NYT Chronicles Push to Unionize Fast-Food Workers

A recent article in The New York Times has highlighted the efforts of Fast Food
Forward, a campaign seeking to unionize fast-food workers in New York
City. According to Times labor and workplace reporter Steven Greenhouse,
the campaign has worked with 40 full-time organizers with the support
of community and civil rights groups to recruit employees at fast-food
restaurants across the city and coordinate a walkout in protest of low wages
“and retaliation against several workers who have backed the unionization
campaign.”

In particular, Greenhouse notes the many challenges facing the nascent
initiative, which has not yet decided on an overall strategy or mechanism for
pursuing unionization. Labor experts and companies also emphasized that
the high turnover in most fast-food positions makes organization difficult. “It’s
a fairly high-turnover position, so there’s never been a successful union effort,”
said one spokesperson for Domino’s Pizza. “People who are doing this part
time, seasonally or as they work their way through college don’t find much
interest in membership.”

As Cornell University Labor Relations Professor Richard Hurd elaborated, “[I]t’s going to be a lot harder for them to win union recognition. It will be harder to unionize them than carwash workers because the parent companies will fight hard against it, because they worry if you unionize fast-food outlets in New York, that’s going to have a lot of ramifications elsewhere.”