Hassan and Marienne start the strike at Wairau Park, Auckland

An interview with Hassan Al-Fadhi (2/7/13) originally published on Unite News.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Hassan. I’m 15 years old, I’m a student at Glenfield College and I work part time at McDonald’s.

What happened tonight?

Tonight I was working in the kitchen at McDonald’s in Wairau Park [Auckland]. My union organiser, Shane, came in and said that it was a perfect time to go on strike because it was so busy. Nearly all of the people working were members of the union but they were really scared. I thought ‘screw this’, clocked out and told the restaurant manager I was going on strike. I took off my gloves and apron and walked out.

Did anyone come with you?

My friend Marienne came on strike with me too, even though she was scared before. Then we went to Constellation Drive McDonald’s and three more workers came on strike with us. I’m happy that I stood up for myself and I’m stoked that Marienne and the other workers came too. Now that everyone has seen that we went on strike and nothing bad happened I think they will come next time.

Why should McDonald’s workers go on strike?

McDonald’s workers should all go on strike because we work really hard but we need more hours and we need more pay. When we don’t strike no one listens to us. If they don’t listen the first time we need to keep striking until they do.

Are you proud of yourself?

Yep, and Marienne too.

Ian Anderson, Fightback.

Middle-brow sections of the capitalist press have criticised ‘millenials’ in recent months, and millenials in turn have responded through blogs and other media. Also termed Generation Y, the ‘millenial’ generation broadly covers people born between 1980 and 2000 – “teenagers and twenty-somethings.”

In May, Time Magazine ran a cover story describing millenials as the “Me Me Me generation.”  Author Joel Stein was quick to distinguish himself from previous generations of crotchety, anti-youth reactionaries through an appeal to science; “I am about to do what old people have done throughout history: call those younger than me lazy, entitled, selfish and shallow. But I have studies! I have statistics! I have quotes from respected academics! Unlike my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents, I have proof.”

Stein cited statistics that ‘millenials’ have a higher rate of narcissism than previous generations. These statistics are disputed. However, some generational trends are harder to dispute; millenials are less likely to own property, more likely to live with their parents, more likely to be politically cynical than previous generations.

In liberal US paper The Nation, student Emily Crockett noted the most “glaring omission” from Stein’s Time magazine rant; the declining economic conditions faced by millenials compared with their parents.  In fact, Crockett noted that the closest Stein came to acknowledging “low-income youth” consisted of a mocking jab about “ghetto-fabulous lifestyles.”

More recently in Australian women’s publication Daily Life, columnist Daniel Stacey argued that the casualisation of work in recent decades has forced millenials to adapt their behaviour; “The fundamental error here is to mistake the adaptive behaviours of a new generation for the cause behind labour market changes.” Stacey argued that much of this adaptive behaviour, particularly disloyalty to companies, is a form of individual resistance. [Read more…]