Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Fast Food Unionism: The Unionization of McDonald’s and/or the McDonaldization of Unions

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Fast Food Unionism: The Unionization of McDonald’s and/or the McDonaldization of Unions

Click here to access article by Erik Forman posted on Recomposition.

The author and labor organizer takes us on a tour through the most "progressive" of current US labor unions to see how they function in the growing fast-food industry. After that, he contrasts the latter with a radical type of union organizing.

Imagine if a fast food worker union advanced a vision not just of better-paying work in a fundamentally inhumane economy, but for a worker-controlled food system operated in the interests of all of humanity and the earth? Such a turn is unlikely while the campaign narrative is dictated by union bureaucrats who see themselves not as capitalism’s gravediggers, but its doctors.