Manage HR Magazine | Sunday, December 06, 2020
FREMONT, CA: Thousands of union workers left their jobs in an effort to support initiatives to dismantle racism in a protest that has dubbed the strike for Black lives. The protest was organized by union groups including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers, United Farm Workers, and the fight for $15 and a Union, alongside social justice groups including the Movement for Black lives, U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition, and the center for popular Democracy. The protest took place in over 25 major cities across the country, including NewYork, Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, and Milwaukee.
Workers are targeting fast-food companies like McDonald’s (MCD) to highlight the over representation of minorities working in low-wage and front-line jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. The workers strike because McDonald’s and other fast food companies have failed to protect them in a pandemic that has ravaged Black and Brown communities across the country.
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Fast-food workers joined nursing home workers in a protest to highlight what the SEIU called “the industry’s failure to protect its largely Black workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The strike demands solutions from governments and corporations that center communities of color and dismantle racist policies to make sure every family is healthy, safe and secure, no matter their race, immigration status, job, or where they live. Specifically, the group has four main demands, from “justice for black communities, with an unequivocal declaration that “Black Lives Matter”, to the opportunity for every worker to form a union.
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