Posts Tagged ‘workers rights’
Posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2014 by Michele Simon
New report from Eat Drink Politics shows how the nation’s largest retailer is a poverty incubator, contributing to the hunger crisis in America while Walmart and the Walton family get richer
La’Randa Jackson, shown here, supports her mother and her younger brothers by working at the Walmart store in Cincinnati, Ohio. “I skip a lot of meals,” she says. “The most important thing is food for the babies, then my younger brothers. Then, if there’s enough, my mom and I eat.”
La’Randa works for the nation’s largest private employer, and she is not alone in her struggle to afford enough food.
On $10.10 an hour and an unpredictable part-time schedule, Cantare Davunt – a Walmart customer service manager from Apple Valley, Minnesota – winds up digging into her cabinets for older, non-perishable foods like Ramen so she can have a hot meal. Diana Tigon, a cashier at the Walmart store in Arlington, Texas, often finds she is strapped for cash and during rough weeks goes full days without eating meals.
Continue reading →
Posted in Industry Tactics | Tagged: food workers, hunger, Walmart, workers, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (38) |
Posted on Thursday, February 13th, 2014 by Michele Simon
By Michele Simon and Saru Jayaraman
Food movement leaders tend to stick to their specific issues, whether it’s advocating for healthy food, fighting for workers’ rights or curbing marketing to children. For each of these issues, there are numerous food corporations that need to change. But there is one organization that conveniently provides us with one giant target for all of them: the National Restaurant Association.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Labor, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: animal rights, Big Food, Corporate Accountability International, Darden, food safety, junk food, labor, McDonald's, nutrition labeling, Rick Berman, workers, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (3) |
Posted on Friday, January 3rd, 2014 by Michele Simon
If you ask most Americans about the NRA, they will think of the National Rifle Association. But another powerful industry trade group bearing those initials, the National Restaurant Association, conducts its own campaign of duplicitous lobbying and outright deception at the expense of the public interest. Read rest at Al Jazeera America ….
Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Labor | Tagged: Big Food, Corporate Accountability International, labor, lobbying, McDonald's, National Restaurant Association, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Tuesday, November 26th, 2013 by Michele Simon
It seems both ironic and fitting that while most Americans are obsessed with food for the Thanksgiving holiday, this week also marks International Food Workers Week, organized by the Food Chain Workers Alliance.
While many large restaurant chains and other sectors of the food industry bear responsibility for mistreating their workers, recently, McDonald’s has engaged in a series of jaw-dropping and idiotic communications with its workforce. Each one is a painful reminder of how impossible it is to live on fast-food wages.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: Big Food, Corporate Accountability International, food workers, labor, McDonald's, workers, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (4) |
Posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, with the release of Saru Jayaraman’s new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, I’ve been writing about the powerful influence of the National Restaurant Association, for example, in lobbying against paid sick days for workers. Sadly, most of my colleagues in public health and the good food movement don’t pay enough attention to the many injustices workers face every day. So here is my attempt to help correct that situation.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (3) |
Posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, food labor advocate Saru Jayaraman is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which relates heartbreaking stories of just some of the 10 million restaurant workers in the U.S. In a chapter called, Serving While Sick, she tells the disturbing tale of a fast-food worker who had no choice but to come to work with a bad cold since she couldn’t afford to go unpaid. When this worker tried to explain to her manager how perhaps handling food while coughing and sneezing was not such a good idea, she was laughed at. She later wondered how many customers she got sick that day because she couldn’t leave the counter every time she needed to wipe her nose.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, lobbying, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (5) |
Posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Michelle Obama speaking to the National Restaurant Association in September 2010
As I explained yesterday, I am writing one post per day this week to being attention to the new book by food labor rights advocate Saru Jayaraman, Behind the Kitchen Door. The book brings much-needed attention to the 10 million restaurant workers who toil everyday over our meals, often for slave wages. The National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) is largely responsible for lobbying to keep the federal tipped minimum wage at a paltry $2.13 an hour. Unfortunately, the topic of worker rights never came up in the speech the first lady gave to the NRA in September of 2010.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Food Policy, Industry Tactics | Tagged: labor, Obama, school food policy, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Monday, February 11th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, Saru Jayaraman, an amazing advocate for food workers as co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and now director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door.
Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: Burger King, Kellogg, labor, lobbying, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
