Author: Workers Voice

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Workers Voice Socialist Movement condemns the racist and sexist massacre in Atlanta that has taken the lives of 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women. This most recent tragedy follows a year that has seen thousands of anti-Asian attacks across the U.S. It is urgent that we put an end to the racist violence afflicting our Asian and Pacific Islander siblings. To do so, we must get to the root of the problem.

Many attribute the rise in attacks to Trump’s racist scapegoating of China for the U.S. failure to control the coronavirus. But Trump is simply the most racist expression of a broader propaganda campaign—pushed by Democrats and Republicans alike—to prime US residents for war with China.

Asians have endured decades of violence at the hands of U.S. imperialism from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Japanese internment camps to the murderous wars on the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. Each one of these atrocities was accompanied by a racist campaign to turn workers against their Asian siblings. The most recent slew of lies, slanders, and racist anti-Asian caricatures took off around the time of Obama/Biden administration’s “Pivot to Asia” which signaled a move by US imperialism to more directly target China for U.S. domination. Polls show that in only the last ten years, U.S. public opinion has dramatically reversed from a once favorable view towards China.

U.S. politicians and the big business media have always needed to demonize the people they’ve targeted for attack because they would have much less success openly admitting that the U.S. is committing mass murder to benefit a few bankers, bosses, and war profiteers. For years they’ve fanned the flames of Islamophobia so that US residents and soldiers would be duped into accepting war on Muslim majority countries like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan. And they resorted to the most disgusting means of dehumanizing Asians in order to justify the murder of millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Korean, Filipino, Indonesian, and Japanese people, including children.

On March 1, 2021—as millions struggle to survive a pandemic— Admiral Phillip Davidson, the military head of the Indo-Pacific Command, requested an extra $27.3 billion in taxpayer dollars to bolster U.S. efforts to threaten China with violence. To justify his request, Davidson referred to China as “the strategic threat of the century to the U.S.” How many Asians are among the “collateral damage” that these admirals and billionaires are willing to accept in order to sell this lie?

To treat the cancer of racism that is eating away at U.S. society, we have to eliminate the source of its power. Workers can break the chains of racism but we must challenge head-on the lies and slanders that Wall Street and the Pentagon trot out to sell their wars or justify their domination of the world.

Racism and oppressions of all sorts are promoted by the capitalists because when workers are divided against one another they pose less of a threat to the dictatorship of the rich. But if we workers of the world unite to fight for our common interests—for food, healthcare, and housing—their racist lies will increasingly fall on deaf ears. United, workers even have the power to put an end to their murderous wars.

Solidarity with our Asian brothers, sisters, and siblings!

Workers and all oppressed people of the world unite to end U.S. imperialism and white supremacy!

Video Footage by Marion Hill

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Orleans Workers Group called a Car Rally today in solidarity with all incarcerated people. While we practiced social distancing rules, our motorcade was over 70 cars long and drove several times around the Juvenile Justice Court, Orleans Parish Prison, New Orleans I.C.E. Office and City Hall. This effort was to demand the immediate release of all people in ICE detention centers, jails, and prisons who are not convicted of violent crimes. We know that the inhumane conditions in these institutions are ripe for death and horror, all the worse with COVID-19 ravaging the state of Louisiana. We are also calling for an immediate moratorium on all arrests, deportations, and ICE raids. Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition, VOTE Louisiana, New Orleans Center for Racial Justice also participated in the rally.

Today, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that 15 incarcerated people have tested positive for the Coronavirus. We also know that the numbers of positive cases are quickly rising in youth detention, ICE detention, and prisons all over the state. We cannot let this happen to our community members. While the State government has no shortage of prison beds, there are shortages of hospital beds and ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis. Year in and year out, our local and state budgets reflect the priorities of the government: mass incarceration and violent policing of our communities. Instead of wasting millions of our tax dollars on prisons, detention centers (concentration camps), and police, these funds should be used to fulfill the needs of the people, especially during the pandemic. Containment of this virus and survival are of top importance to us, and we know that this is impossible as long as there are people locked in prisons.

#FreeThemAll!

NO MORE IMPERIALIST WARS, NO MORE IMPERIALIST LIES

MONEY FOR SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS AND JOBS, NOT WAR ON IRAN!

With the support of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Trump administration is moving to start another war—this time against Iran. We need to educate our fellow workers and stop this from happening!

The recently published “Afghanistan Papers” reveal how both Republican and Democratic administrations and generals lied to the American people for 18 years, costing the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers and more than 100,000 Afghan men, women, and children. During this time, the Pentagon looted the national budget to the tune of $1,000,000,000,000. This money could have been used to meet human needs. No worker should be tricked into going along with these imperialist wars that serve no purpose other than to make capitalists rich and destroy the lives of workers.

MORE LIES FROM U.S. WARMONGERS

Each new war requires new lies to justify it, but they all serve the same purpose: to enrich war profiteers, oil companies, banks and dictators. Who loses? The people of all the countries involved.

In 2003 George W. Bush invaded Iraq after sanctions had killed half a million children. U.S. war hawks and their mouthpieces in the capitalist owned media cited the World Trade Center attack and weapons of mass destruction as pretexts. On Sept. 11, 2006 George Bush finally admitted, “Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with the World Trade Center attack.” The weapons of mass destruction were also debunked. Yet none of this stopped the bombings. U.S. capitalists’ desire for Iraq’s oil fields and markets outlived the lies that they sold the public.

Iraqi workers of all religions are in the Popular Mobilization Forces that were bombed by the U.S. on December 29, killing 32 people. All across the country, Iraqis are rebelling against horrible conditions, which result from U.S. invasion and occupation and a corrupt U.S. installed government. Yet the U.S. is blaming Iran for the rebellion of the Iraqi masses. This is just another lie to justify the deployment of 4,000 more U.S. soldiers to the region. What is being hidden by the corporate media, with its links to the U.S. military, is the truth.

U.S. BOMBED IRAQ FOR OIL AGAIN

As part of the popular uprisings sweeping the country, protestors recently seized a major oil field in Iraq to demand that the oil wealth be used for jobs and social needs. This was on December 28. After the U.S. bombing on December 29, thousands of Iraqis swarmed the U.S. embassy demanding the U.S. get out. The U.S. strategy in Iraq has been to divide the people by religious and national differences but recent protests have been bringing all the groups together. U.S. rulers fear this unity. This has nothing to do with Iran.

But for the U.S. capitalist class and its puppets in the government, the storming of the embassy provided another pretext to threaten war against Iran and send more troops and bombers to the region. So strong is the popular movement that even the U.S.-backed client Iraqi government had to condemn the bombings and troop deployments. They have stated that they will not allow their country to be used as a base against Iran.

Th U.S. capitalist class want to win back the oil revenue it lost when the Iranian people overthrew the government of their friend and brutal dictator, the Shah. The Iranians will defend their country to make sure that they never suffer another murderous U.S. puppet government.

The Iranians have done everything to avoid war. It was the Trump administration that pulled out of the nuclear agreement which Iran nevertheless continued to abide by, as verified by the United Nations. Despite Iran’s exceptional restraint, Trump recently ordered the illegal assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Soleimani and the PMF have been leading the fight against ISIS in Iraq since 2014. This just shows how fraudulent the claim is that the U.S. military is occupying the Middle East to “defeat ISIS.”

It’s time to take it to the streets to show that we won’t fall for the lies and deceit of the oil companies and the war profiteers, nor will we condone these imperialist wars against humanity.

NO WAR ON IRAN! U.S. OUT OF IRAQ!

President Trump inherited his wealth from his Nazi sympathizing father, then became a billionaire by charging very high rents and excluding Black renters in NYC. He continues to unleash vicious, lying, racist, anti-immigrant tirades against suffering refugees from Central America.

Trump and the ultra-rich loot the U.S. treasury and give it to war profiteering companies. They give themselves a tax cut, refuse to raise wages and accumulate massive amounts of unearned wealth. They discuss in their luxury offices how best to turn attention away from their murderous greed. Their answer is to try to dupe us workers into believing that a lack of “papers” makes us our own enemy. They think that we’re too stupid to know who the real enemy is.

REFUGEE CRISIS MADE IN WASHINGTON & ON WALL STREET

Thousands of desperate refugees, a majority of them families, are traveling hundreds of hard miles to find shelter, food and a future. Do they really want to leave their land, their relatives? Of course not. Take one example, Honduras. In 2009 the Obama/Clinton administration through the CIA, overthrew the elected government in Honduras. This elected government was carrying out reforms that benefited the workers and peasants. The U.S. installed a brutal dictatorship that has murdered many environmentalists, community leaders and imprisoned thousands. The poverty rate has soared since this coup. Trump continues to give weapons and military training to the reactionary government.

To the U.S. capitalists and the politicians in their pockets, any country that tries to free itself from U.S. backed monopolies and raise the standard of living of the people is an enemy. The U.S. condemns Venezuela. Venezuela has just created 2.3 million new homes using money from its oil wealth. But U.S. corporations would prefer to own Venezuela’s oil, and Congress does the bidding of its corporate masters.

U.S. backed corporations require a stock of low wage labor wherever they can get it and it’s the job of the U.S. government to insure that they get it by whatever means—whether trade agreements, sanctions, or bombs. In turn, low wages in other countries bring down wages here. Workers from other countries aren’t to blame for sagging wages, capitalists are.

The refugee crisis was made in Washington and Wall Street. Take the case of Mexico. Trade agreements opened Mexico to the dumping of U.S. corn into Mexico. Corn was a main economic base crop in Mexico. While workers here also got laid off due to plants running away to Mexico, millions of rural Mexican families were pushed off the land, homeless and unemployed. But U.S. agribusiness and Agribanks made billions in profit.

WORKERS HERE SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF THE RICH

The more Trump and the rest of Wall Street, be they Republican or Democrat, attack the living standards of the working class, the more desperately they need scapegoats. Trump has clearly allied his administration with white supremacists for the same reason. They desperately want to turn attention off themselves and have us turn against one another.

The real history of the KKK and other scum like them, is that they are funded by the super wealthy in order to divide us. The bosses can always call on the KKK or other Nazi types to attack a workers’ strike or a struggle for housing. The true origin of these groups was that they were terrorists in the employ of the old slave holders who wanted to get back into power. They attacked voting rights and attacked Black and white sharecroppers uniting for a better life. Many white workers in the south today have low wages, and that is the legacy of racism dividing the workers. In short, racist, anti-immigrant groups are also always working for the superrich and against the workers.

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE AGAINST OUR COMMON ENEMY – WALL ST. AND THE PENTAGON

Each of us workers must ask: where do my true interests lie? With the wealthy white rulers in Baton Rouge who just voted against increasing the minimum wage while they live in luxury? With the silver spoon parasite Trump who is attacking workers’ rights and safety regulations? Or do our interests lie with our refugee sisters and brothers?

Capitalism pits workers against one another in competition for jobs. But who sets how many jobs there are and the wages that they pay? The capitalists. Corporations have spent $450 billion buying up their company stocks so their books look good. Are they putting that money into new businesses, new jobs or raising wages? No. Where did they get that $450 billion anyway? From the unpaid labor that they force out of us workers.

What is really disgusting is that they claim that if immigrants were “legal”, we citizen workers would suffer. It is disgusting because just the opposite is true. If any group of workers is discriminated against— especially “legally”— it brings down the wages us all. Exempting farm workers from labor standards, engaging in slave labor in prisons, allowing employers to pay youth less then even the lousy minimum wage, working for food stamps rather than wages, brings down wages for all.

The government works for the rich, not us. Why are there no laws against shipping jobs out of the country? Why does the government allow capitalists to skip out on taxes and stash their stolen wealth in offshore havens? Why does the government support dictators who repress workers in other countries?

We should condemn the capitalists, the bankers, and the real estate developers as the real criminals. Of course it’s easier to take the coward’s route and simmer in hatred rather than fight back against the rich. But that path, we promise, will only bring misery. That path only enables the rich to take more away from you, your children and communities. The greater the unity of all workers, regardless of race or national origin, the better we can fight together to demand what we need.

Parents filled the School Board meeting chanting “Take back our schools!” and “Erase the board!”

By Nathalie Clarke

In response to the possible closure of five schools, Fisher Academy, McDonogh 32, Nelson Academy, Cypress Academy, and Edgar P. Harney, parents, students, and educators are organizing and fighting back. Friends and Families of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) first held an action in front of Edgar P. Harney, protesting the unjust investigation of principal Ashonta Wyatt and the closure of the school. All Ms. Wyatt had done was question Harney’s board’s spending and for this she was subsequently fired. When the school board didn’t respond to the protest, FFLIC urged parents, students, and educators to crowd the November 15th Orleans Parish School board meeting.

The board did everything in their power to silence their constituents. They encouraged parents from Cypress Academy not to come, and only released the meeting’s agenda 24 hours before the meeting. They also failed to inform people that in order to make comments they’d not only have to drive to the West Bank in the middle of the work day, but also arrive 30 minutes early to drop off their comment card. Nonetheless, folks took to the podium to voice their anger about the closures and about the way schools in New Orleans have been run since Katrina.

“We are surrounded by failing schools in Louisiana, but New Orleans was the only [district] for sale,” K. T. parent and native New Orleanian commented, referring to the disproportionate privatization of New Orleans schools following Katrina.

“We don’t work for you. You represent us! When did we get asked about these changes?” asked Ashana Bigard, a long-time advocate for children and families and organizer with Friends and Families of Louisiana’s Incarcerated children.

The crowd chanted “Erase the board!” while many concerned parents took to the podium to share their outrage. “Our children deserve better than Cs!” one parent protested.

The vulture capitalists who came in before Katrina’s waters even receded would have us believe that charter schools, so called “free-market” education reforms, give parents more choice and produce better schools because of competition, but any working-class parent in Orleans Parish can tell you this simply isn’t true. The Recovery School District–which took over 105 public schools in 2005 and turned them into charters–is using public money to produce failing schools. There are only 18,500 seats at schools rated “A” or “B” by the State, and 45,000 students vying to get in. Over 80% of schools in the city received a grade of C or less in 2018.

After the board meeting, parents once again rallied in front of Harney school to voice their anger about the school closure and support for Ms. Ashonta Wyatt, the principal who was fired on November 17th despite massive support from parents and the community. The fight continues: FFLIC is calling on folks to persistently show up to board meetings to protest the current state of New Orleans education. The next Orleans Parish School Board meeting will be on December 6th at 5pm.

All children deserve a free, quality education. The New Orleans Workers Group believes in community control of schools–putting schools back in the hands of teachers, parents, students, and workers. The fight to get schools back under community control is not won yet, but parents, educators, and students organizing together is how we will win. The reason the Orleans Parish School Board members feel they can stifle working-class children’s minds with failing schools is because they think we are worthless. They have forgotten our collective power as workers: we make this city run, and we will keep reminding them that they work for us.

“We are tired of being an experiment. They need to return schools to the community.” Parent Deirdre Lewis




by Joseph Rosen

Cattle rancher and Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi wears her racism on her sleeve. But after a video of her making light of lynching went viral late in her recent campaign for a US Senate seat, some of her more prominent corporate backers like AT&T and Facebook took steps to distance themselves from her, fearing the backlash of public outrage. Fortunately for AT&T and Facebook, their capitalist comrades-in-arms at Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Koch Industries stepped in to pick up the slack. These giant oil monopolies are apparently less concerned with public relations scandals. With the help of some well-heeled financiers and other capitalist crooks, they increased their support for the “embattled” Hyde-Smith by funneling more than $3.2 million through the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a “political party committee,” and the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC.

In the now infamous video, a smiling Hyde-Smith, speaking about one of her fellow ranchers at an all white rally of her supporters, said that “if he’d invited me to a public hanging, I’d be in the front row.” There are more recorded lynchings in Mississippi than in any other state in Amerikkka: in Mississippi alone, at least 654 men, women, and children died during the reign of white supremacist terror lasting between 1877 and 1950. As recently as Feb 18, 2018, 21 year old Willie Jones Jr. was found hanging from a tree outside his child’s mother’s home in Scott County, MS. His family is still demanding a thorough investigation. Meanwhile, on December 17 the racist Hyde-Smith was sworn in to Congress.

As she has always done, Hyde-Smith will reward those who help to keep her in power. She will continue to pursue tax cuts for the rich and she will continue to lavish tax-payer money on the oil-hungry Pentagon as well as her friends in Agribusiness. And whether by denying us healthcare or by poisoning our water, she will continue her war on working and oppressed people— only she’ll be even more free to whip up racist terror as an answer to our struggle for liberation. For $3.2 million, the capitalists bought this license for her and they expect a return on their investment.

We must fight to remove this bigot from power but we have to go further to prevent that she ever returns. We can only be rid of the Hyde-Smiths of the world once we are rid of the capitalists to whom they answer; we must replace their rule with ours.

Student debt in the US now totals over $1.48 trillion, which is way higher than any other debt in the country. But one person’s debt is another’s asset. Lenders of student debt put together “packages” that tally up all that they’ve lent out to students. Then, they make fast cash selling these packages to big banks with enough money to play around with these investments, like Wells Fargo or Bank of America. These banks then reap all the profits from the interest that former students have to pay—and that’s guaranteed free money for them, since it’s almost impossible to declare bankruptcy on student debt and banks are legally allowed to take from your wages, unemployment benefits, and Social Security checks. The market for this kind of trading is $200 billion, all pocketed by wealthy capitalists who lobby Congress on issues like these regularly.

Unionized dockworkers rejected bosses’ white supremacist divide-and-conquer campaign and upheld bi-racial working-class solidarity.

by Malcolm Suber

In the early twentieth century, New Orleans’ unionized dockworkers demonstrated the absolute importance of bi-racial working-class solidarity and rejected the bosses’ use of white supremacy to quash working class aspirations to advance their living conditions. They were following in the footsteps of New Orleans workers who led the general strike of 1892.

A legacy of the 1892 General Strike was the effort to maintain a 50-50, or half-and-half, labor system on the New Orleans docks. Under this arrangement, both Black and white workers insisted that any work crew hired by ship owners be 50% Black and 50% percent white. Workers would labor side by side, performing the same work for the same pay. This was understood by the dockworkers as a tactic to prevent the bosses from lowering all wages by pitting workers against each other by offering more to one group of workers than the other. Both Black and white union leaders recognized that when the owners were allowed to hire without parity between black and white workers, as was the practice before the 1892 General Strike, animosity between black and white workers flared and the working class as a whole suffered a setback.

In October 1901, the separate Black and white unions created the Dock and Cotton Council (DCC) that coordinated the unions of Black and white screwmen, longshoremen, teamsters, loaders and general laborers on the waterfront. An accommodation to the Jim Crow white supremacist system required that the President and financial secretary of the DCC be held by white workers and the vice-presidency and corresponding secretary position be held by black workers. By 1903, the DCC oversaw eight separate unions of Black and white dockworkers with a total of approximately 10,000 members and helped ensure that all unions adhered to the 50-50 rule. In time, the DCC assisted member unions in negotiations with the owners. The DCC was also given the right to call a general port strike.

The New Orleans screwmen were responsible for tightly packing cotton bales in the holds of the ships. This critical task put them atop the labor force on the docks thus providing the screwmen with the highest wages on the docks. However, in contrast to other waterfront laborers, white screwmen in the 1890s refused the 50- 50 arrangements and voted for a quota system limiting the number of black screwmen to a small percentage of the jobs.The black and white locals had separate contracts with different terms and there was no way to support workers in labor disputes. In addition, rumors began to spread that the shipping agents were trying to find ways to remove the 75-bale per day limit instituted by the white screwmen by using black screwmen who would work for lower wages with no limit on bales stowed. These types of racial division led to bloody fights between the screwmen.

By the turn of the twentieth century, all screwmen faced new pressure from the ship owners to increase their output by introducing a new method of loading the cotton bales known as “shoot-the-chute”. This system required crews of 4-5 men to throw down between 400 to 700 bales per day into the holds of ships where other workers waited to pack them. This new system required 4 to 5 times more productivity with no raise in pay. In addition, the work day would no longer be determined by the number of bales but by the whistle of the shipping agent. The screwmen could see that this faster pace would mean less work left for the next day, thus depriving them of pay.

The issue of a fair day’s work and pay became the central issue for the screwmen. In April,1902 the employers’ Steamship Conference declared that only the owners and not any contract had the right to control who worked on the docks and for how long and for what pay.The screwmen fiercely resisted this attack on their living standards. The two screwmen unions agreed to the 50-50 rule; a uniform wage scale limiting the days’ work to 120 bales as opposed the SC demand 400-700. In the fall of 1902, the unions jointly presented their demands to the steamship conference.

The screwmen’s alliance launched a series of strikes from 1902-1903 that forced the Steamship Conference to adopt the production rate and adhere to the 50-50 demands. During these strikes, the screwmen enjoyed the backing of the other waterfront unions and the newly formed DCC.

The bosses tried to break the strike by the usual divide and conquer scheme by spreading a rumor that the black screwmen were violating the agreement and getting more work than white workers. The strike remained united and ended in early December 1902; by December 25 screwmen were packing on average 110 bales per day.
In response to the screwmen’s strike, the bosses instituted two lockouts in 1903. Again, pressing for control of hiring and more production from the screwmen. The screwmen held firm and the bosses were unable to impose new labor standards.

The screwmen were again locked out on October 1, 1903, but they received the support of black and white longshoremen. Shippers led for an injunction and Mayor Paul Capdevielle unsuccessfully tried to mediate. The strikers garnered so much support during the two-week lockout that even scabs refused to cross their lines. Ultimately, the lockout ended when the employers proposed terms that required screwmen to produce 160 bales per day. The unions accepted this proposal and the bosses admitted defeat.

In the fall of 1907, both black and white longshore workers launched an extended general strike against the shipping company bosses. As in 1902-03, screwmen were at the center of the struggle as the bosses resented the contract concessions made in the 1903. When the 1903 contract expired on September 1, 1907, the ship owners sought what they called a ‘parity’ argument, demanding that New Orleans screwmen stow as much cotton as their counterparts in Galveston, TX – a rate of 200 bales per day. On October 4, all of the ship owners locked out the screwmen. In response, the DCC called a general strike. 9000 dockworkers, black and white, struck the New Orleans port in a show of solidarity with the screwmen. Freight handlers from the Southern Paci c line also struck, ending all work on the port.

The bosses responded by bringing in black and white strikebreakers. Some of the strikebreakers quit when they learned they were being used by the bosses and by the extraordinary show of support by entire working class of New Orleans.

During the second week of the strike the owners launched a strong attempt to divide and conquer the unions along racial lines. The owners revived the White League to attempt to intimidate Black strikers. They also appealed to the other dockworkers that this was a fight against the screwmen and they should not lose wages supporting their strike.

On October 11, the screwmen proposed a return to work at the rate of 160 bales per day. The bosses rejected this proposal and demand a rate of 200 bales per day. During the impasse, the bosses worked overtime to divide the workers along racial lines by circulating rumors that the white workers had returned to work, or alternately, that the black workers were returning to work. However, labor solidarity held.

The general strike ended on October 24, 1907 with a compromise plan endorsed and urged by the city’s mayor. Under the compromise, screwmen agreed to return to work at the rate of 180 bales per day. In response to union demands, the agreement included provisions for an investigation into the port’s viability. White supremacy clearly emerged as the screwmen appointed their representatives to the investigative committee along the 50- 50 principle- but white ship owners refused to work with the black representatives. When no resolution could be reached with the racist ship owners, the mayor and state legislature appointed a committee to investigate port conditions. Its focus was cross-racial cooperation among the workers on the New Orleans docks. This cooperation of course violated all norms of Jim Crow segregation. The DCC unions rejected the pressure and held out for working class solidarity to advance working conditions.

By Ryan Jones

Three years ago I was a full-time worker at Burger King and like many others, my experience was not good. I was working five days a week, making the federal minimum wage, which is 7.25 an hour. Working full-time i was making $700 a month, which is not a livable wage. Not only was I supporting myself, but also my family. I didn’t receive breaks, and was required to fill multiple positions in the workplace. Like many workplaces, Burger King kept minimum staff on, expecting workers to take on the workloads of multiple people, cutting back on costs at the expense of us workers. The managers would often be aggressive towards workers, yelling at us, snatching our phones away (taking our personal property). They would often yell at us about not “doing our jobs” while we were busting our asses!

They electronically deposited our checks, so we didn’t get our check stubs in person. You could access them online, but without smartphones or computers, it can be very difficult to check and make sure your pay & hours are done right. We in the industry know it’s very common for bosses to shave a couple hours off workers’ checks. They often do this in ways that aren’t noticeable, leaving many workers experiencing wage theft without even realizing it. This is why it’s very important that we have access to our pay stubs.

I feel we should get our pay stubs in person, so we can better hold our bosses accountable. I also feel like everybody should get paid breaks, and a free shift meal. All workers should get a living wage, which at the minimum should be $15 dollars an hour. We all should have a union, so we have the power to demand the dignity and respect we deserve in the workplace. We as workers must make our voices heard, and demand the bosses start listening to what we have to say. We need to get organized as working people. Our bosses aren’t going to give us our rights, we must demand them. We gotta shut shit down.