Fast food workers in Detroit and Flint, Mich. participated in the week of rolling fast food strikeson Wednesday, the third straight day of labor activism in what now appears to be the largest industrial action in the industry’s history. This is Flint’s first strike of fast food workers andDetroit’s second, following an early May work stoppage in which roughly 400 workers participated.
That strike occurred only a few months after Michigan became a right-to-work state and Republican Governor Rick Snyder decided to appoint an Emergency Manager who would have the power to override Detroit’s elected government. Now, the city’s prospects look even darker; the unavoidable context of this second strike is Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s recent decision to have the city enter bankruptcy. [...]
Wally Turbeville, a senior fellow with the progressive think tank Demos, said that looming pension cut and other recent deficit-trimming measures in Detroit were “part of the same fabric” as wage suppression in the fast food industry.
“It serves the interests of the folks who are in charge in the Michigan State House, and it also serves the interests of corporate profits,” he said. “Getting rid of the unions at all levels is something that has a benefit” to corporations and their political allies.
