#spoonstrike

[scavengedluxury]

40,000 staff laid off by Wetherspoons without pay.

[cathkaesque]

This is the main article from the new Wetherspoons strike bulletin ‘The Spoons Striker’, avaliable in PDF form for real world distribution.

It can be hard to live on the money we make. We spend most of our wages on renting damp flats, we have to walk to work when we can’t afford the bus, and we have to choose between dinner and a haircut. We’re forced to work as fast as we can for long shifts with barely any breaks, even when we’re sick or injured. We’ve seen the people we work with struggling to make ends meet, sofa surfing and scraping by. Meanwhile, Tim Martin is worth £322 million. Our work has made him, the bosses, and the shareholders rich beyond our wildest dreams, but we’re left a few weeks’ pay away from poverty.

We won’t take it anymore. That’s why we’re fighting back. They won’t listen to us when we complain, so we’re taking the next step. In two Brighton pubs we’ve taken the decision to all stop work and go on strike on October 4th. We’re fighting for £10 an hour and union recognition for every Wetherspoons worker in the country.

On your own, you can’t change anything. Hiding in the freezer, stretching out your break time, getting another job – none of it solves the problem. The bosses have all the power and they don’t give a shit about us. We know that we will only win when we fight together.

How do we know that we win when we fight together? Because we’re already winning. The recent pay rises didn’t come out of thin air.

In the past, millionaire shitlord Tim has argued against the idea that all workers deserve a living wage. He thinks it’s ‘unrealistic’ that we get paid enough to get by. But suddenly, just after two pubs announced they were going to vote on strike action, he changed his mind. Now we’ve shown we can stick up for ourselves, generous Tim is willing to give us a couple of quid extra out of the profits we make.

The abolition of 18-20 youth rates means than some workers will be going £6.60 an hour to £8.26. That’s two pounds an hour better – all because workers at just two pubs stood up to Tim and the bosses. Night shifts will get paid a pound extra per hour, and the tiny annual pay rise has been brought forward a few months. But it’s not enough. At minimum, we deserve £10 an hour – because everyone deserves a wage you can live on in comfort.

But as well as the national pay rise, we’ve managed to get stuff changed in both of our pubs. At the Post and Telegraph we gave our pub manager a letter signed by half the staff complaining about the way our rotas were done, and things were changed immediately. At the Brighthelm, we handed in a letter complaining about the introduction of night shifts and they were stopped straight away.

If just two pubs in one city can force the bosses to give us a national pay rise, then what could ten pubs do? What about twenty?

We need the get organised all over the country if we want to win more. Tim can afford to give up a bit of his £322 million to the people who work hour after hour making food, cleaning toilets, closing up and taking stock. But he won’t do it unless we force him too. The only way to force him too is to organise and fight back.

In Brighton, we’re members of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU). Unions are groups made up of lots of workers. Together, as part of a union, we can organise to immediately change our own lives. When you’re in a union, you don’t have to put up with a bad job, terrible wages, bullying managers or the rest of it.

We’re asking you, workers at other pubs across the country, to join the union and organise where you are. There are over 900 spoons across the UK. Workers in as many of those as possible need to get organised and take part in the movement. There are tens of thousands of us and only a few of them – together, we can run our pubs for the many not the few.

Weatherspoons workers will be taking coordinated strike action with McDonalds and TGI Friday’s workers on Thursday 4th October. 

[ruseg]

Four months ago we made history by going on strike. Poverty pay, youth rates, insecure hours and poor conditions are the legacy of the hospitality industry. That must change. We must show the bosses and politicians that we will stand for it no longer. RT! pic.twitter.com/Lx7ZvDjpKf

— SpoonStrike (@SpoonStrike) February 5, 2019

[londonpicturescapital]

Rally for McDonald's, TGI Fridays & Wetherspoons Strikers, London, UK - Images | Picture Capital - #AllEyesOnTGIs #McStrike #SpoonStrike https://t.co/Hk8iqSFuec https://t.co/qa6bkiiivg https://www.instagram.com/p/Bogt7ooh3XK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15cgsimp910ze

[racingtoaredlight]

Weekend Eve Opening Bell - May 9th, 2019

Adventure Time.

Happy Weekend Eve.

Abortion bans are immoral. 

Lawns are stupid, do better. 

A Weatherspoon’s pub, picture a Beef O��’Brady’s full of depressive English divorced men on the bleakest day of the year drinking the cheapest, strongest lager in total silence, has successfully bootstrapped via a #SpoonStrike for better hours, treatment and pay.

Speaking of the depressed English, look at these rotten dickheads fighting against whimsy. 

The great irony of China is that they need a worker’s revolution. 

Neoliberal governments will use state power to further enrich capital, while voting against this status quo workers must fight back. The way workers fight back is with organized strikes. 

Sudan could delay unity government a year.

Anti-gentrification is often seen as the sport of nimby busy bodies, the reality is slum lords result in skyrocketing social costs by increasing homelessness and misery.

A tremendous read about Uber being a terrible investment according to Uber. A day before Uber’s IPO drivers go on strike. 

Sanctions are murder.

Who funds Canada’s alt right? 

The kids are not all right. Millennials face unique financial hardships. More young adults are dying of heart failure. Young workers are miserable.

Larping your job.

Amazon fires workers through automation. 

Study: 42% of American cancer survivors lose their life savings. 

Socialism is needed to address climate change, Capitalism is a death march we need to end.  

There is no right wing critique of socialism that is honest or accurate. 

Have a nice day. 

[newbeltane]

Tweeted

With all the talk of reopening please remember.. ‼️UNIONISED WETHERSPOONS WORKERS DO NOT SUPPORT A BOYCOTT‼️ Boycotting will cause hours cuts and loss of earnings. You can show support by; - Sharing our posts - Respecting picket lines - Encouraging workers to unionise

— SpoonStrike (@SpoonStrike) June 23, 2020

[cathkaesque]

Thousands of workers are expected to take part in international hospitality sector strikes this Thursday, including in cities across the UK.

The Bakers union (BFAWU), War on Want and Unite are leading a UK campaign for workers’ rights and ending poverty pay, with demonstration due to hit cities this Thursday.

It follows McDonald’s, TGI Fridays and Wetherspoons workers’ announcement of coordinated strike action. Uber Eats & Deliveroo couriers will be joining them in taking action this Thursday.

Uber Eats couriers, as part of the IWW Couriers Network, are also organised in the Independent Workers of Great Britain and GMB, and have decided to not log-on in protest over a cut in the rates for deliveries. They are demanding £5 per drop & £1 per mile as a minimum rate.

Workers in Wetherspoons (the Bright Helm and Post & Telegraph, Brighton), TGI Fridays (Milton Keynes, Covent Garden & Stratford Westfield) and McDonald’s (Brixton, Crayford, Cambridge and Watford) will be striking over tips, poverty pay (for £10/hr) and for union recognition on the same day.

The strikes:

National Food Delivery Courier Shutdown / Uber Eats strikes to take place in Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, London, Newcastle, Plymouth, Southampton (called by IWW Couriers Network, IWGB and GMB).

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is joining the national shutdown of food delivery Couriers. IWGB / Unite Private Hire Driver (UPHD), including Uber drivers will be taking action and protesting in solidarity on the day.

GMB London Region calls on gig-economy members from Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Yodel Couriers, Hermes, Uber, Addison Lee and Green Tomatoes, DPD, UK Mail & Amazon & others to take action on the day.

US Fast Food workers to strike on 04 October too, as part of #FastFoodGlobal

Momentum are mobilising activists across the country, with local groups organising solidarity actions.

Fast food workers from four continents are set to come to the UK to show solidarity in this global movement.

Solidarity actions also taking place in Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield. Swansea, Wrexham (with more being organised)

International demonstrations for fast food workers rights will take place in Chile, Colombia, USA, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Philippines and Japan as part of #FastFoodGlobal

Hospitality workers from four continents are coming to London to show solidarity with striking hospitality workers. An International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) conference will take place in London on the 3rd October at Unite HQ.

Protests near you:

Brighton, 00:01-01:00, Midnight Picket: Workers at the two Wetherspoons pubs going on strike will rally with community supporters.

Brighton: 18:30 Rally: Community rally in support of striking Wetherspoons workers. [Meeting at Clock Tower]

Brixton (London): 08:00-09:00, Morning Picket: Workers at the McDonald’s will rally with community supporters.

Leicester Square (London): 11:00-12:00 Rally: Striking workers and hospitality workers (Including McDonald’s, TGI Fridays, and Wetherspoons strikers, international fastfood workers & others) will come together for a rally to demand improved working conditions across the hospitality industry. Frances O’Grady TUC General Secretary to speak.

Uber HQ (London): 17:00 London Uber Eats Strike: meeting point / Uber Demonstration: Meet 5pm Uber HQ at Aldgate Tower.

Cardiff: 17:00, UberEats Strike: strikers will meet at 17:00 Queens St McDonald’s

Glasgow: 12:00 UberEats strike strikers will rally @ George square,

Glasgow: 18:00, UberEats strike18:00 evening rally @ George square

JD Wetherspoons workers were inspired by the McStrike and joined the BFAWU. This will be the first time Wetherspoons workers have been on strike in the company’s history.

TGI Friday’s #AllEyesOnTGIs strike is the eighth by workers at TGI Fridays restaurants in Covent Garden and Milton Keynes, since 18 May 2018. Workers from Stratford City are walking out for the second time. Unite members there have come together against ‘tip theft’, and are striking over the company’s refusal to listen to their concerns after a change in tip policy left them £250 a month worse off.

#McStrike: Last month McDonald’s workers organised in the BFAWU made history when members at two McDonald’s stores went on strike for £10 an hour, an end to zero hour contracts and for their right a union. They won a ten-year record pay rise. On 1st May 2018 – International Workers Day – workers at five McDonald’s stores also went out on strike.

Fast food workers in the US will also be going on strike between between October 2nd and 4th, in tandem with strikes and rallies by airport, hospital, child-care and higher education workers, and other low paid workers. The strikes will be centred in cities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, California and Connecticut.

A full list of solidarity actions and strikes called will be kept updated here: www.waronwant.org/ffs410

Article via Left Foot Forward and graphic (unfortunately) via The Daily Star. Spread the strikes!