Ian Anderson, Fightback Wellington branch member.
Fightback actively supported unionised McDonalds workers as part of our 2013 winter conference. On the evening of Saturday the 1st of June, members and supporters distributed nearly 2000 leaflets across Wellington McDonalds sites; Newtown, the Basin Reserve, Courtenay Place, Taranaki Street, Lambton Quay, Manners Mall and Bunny Street (which recently took strike action).
Fightback’s leaflet explained “Why we support McDonalds workers – and why you should too.” The leaflet explained how both workers’ action and wider public solidarity are needed to overcome casualisation and low wages, at McDonalds and elsewhere.
Customers were generally receptive, with some at the Manners Mall store even taking and distributing bunches of leaflets themselves.
Coming weeks will see further actions, including demonstrations and strikes. Fightback will continue to support and, where possible, initiate these actions. We see this campaign as part of a broader struggle for working class solidarity and self-organisation.
See also:
Unite takes on McDonald’s in high stakes fight for low-paid workers
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I don’t want to stop you from being so enthusiastic just there is a small problem. The reserve bank is required to maintain an inflation rate of between 1% to 3% per year so even if you get a 25c pay rise government policy removes that gain within a year.
It does this by manipulating the dollar up or down but as importantly it generates the desired inflation through bank lending and fractional reserve banking. This lending goes mostly to housing so fueling house prices.
If it can’t get 2% inflation by house prices then it will drop the dollar to import inflation. Either way the poor always pay as anyone with out assets loses in an inflationary system and as food, fuel and housing are the major costs for a low wage person and these are used to achieve the 2% then cash and asset poor people pay the most for this economic policy.
So any win of a small increase in pay is stolen back within a year
yes, real wages (wages relative to the price of commodities) have declined 25% in the last 30 years. That’s why we support political campaigns for living wages, as well as industrial campaigns.
https://fightback.org.nz/2013/04/04/7803/
Also, to be clear, unionised workers at McDonalds are not fighting for a 25 cent pay rise. That is what McDonalds have offered, and the offer has been rejected by 85% nationwide.
Would it be better to push for a Gareth Morgan style universal wage for everyone than a living wage for workers only?
I don’t think it would be “better” to push for that, because its a very different type of campaign. Some sort of guaranteed income is a political struggle, what’s happening at McDonalds is an industrial struggle.
That said, I see a universal basic income as a positive reform, I’d prefer it was as-well-as rather than instead-of industrial struggle. For various reasons I’d prefer to put my time and energy into the latter.
If you had a guaranteed income it would reduce the power of the employer over the employed. It is the threat of no money at all and the state in control of the welfare system that gives the employer the power.
It is indeed a political reform and an economic one as well. It also links to housing and rent seeking. The land and capital tax needed would make holding land banks uneconomic leading to land sales and potentially freeing up land for housing at lower cost.
Depending on who introduced it it could be quite revolutionary it would break the industrial cycle we have now.