They’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. Fast-food workers from restaurants across New York City walked off the job Thursday, marking the beginning of an extremely rare strike against the nearly union-free industry. Employees from McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and Papa John’s all participated, with workers from the Golden Arches making up the most of the activists. This is considered the first salvo in an effort to unionize workers in the industry, typified by low wages, limited hours, and high turnover. Civil rights groups, religious leaders, and a labor union organized the walk out.

Salon:

At 6:30 this morning, New York City fast food workers walked off the job, launching a rare strike against a nearly union-free industry. Organizers expect workers at dozens of stores to join the one-day strike, a bold challenge to an industry whose low wages, limited hours and precarious employment typify a growing portion of the U.S. economy.

New York City workers are organizing at McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and Papa John’s. Organizers expect today’s strike to include workers from almost all of those chains, with the largest group coming from McDonald’s; the company did not respond to a request for comment.

But employees were clear about their reasons for walking out. “They’re not paying us enough to survive,” McDonald’s worker Raymond Lopez told Salon in a pre-strike interview. Lopez said he decided to join today’s strike because “This company has enough money to pay us a reasonable amount for all that we do … they’re just not going to give it to us as long as they can get away with it. I think we need to be heard.”

Thursday's strike also comes one week after non-union Wal-Mart workers staged their unprecedented strike wave against the retail giant.

According to the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, 1,000 protests occurred at Wal-Mart stores across 46 states, with hundreds of workers walking off the job in an unprecedented decentralized, open-source strike at the retail giant. Local Occupy groups supported actions in dozens of cities. OWS joined with 99 Pickets, ALIGN, the Retail Action Project, and others to show solidarity to Wal-mart workers in Secaucus, New Jersey. Despite attempts by Wal-Mart's propaganda department to downplay the events, the latest massive wave of strikes and solidarity actions at Wal-Mart forced even the corporate media to pay attention, and put the 1% on notice: When we work together, another world is possible. We do not have to accept poverty, low wages, or unfair working conditions with no benefits while six members of the Walton family are worth more than the bottom 42% of American families combined.

However, the struggle is far from over! Today's inspiring actions point the way forward. Please continue to support OUR Wal-Mart and all low-wage workers in the struggle for economic justice and show support for the courageous workers and unemployed people on the frontlines against income inequality.

They say roll back, we say fight back!

[Via OccupyWallSt.]

For the first time in 50 years of Wal-Mart’s smiley-faced existence, workers have been walking out and attempting to disrupt Wal-Mart’s warp-speed supply chain. Why? Because they want things like ceiling fans when it’s 120 degrees outside. But some billionaires can be SO touchy!

Since none of the workers are unionized, these people are especially brave. And now they’re talking about even bigger action on Black Friday.

[Via Upworthy]

via Sarah Jaffe:

To make a mess that another person will have to deal with—the dropped socks, the toothpaste sprayed on the bathroom mirror, the dirty dishes left from a late-night snack—is to exert domination in one of its more silent and intimate forms. -Barbara Ehrenreich, in “Made to Order,” an essay from the anthology Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, co-edited with Arlie Russell Hochschild

[This quote is] relevant to an argument I just had about “disruptive” protest at Walmart in supposed solidarity with the Black Friday strikes. Picket, protest, march and rally all you want, hold a sit-in, but please, before you do things like deliberately create a mess in the store or leave a full cart in the checkout line, consider who’s going to have to clean up the mess that you make. It’s not going to be Rob Walton or any of the other multibillionaires. It won’t even be the assistant manager. It’ll be the same low-wage worker who maybe wanted to go on strike but wasn’t quite convinced, or who was threatened by their boss, who’s working an extra-long shift on the worst shopping day of the year.

Solidarity doesn’t mean you decide for yourself what is best for the workers. It means showing up in the ways they need and want you to and letting them decide how to build worker power.

We ask you to reflect on the statement issued by workers and Making Change at Wal-Mart as you plan your Black Friday solidarity action:

Across the country, Wal-Mart employs 1.4 million people. We are not just the Associates that you see in stores, we are moms and dads, sons and daughters, husbands and wives working hard to support our families.

We have been speaking out for good jobs with decent pay, regular hours, affordable healthcare and respect, but instead of working with us to make changes, Wal-Mart has attempted to silence us and has retaliated against us for speaking out. Our jobs have been threatened, our hours cut, our schedules changed. Some of us have even been fired.

We will not be silenced. Throughout the holiday season, including Black Friday, we will be standing up for an end to the retaliation against workers who speak out for what’s right for our families, our communities and our country, and we hope that you will stand with us. It is not an easy decision, but without an end to the retaliation, Wal-Mart workers across the country will be walking off the job in protest, and we hope you will join us in creative, non-violent action in solidarity with our strike. We ask that supporters take action that spreads the word about our strikes and demonstrates to Wal-Mart a wave of support for workers who are speaking out.

Together, we are calling on Wal-Mart to end the retaliation against hard-working employees who are courageously speaking out for better pay, fair schedules and more hours, affordable health care and respect.

We will not be silenced until we see real change at Wal-Mart.

Sincerely, OUR Wal-Mart Workers

Editors note: Please consider supporting the Wal-Mart Strikers Food Fund

[Via]

After walking out of school to protest school closures and conditions, nearly 200 Detroit Public School students were suspended for as much as two weeks, their cell phones confiscated and gone through with phone contacts deleted by police.

A DPS spokesman later blasted the community for encouraging and participating in the protest.

Detroit News:

An estimated 200 students walked out of school midday Wednesday to protest the upcoming closure of Southwestern High School and demand improved conditions across the district. Students explained their reasons for walking out in a minute-long video posted on YouTube.

"We don't have the necessary supplies we need to learn," a student said in the clip viewed some 1,150 times. "Teachers should motivate us more to learn and succeed. … Some only care about their paychecks and not enough about our education. We want our voices heard in any decision-making process that will affect us as students."

Freddie Burse, another student in the video who helped organize the protest, said he learned he was being suspended after being pulled from the lunchroom Thursday.

After students identified as having walked out Wednesday gathered near the auditorium, school employees handed them suspension slips, Burse said. Students were not given details about why they were suspended, but the notices implied it was for being part of "a student demonstration."

In March, students at Denby High School in Detroit marched to protest plans to have the state take over the school as part of a plan initiated by Gov. Rick Snyder. Students were also suspended after they staged a walked out in March at an all boys school in Detroit to demand an education.

A student from the only all boys school in Detroit, the Douglass Academy spoke with the Detroit Free Press about their walkout:

"We've been wronged and disrespected and lied to and cheated," said senior Tevin Hill, who made the announcement to start the walkout. "They didn't listen to us when we complained to the administration. They didn't listen to the parents when they complained to the administration, so I guess this is the only way to get things solved."

Hill said he was accepted to Bowling Green State University but left the college's math placement exam recently.

"I'm generally good in math, but I was embarrassed. I didn't know any of it."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in 2009 branded Detroit "ground zero" for education reform, however the district is still hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and faces dwindling enrollment, the first day of academic year 2011-2012 saw a 55 percent attendance rate.