By Verónica Bayetti Flores • @veroconplatanos • 10 years ago

Fast food workers follow up year of protests with nationwide strike

Fast food workers striking

Fast food workers are following up a year of protests demanding wage increases with a nationwide strike across 130 cities in the United States. Workers are asking for $15 an hour, and are part of a larger movement demanding the rise of the minimum wage.

Two thirds of fast food workers are adult women, and they are disproportionately women of color. Over two thirds of fast food workers are the main earners for their families.

The strike comes just as a new report exposes the fact that fast food CEOs – whose daily wages are more than twice the annual wages of the average fast food worker in New York City – have used government subsidies and tax loopholes to subsidize their bazillionaire salaries. Sarah Anderson at the Institute for Policy Studies explains to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:

Well, this is a perverse loophole in our tax code that essentially means that the more corporations pay their CEO, the less they pay in taxes. And that’s because there is this loophole that allows companies to deduct unlimited amounts from their corporate income taxes for the expense of executive pay, as long as it’s so-called performance pay—so, stock options and other bonuses that are configured in a way to qualify for this tax loophole. And what it means essentially is that ordinary taxpayers are subsidizing excessive CEO pay.

If you see strikers, make sure to tell them that you’ve got their backs, and don’t cross the picket lines!

1bfea3e7449eff65a94e2e55a8b7acda-bpfullVerónica is an immigrant queer writer, artist, and music video expert.

 

New York, NY

Verónica Bayetti Flores has spent the last years of her life living and breathing reproductive justice. She has led national policy and movement building work on the intersections of immigrants' rights, health care access, young parenthood, and LGBTQ liberation, and has worked to increase access to contraception and abortion, fought for paid sick leave, and demanded access to safe public space for queer youth of color. In 2008 Verónica obtained her Master’s degree in the Sexuality and Health program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She loves cooking, making art, listening to music, and thinking about the ways art forms traditionally seen as feminine are valued and devalued. In addition to writing for Feministing, she is currently spending most of her time doing policy work to reduce the harms of LGBTQ youth of color's interactions with the police and making sure abortion care is accessible to all regardless of their income.

Verónica is a queer immigrant writer, activist, and rabble-rouser.

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