Greensboro fast-food employees picket for increased wages

More than a dozen fast-food workers lined up in front of the Battleground Avenue Taco Bell this afternoon as part of a nationwide strike to demand higher wages. The workers, who protested for over an hour, participated in megaphone-led chants, such as:

"We can't survive / On seven twenty-five" 

"We are worth more!" 

"Hold your burgers, hold you fries / Make our wages super-sized"

Why I'm going on strike today: A Greensboro fast-food worker speaks out

Today fast-food workers in 50 cities, including Greensboro, will strike for higher pay and to stand for the right to organize without retaliation. One of those people, a Taco Bell employee in Greensboro, told us about why he is going on strike today.

“We’re grown people with grown bills,” he said. “I can’t have a comfortable life working at $7.75 an hour and barely making 40 hours a week.”

That’s the most he’s made in seven years off and on in fast food, working at McDonald’s, Steak & Shake and now Taco Bell. The Greensboro native, who is in his 30s, worked higher paying jobs and made up to $13 an hour, but after being laid off, fast food was the only industry where he could find work here.

“There’s somebody at my job now who’s been at my job for six years and they only make $7.85,” he said. “Managers probably get less than $10. We’re really all tired and fed up.”

People often look down on fast-food workers, he said, and assume that they don’t work hard. That isn’t true: They spend long days on their feet, sometimes without air conditioning, and they make next to nothing, he said.

The employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being fired for talking to the press and for going on strike, said he doesn’t have sick days and when workers are sick, they have to bring a doctor’s note as evidence. That’s no easy feat without insurance or the money for a doctor’s visit, he said.

Two days ago his paycheck for the last two weeks came through. The total amount: $250.

“Who can survive off that?” he asked. “Everything else I can deal with it’s just the pay is not enough to survive on. I had to postpone my cell phone bill because I can’t even pay that.”

He’s single and lives with roommates, but they’re struggling financially, too. Despite his concerns about losing his job, he said he and his coworkers are too tired and fed up not to act. Inspired by the fast-food strikes he saw in New York City recently, he’s hopeful that today’s strike in Greensboro will be a step towards $15 an hour pay for him and other workers in his industry. And if not, that he can find a job somewhere else.

“If the pay was better, I would have no problem staying,” he said. “I like my job, the people that I’m serving. I know my customers by name. It’s just very, very stressful and we’re tired of not getting paid for the work that we do.”

Some of his coworkers plan to strike with him.  


Taco Bell spokesperson Ashley Sioson directed questions regarding the strike, wages, conditions and sick policy to the National Restaurant Association because "because [the strike] is a matter that impacts the entire restaurant industry." Someone could not be reached before this post. We'll add more coverage, including from today's strike in Greensboro, soon.

Read more about the strike here. 

Fast-food strike announced in Greensboro

Fast-food workers in Greensboro will join a nationwide strike tomorrow calling for higher wages, according to a press release. Organizers say the strike — that will span 50 cities including Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte —will be the biggest ever to hit the fast-food industry.

Workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Little Caesars, Taco Bell, KFC and Bojangles will walk off their jobs in the four North Carolina cities. In Greensboro, workers and supporters will gather at 11:30 a.m. at 2606 Battleground Ave, next to a Taco Bell and in sight of a Wendy's. [An earlier flyer, left, says 2600 Battleground, but the press release this morning was more specific and listed 2606.]

The one-day action draws on fast food strikes in seven cities earlier this summer and is also a call for the right to form a union "without retaliation or unfair labor practices." It's already a federal right, but labor lawyers, workers and organizers say companies often violate the law with impunity.

The NC Raise Up campaign is calling for a $15/hour wage, a significant increase from the average fast-food wage in the state but still a far cry from a living wage, the release said.

Stay posted for more coverage from Alex Ashe and Eric Ginsburg.

UPDATE: Read this short article about one Taco Bell worker's reasons for participating in the Greensboro strike.

Local 22 historic marker honors tobacco unionism

The Unveiling of Local 22 marker from Cheryl R. Green on Vimeo.

Labor activists, scholars and elected officials commemorated Local 22, a union led primarily black, female tobacco workers that won significant gains in a struggle at Reynolds tobacco company in the 1940s, with the unveiling of a historic marker at the corner of East 4th Street Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Winston-Salem on Saturday.

Larry Little, a founder of the Black Panther Party chapter in Winston-Salem and former city council member, and Richard Koritz, a long-time labor leader, presided over the ceremony. Koritz's father came to Winston-Salem to help organize the union and Little's mother was active in the campaign. Panelists paid tribute to union leaders such as Velma Hopkins, whose granddaughters were present for the unveiling, along with NC Sen. Earline Parmon, a protege.

"We stand on their shoulders — of Local 22," Little said after the marker was unveiled. "Right on."

The marker tells the story of the campaign in concise fashion: "Tobacco unionism: Strike by leaf workers, mostly black & female, June 17, 1943, 1/2 mile W., led to seven years of labor & civil rights activism by Local 22."

Numerous elected officials attended the unveiling, including NC Rep. Ed Hanes Jr. and Evelyn Terry; Forsyth County Commissioners Walter Marshall and Everette Witherspoon; Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board member Elisabeth Motsinger; and Winston-Salem City Council members Derwin Montgomery, James Taylor Jr. and Dan Besse

City council hears report on discontent in sanitation department

Council members pose for a photo to commemorate the city's centennial.

Winston-Salem City Council met in closed session for about 50 minutes on Monday night to hear a report from top administrators on the findings from an investigation into allegations of misconduct in the sanitation department.

"We do take these issues very seriously, and that's why we have asked for this investigation," Mayor Allen Joines said after council adjourned in public following the closed session. The mayor added that he was limiting his statement to avoid preempting a formal statement to be drafted by City Manager Lee Garrity and City Attorney Angela Carmon on behalf of the city council and released in the coming weeks.

Former and current sanitation employees have raised several issues of concern about the department, including allegations of sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions and disrespectful treatment by citizens who are customers of the department's public services. Most troubling perhaps is an allegation by a sanitation laborer captured on an audio recording that a supervisor forged his signature on a statement.

The supervisor, Darrell Moody, can also be heard on a recording obtained by YES! Weekly, pressuring the laborer, Victor Bethea, to change his statement and threatening to write his own statement in substitution. Both incidents took place during an administrative investigation that ultimately led to the dismissal of a driver named Angelia Byrd who was involved with a confrontation with a resident over whether the resident should be receiving special backyard trash pickup.

The allegations were detailed in an investigative report published by YES! Weekly earlier this month. Garrity, Assistant City Manager Greg Turner and Sanitation Director Johnnie Taylor, along with Carmon, met in closed session with council to answer members' questions.

Joines said the city will have to strike a balance in its statement between providing adequate detail to maintain public confidence and protecting the privacy rights of employees.

"It's a very difficult position that the city is in," he said. "We have to be careful in how that's worded to protect the rights of employees, but we do want to reassure the public that the department is being managed appropriately." 

Addressing council during the public speakers portion of the meeting before council went into closed session, Byrd reminded council members that she had come before them last month with allegations of sexual harassment, forgery and wrongful termination. She asked Joines and the other council members what came of the investigation and whether anything had been done about it.

Joines responded that council would be unable to publicly address many of the allegations because of restrictions on the release of personnel information.

Byrd said after the meeting that she expects to meet with Garrity to receive a report on the findings of the city's internal investigation. 

Related to the personnel problems in the sanitation department, employees have raised questions about possibly abuses in the city's curbside garbage pickup program, which allows residents to receive backyard service simply by filing an application that attests that no one in the household is capable of moving trash to the curb. About 5 percent of households in Winston-Salem receive backyard service in Winston-Salem, compared to about 1 percent in other cities across the state. A citizens budget review committee has recommended that the city require residents to obtain a doctor's note to continue to receive backyard service -- a change that would save taxpayers an estimated $114,000.

"I've been a bit concerned about the large number of exemptions," Joines said on Monday. "I've felt for some time that we should maybe take a look at that issue and perhaps adopt a more formal policy and require more detail in the applications."

He added that he expects staff to make a detailed report to the city council's public works committee on the matter in coming months.

Councilman Dan Besse, who represents the Southwest Ward, has said he supports the current policy, arguing that requiring the elderly and people with disabilities to obtain a doctor's note would subject them to indignity and unwarranted inconvenience.

"Thus far a majority of the Winston-Salem council has come down on the side of the elderly, frail and disabled," he said earlier this month. "That's my vote, and I'm sticking to it."

In other news, the council unanimously approved a resolution in support of legislation filed by NC Rep. Ed Hanes Jr. that would allow county commissions to set aside the most recent tax reappraisal. Constituents in predominantly black neighborhoods on the east side of Winston-Salem have sought relief from the recent round of revaluations, which they contend have artificially diminished the value of their properties.

Council also delayed a vote on change orders to Blythe Construction and HDR Engineering for work on stormwater management and new streets at the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter on the eastern flank of downtown.

Councilwoman Wanda Merschel, who represents the Northwest Ward, said she opposed the change orders because of escalating costs due to unforeseen environmental contamination.

"At some point someone's going to have to explain to me what could have been done to avoid $5.2 million in change orders," she said.

Turner, the assistant city manager, said fly ash and fuel oil were discovered that were likely created by a physical plant and incinerator operated by the city. He said state would require the city to clean up the mess one way or another.

"This is our fly ash and our fuel oil poured on top of it," said Councilman Robert Clark, who represents the West Ward, "and we have to clean it up."

Merschel replied, "This one is hard.... This one just looks bad for taxpayers."

Before council could take a vote, Councilman James Taylor Jr., who represents the Southeast Ward, made a motion for no consideration. The parliamentary procedure results in the matter being placed on the agenda for the next meeting in April. After listening to objections from Merschel, along with Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke and Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, Taylor said he found himself on the fence and surmised that he might be in a position to cast the swing vote on the contract.

 

Rally for workers' rights held downtown

A few dozen people representing various unions, churches, Cakalak Thunder drum corps and other community members rallied at Greensboro's government center yesterday under the banner "Defend the Dream" beginning at 4:30 p.m.

Marking the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the protest was organized by Jobs with Justice to support the rights of North Carolina state employees and workers in Wisconsin and other states who are "under attack."

Speakers included representatives from the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the Greensboro Pulpit Forum, NC Labor Against the War and Jobs with Justice. The overall theme was the importance of solidarity and working together to protect all workers from threats to their rights from government budget cuts.