo Reyes
Chavez of the CIW.
“Wendy’s is not participating in the Fair Food Program but
its CEO has claimed in front of its shareholders that it does,”
Chavez told the Nation’s Restaurant News. “Wendy’s has not
signed a Fair Food agreement with the CIW. Wendy’s is not paying a
penny premium to increase workers’ pay, and Wendy’s has not
committed to using its purchasing power to eradicate abuses in the
fields together with growers and farm workers.”
This week’s rallies follow recent protests in Detroit, Chicago,
St. Louis, Washington, DC and New York calling on all major fast
food brands to boost wages.
Addressing the unrest, New York State Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman announced last week that his office has opened an
investigation into at least one chain, which went unnamed, for wage
theft. The assertions of abuse, echoed by fast-food workers across
the country, allege that many restaurant franchises have forced
employees to pay out of their own pocket when the register is
short, denied overtime pay, made employees work off the clock, and
refused to allow breaks.
An astounding 84 per cent of New York fast-food workers reported
being victims of wage theft and a national poll of 4,500 workers
found that two-thirds experience some kind of wage theft at least
once a week.
New York City councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents
low-income neighborhoods in New York’s Harlem and Bronx sections,
told protesters last week the demonstrations were evidence of a
“hidden crime wave” that has abused the working poor for
years.
“This is a crime wave that is not being engaged in by petty
thieves, but by a multibillion-dollar industry,” she said.
This article originally appeared on: RT