UK: Fast Food Workers Out on May Day

There have been some attempts in the past to organise workers well in fast food restaurants, but these have faced real obstacles in maintaining any form of organisation.

There is now a more determined campaign to publicise their campaign for organisation, recognition and pay rise to £10 per hour across the board, which means the end of youth rates of pay, as well as guaranteed hours of work. McDonald stores are in particular being targeted for campaigns and demonstrations. Information on this campaign can be found on the internet under #McStrike and @FastfoodRights.

Demonstrations were held in five centres, from Manchester, Cambridge and London, ending with a rally at Watford later on at the First May Rally. The campaign began shortly after midnight in Manchester on First May when the McDonald’s restaurant on Oxford Street store’s staff member (Blaz Mesner, a Slovenian worker) walked off his shift, to be greeted by those on the picket line. The pickets returned later in the morning to continue the picket line.

That same morning saw a demonstration outside a McDonald’s in Cambridge at which some workers walked off the job in support of higher pay and organising rights. Also at Crayford in Bexley, South-East London, a demonstration took place in support of workers who had walked out for a second time. The demonstrators came together at Watford, the home town of McDonald’s Boss.

This parallels similar campaigns in the US, which demands a minimum rate of pay of $15 per hour.

At the moment the campaigners are members of a small trade union, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers [BF&AW], who are affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. The choice of this union is to give them some form of official status while keeping as much control in their own hands. Although the campaigners have banners with their union emblem on their banners, there is little sign of the resources of the Bakers Union being available to them. Also the fact that this same union is controlled by trotskists seems to make little difference to the lack of official support. The campaigners are clear that their movement is rank and file led, and it is likely to remain that way. That politicals and MPs are providing support at the moment is only to be expected, but how far that support will remain when the fight becomes determined remains to be seen.

The internet publicity is a way of communicating and organising themselves. It also keeps the campaign under their own control, for the moment at least.

These May Day demonstrations by Fast Food Workers was a bright example of the spirit of May Day and what it should be, rather than the subsequent rallies of the official Labour movement pleading for the lessening of the nasty politics of austerity and other aspects of a bankrupt society.

Done with the Tories or Done with Capitalism?

After May Day there were marches (7th May in Liverpool and 12th May in London) against the Tory Government to prove they will not tolerate any further cuts in wages, or the general and progressive deterioration of their living conditions. In the 10 years following the 2008 economic crash, workers have seen their purchasing power decline significantly, with the cost of living steadily rising and their wages staying put, when not actually decreasing. At the same time the amount of wealth amassing at the other end of society (latest example: Persimmon boss receives £75 Million bonus) has reached grotesque dimensions. As even mainstream media are forced to admit, the world now sees the worst levels of inequality since records began. No wonder Marxists are now starting to gain a wider audience.

What will come next?

A change of government will not bring any gain whatsoever to the working class. Once in power, the Labour Party, which claims to be defending the workers interests, will promptly drop all its promises in the name of the higher “national interest” (i.e., in the interests of capitalism and the fight of UK capitalists against those of other nations). The Labour Party, that is, once in power again, as is likely to happen, will deal with the declining rate of profit by ramping up the level of exploitation of labour by increasing its intensity and the length of the working day, and by making it easier to hire and fire through the use of part-time and agency workers, which has the additional effect of driving a wedge between full-time and ‘temps’ status. And on the latter issue, where solidarity between workers in full-time and those in precarious employment is an urgent necessity, we will not hear much from the trade union leaders.

Workers have seen this drama happening over and over again. To bring this perpetual ‘groundhog day’ to a close they need to build a real and strong movement that is decidedly based on class demands, which will mean leaving behind the illusion that their enemy, or false friends like the Labour Party, with its insipid brand of acceptable radicalism, are going to guarantee them a better life. What they need is to dedicate their energy to rebuilding unity of action, rebuilding a class movement in the trade union sphere on a territorial basis, focused on inter-sectoral actions, that chooses not to place any faith in the parties and institutions of the enemy class.

An Arduous but Necessary Struggle

The proletariat class has the ability to conduct and win difficult battles. In their daily resistance against a system based on ever increasing work exploitation, they should demand:

• Minimum wage for all workers linked to the cost of living;
• Reduction of working hours with wage levels maintained;
• A living wage for workers who have lost their jobs;
• A general increase in pensions.

With the unity of all working class and the guidance of its own party, the proletariat – the class that has to sell its labour, whether its individual members are in work or not – will be able to defeat capitalism and free itself and humanity from the yoke of wage labour and the ongoing farce of capitalist ‘planning’; which is so patently unable to resolve the huge problems of war, the environment, increasing population and, of course, the problems of unemployment, a living wage and perpetual insecurity.

Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.