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By Nia Norris (she/her)
Latino workers have been a part of the labor movement since its inception. My great-grandmother was a Black immigrant from Panama who worked extensively in the garment industry to improve labor standards and was also a union organizer in Africa (Jacobin). Although many of the early labor unions excluded minority workers, there are also many Latino voices who are celebrated in labor history including César Chávez and the United Farm Workers of America (History). Last month, Latino workers won another huge labor victory in the Chicago suburbs. It isn’t just coincidental that these were low-wage workers who happened to be Latino. Latino workers (particularly those who are immigrants) are disproportionately represented in dangerous jobs. Latino workers have the highest occupational fatality rate out of all groups in the United States (PRB). Racism determines who works which jobs, and under which conditions. But victories like those resulting from a historic three-week strike at a Frito-Lays plant in Topeka show that workers acting together can win (CNN).
In July, 19 workers at Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s self-organized a seven day strike against unfairly low pay and worker mistreatment. Unlike most strikes, the workers started the work stoppage on their own with just the help of a local nonprofit, Arise Chicago. The employees who participated in the strike were all Latino, and the majority of them had been with the company for over ten years. The workers involved had been attempting to get a resolution on workplace issues with management for four years (In These Times).
The final straw for the workers was that management was not replacing employees who left the company, instead expecting the remaining workers to do the jobs of two people. This created an unsafe working environment. The company was also offering only a $0.25 to $0.35 raise to employees although the company itself was not losing money to the pandemic.
Margarita Valenzuela Klein, the director of member organizing at Arise Chicago, spoke with ARD about the remarkable strike. According to Klein, “It was workers without a union who made the decision to walk out. They called on us [for our assistance] after they walked out.”
Klein said, “We explained to them under the law what their protections are, and what a certain activity means. If two or more employees decide to do something to better their working conditions, they are protected by the law. The more you do, the more protections you have.” Arise Chicago also provided the workers with media contacts for press conferences, signs that they could use to post their demands publicly, and explained “the ABCs of a picket line,” said Klein.
This worker-organized work stoppage was a huge success. Workers won raises ranging from $.1.60 to $2.60 an hour. The company also hired more workers to do the job. These results are incredible for the fast food industry, an industry that is notorious for exploiting minority workers who receive very low pay and often work in poor conditions.
A report by the Labor Center of UC Berkeley found that 73% of fast food workers in Los Angeles were Latino workers (UC Berkeley). Fast food work has always been low pay and comes with high rates of workplace harassment. COVID-19 has made conditions even worse. Fast food workers are almost never unionized, and most attempts by restaurant workers to unionize have been shut down (PBS). Food service workers have historically had very little collective bargaining power. They are often treated by their employers as disposable workers, however the COVID-19 crisis has somewhat shifted the power to the employees as employers grapple with a labor shortage that spans the entire service industry (NYT).
Latino people in the U.S. have historically been leaders in the union movement. Workers’ rights icon César Chávez facilitated the unionization of grape pickers in Delano, California in 1965 by organizing a strike that lasted for five years. This strike led to the creation of the United Farm Workers of America. Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants fleeing U.S.-sponsored Dirty Wars in their home countries (TruthOut) included veteran community organizers whose skills “revived” the American labor movement (The Counter).
This is what is so commendable about the Portillo’s strike: although it’s no secret that restaurant workers are treated poorly, these workers were able to organize and get the results that they sought. They were able to use their collective bargaining power to create a safer workplace and a badly-needed pay increase. With employers everywhere moaning that “no one wants to work anymore,” perhaps they should consider that people are no longer willing to work in poor conditions for low pay. Instead, we need to reimagine the food service industry as one that supports the humanity of its workers instead of exploiting minorities for a profit.
Key Takeaways
Latino employees are disproportionately represented in the fast food industry.
An already abusive and underpaid work environment, fast food workers have been particularly vulnerable in the COVID-19 pandemic and should be compensated accordingly.
All workers have certain protections through labor laws that allow them to organize for fair working conditions.