FIST interview with Denver activist
Food-service workers organize and win
By Julie Fry
It's getting harder for young people to find jobs that pay
decent wages or provide benefits. Larry Hales, a member of
Fight Imperialism-Stand Together--FIST--in Denver, is one of
hundreds of thousands of youths who work in the food service
industry with no union and few rights.
Undaunted, Hales and his co-workers decided to organize
themselves. They waged a successful struggle against management
at their work place, Diedrich's Coffee House. Workers World
spoke to Hales about this struggle.
Workers World: What is Diedrich's Coffee
House?
Larry Hales: It's a franchise store in Denver owned
by Rob Krast, Inc. The company owns three other Diedrich's and
all the Burger King restaurants in the city.
What were working conditions like at the store?
When Krast bought the chain, the stores had not been
refurbished in a long time. We were told they were going to go
down the line and fix them all up. That was in May.
In my store, the roof was leaking. The bathroom was closed
because the roof had caved in. We had to go up to the
building's seventh floor every time we needed to use the
bathroom.
During the summer, new equipment was brought in for
sandwiches and soups that had been added to the menu. The new
equipment, along with a malfunctioning air conditioner, caused
temperatures to get as high as 107 degrees some days.
We complained for weeks about the temperature and were told
they couldn't do anything about it. The owner said there was
nothing wrong with the temperature. One of my co-workers had to
leave a couple of times because she got sick.
In August, they brought in a small air-conditioning unit,
more than two months after we made the request.
We also never received raises that had been promised for
months. The manager claimed the store was steadily losing
money. Because of that, he said, wages were frozen.
How did you and your co-workers end up organizing
yourselves? Had any of you ever been in a union before?
None of us had ever had a union job before. We started
organizing in October. We reached out to a local union, but
they said it would be hard for them to help us since we were in
a franchise system and we were such a small unit.
We demanded a meeting with the vice president of the
corporate office during work hours and got it. Our concerns
were getting the raises and benefits we were promised and being
treated fairly in our store.
Did management threaten you after you started making
these demands?
There was a lot of talk that we would be let go. The manager
approached me several times and told me that he didn't like the
way that I was inciting the people I worked with. The VP had
talked with him because I had cited the labor laws that he was
violating.
I told him we would all leave the coffee shop and that we
had a right to leave if they didn't fix things. My co-workers
and I decided that we would all leave if one of us was
fired.
We have very good relationships with a lot of our customers
and they supported us. We knew they couldn't let us go without
losing a lot of customers.
What did you end up receiving as a result of your
bargaining efforts?
We finally told them that our raises had been put on hold
long enough and we wanted a decision right away. We all got
what we requested, except health care. Two of us are now trying
to figure out how we can work with the Burger King workers to
organize jointly for health care at all Rob Krast stores.
What lessons do you think you learned from this struggle
that could be useful for other workers, especially youths, in
similar situations?
I think there are a lot of people in my situation. I have a
degree in English and I want to be a teacher but I can't find a
job. It's a hard thing because I put myself through college
with two jobs and still had loans. Those loans have to be
repaid. It's a hard realization for most people that there are
no jobs and they are going to be in debt for the majority of
their lives after school.
I was fired from my last job when I asked for a ride home
because I had bronchitis and couldn't breathe. I don't have
health care and had to go to a county hospital, but I still
ended up with a $600 bill. This kind of thing destroys people's
dignity. One of the things we can do is restore our dignity by
standing together. That's what we are doing at my job now.
At our job, management is making money hand over fist. My
co-workers and I are effectively running that coffee shop.
Without management and their salaries we would be able to run
the store and have decent wages and benefits for ourselves.
In this time when there are few jobs, companies are going to
push as hard as they can to try to save their profits. This
struggle made us realize that we can force their hand by
demanding the things that we want and not backing down.
Reprinted from the Dec. 16, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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