Impossible Choices: Fast-Food Workers Explain Why They're Striking

http://www.thenation.com/blog/179890/impossible-choices-fast-food-workers-explain-why-theyre-striking


Demonstrators hold signs and chant slogans outside of a Wendy's fast food restaurant, April 4, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The yellow arches of McDonald’s have always symbolized a dubious kind of globalization: worlds apart bridged by the tentacles of multinational corporations, spawning enormous profits for a few, and Big Macs for all.

The arches may have a different symbolic power now that they’ve sparked a global movement for living wages and the right to unionize. On Thursday, in an expected 230 cities spread across six continents, workers from McDonald’s and other fast-food chains rallied together to demand wages of $15 an hour and to protest their working conditions. Demonstrations were planned from Casablanca to Belfast, Santo Domingo to Venice, Bangkok to Auckland and across the US.

According to the fast-food industry, the rallies are all show. “These are made-for-TV media moments—that’s pretty much it,” Scott DeFife, the executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, told The New York Times. “The vast majority of these protesters are not actually restaurant workers.”

Low-wage work isn’t TV—it’s reality, and an impossible one, for millions of people. On Thursday, I talked to several of them about their reasons for striking. Though DeFife may be unable to hear them, the truth is that many fast-food workers simply can’t afford to be silent.