IWW Organizes Sandwich Chain

[syndicat]

Press Release:

Jimmy Johns Sandwich Workers Join Union to Increase Minimum Wage Pay

Fast Food Chain Rocked by Work Stoppages in Sign of Mounting Economic Frustration among US Workers

MINNEAPOLIS- Service was anything but 'freaky fast' at Jimmy Johns today as workers walked off the kitchen floor in an unprecedented move to demand improved wages and working conditions at nine Minneapolis franchise locations. Announcing the formation of the IWW Jimmy Johns Workers Union, the workers are seeking a pay increase to above minimum wage, consistent scheduling and minimum shift lengths, regularly scheduled breaks, sick days, no-nonsense workers compensation for job-related injuries, an end to sexual harassment at work, and basic fairness on the job.
"I have been working at Jimmy Johns for over two years and they still pay me minimum wage and schedule me one-hour shifts," said Rikki Olsen, a union member at the Block E location. "I'm working my way through school and can barely make ends meet. I'd get another job, but things are just as bad across the service industry. Companies like Jimmy John's are profitable and growing, they need to provide quality jobs for the community."
The Minneapolis franchise, owned and operated by Miklin Enterprises, Inc., pays the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr, offers no benefits, and has no full-time positions outside of management. Jimmy Johns corporate website lists $264,270 as the average yearly net profit for operating a franchise. Union members estimate that Rob and Mike Mulligan, owners of Miklin, Inc. made an annual profit of at minimum $2.3 million in the last year alone. The Miklin franchise plans to open four new locations this year at an estimated cost of over $1.2 million.
Jake Foucault, a delivery driver at the Riverside store, said, " If Mike and Rob Mulligan have the money to open four new stores, then they have the money to pay us more than minimum wage. We hope Rob and Mike do the right thing and come to the negotiating table."
A negotiating committee of Jimmy Johns workers plans to meet with the Mulligans at the Block E central office of the franchise to begin discussions at 4:00pm today.
The fast food workers' move to unionize is emblematic of mounting frustration amongst US workers with the sluggish pace of recovery from the Recession. With unemployment rates hovering around 9.5%, many workers view low wage service jobs as their only option. Employment in the food service industry is expected to grow 8.4% from 2008 to 2018, higher than the 7.7% rate predicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for all industries. Wages and working conditions in the fast food industry are widely regarded as substandard; in 2009, 25% of workers in the service industry made less than $7.55 an hour, the highest percentage of any occupational group.
The union campaign at Jimmy Johns could hold deep implications for other companies in the fast food industry, a sector known for the lowest rates of unionization- and lowest wages- in the United States. Only 1.8% of food service workers were represented by a union in 2009, far below the nation-wide figure of 12.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The question of unionization of the food and service industries is assuming greater focus as employment in these non-union sectors increases, while manufacturing, the traditional stronghold of unionization, slides further into decline.
The Jimmy Johns Workers Union, open to employees at the company nationwide, is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. Gaining prominence in recent years for organizing Starbucks workers, the IWW is a global union founded over a century ago for all working people.

[Lolshevik]

All right! Congratulations to the Jimmy Johns workers & the IWW as a whole on this. I've never had to put up with a one hour shift (wtf is that about?) but I've had three hour shifts, so I know what they mean.

what can onlookers do for these workers, solidarity-wise?

[genstrike]

Nice job, Minneapolis wobs!

Also, remind me to punch the next Trot who tells me that the IWW "isn't a real union"

[syndicat]

more info at the new union's website:

http://jimmyjohnsworkers.org/

I talked with one of the on-the-job organizers when I was in Minneapolis in May. This is a multi-racial campaign. a significant number of the workers are African-American.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Excellent - it's things like this that can help to turn things around once people see the effectiveness of working class politics, organization, and militancy.

Companies demonize service workers as (kids who need some extra spending cash) but that's bullshit - walk into any Wal-Mart or whatnot and it's people with families and retired people and teenagers who actually do need the income.

Working service now is like being on an assembly line - and just like the AFL said that industrial workers were not possible to organize, that's what the unions say today about service workers. Also nice that the article mentioned not only the wage increase but the basic respect and human dignity demands - I think that's a big part of service-demands.

[Nachie]

This is a multi-racial campaign. a significant number of the workers are African-American.

well don't trip all over yourself in a hurry to tokenize them, now.

[La Comédie Noire]

For someone who works at a sandwich shop this is inspiring.

[fa2991]

According to my local delegate, the Jimmy Johns strike will be extending into Omaha next week. This rash of IWW activity lately is making me proud of my state for probably the first time ever.

[syndicat]

well don't trip all over yourself in a hurry to tokenize them, now.

what are you talking about? is it that you prefer to ignore the fact that the working class is racially divided and needs to develop campaigns that bring people together? if so, that would be worse then "tokenizing" (whatever the fuck you mean by that). the on the job organizer i talked to seemed to think that the racial dynamics of the organizing were important, that is, ensuring that different groups were brought into the effort and so on. like me he is an advocate of the concept of "intersectionality." how do potshots like this show that RAAN is "non-sectarian" as you claim?

[syndicat]

press release after today's picket line:

Spirited Picket at Jimmy Johns Brings Block E Business to a Standstill as Management Refuses to Meet with Workers

Sandwich Workers to Announce Plans Tomorrow to Escalate Union Campaign

Press Conference: 11am September 3, Block E Jimmy Johns, Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS- Spirits were high and the air full of song on picket lines outside Jimmy Johns this afternoon as over 100 workers and supporters brought business to a near standstill. The picket was prompted by the refusal of Mike and Rob Mulligan, owners of the Miklin Enterprise franchise, to meet with their employees to discuss improvements in wages and working conditions.

Union members say they are undiscouraged by the owners' absence from the negotiating table. “We'll be out here until the Mulligans realize that workers can't make it on these poverty wages. We need consistent scheduling and more respect on the job. We need sick days. We need change. We're fired up and we're not going away until we see the changes we want,” said Rikki Olsen, a union member at the Block E Jimmy Johns.

So far, the only response from the company has been a craigslist post advertising openings at all locations, with starting pay at $7.50, 25 cents more than current workers make.

Workers walked off the kitchen floor and presented demands this morning at all nine Miklin franchise locations, declaring their membership in the IWW Jimmy Johns Workers Union.

Representatives of the Jimmy Johns Workers Union will hold a press conference at 11AM to announce further actions to bring management to the table.

The demands of the IWW Jimmy Johns Workers Union include a pay increase to above minimum wage, consistent scheduling and minimum shift lengths, regularly scheduled breaks, sick days, no-nonsense workers compensation for job-related injuries, an end to sexual harassment at work, and basic fairness on the job.

The Minneapolis Jimmy John's franchise, owned and operated by Miklin Enterprises, Inc., pays the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr, offers no benefits, and has no full-time positions outside of management. Jimmy Johns corporate website lists $264,270 as the average yearly net profit for operating a franchise. Union members estimate that Rob and Mike Mulligan, owners of Miklin, Inc. made an annual profit of at minimum $2.3 million in the last year alone. The Miklin franchise plans to open four new locations this year at an estimated cost of over $1.2 million.

The fast food workers' move to unionize is emblematic of mounting frustration amongst US workers with the sluggish pace of recovery from the Recession. With unemployment rates hovering around 9.5%, many workers view low wage service jobs as their only option. Employment in the food service industry is expected to grow 8.4% from 2008 to 2018, higher than the 7.7% rate predicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for all industries. Wages and working conditions in the fast food industry are widely regarded as substandard; in 2009, 25% of workers in the service industry made less than $7.55 an hour, the highest percentage of any occupational group .

The union campaign at Jimmy Johns could hold deep implications for other companies in the fast food industry, a sector known for the lowest rates of unionization- and lowest wages- in the United States. Only 1.8% of food service workers were represented by a union in 2009, far below the nation-wide figure of 12.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The question of unionization of the food and service industries is assuming greater focus as employment in these non-union sectors increases, while manufacturing, the traditional stronghold of unionization, slides further into decline.

The Jimmy Johns Workers Union, open to employees at the company nationwide, is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. Gaining prominence in recent years for organizing Starbucks workers, the IWW is a global union founded over a century ago for all working people.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

According to my local delegate, the Jimmy Johns strike will be extending into Omaha next week. This rash of IWW activity lately is making me proud of my state for probably the first time ever.

Thanks, Comrade. I'm going to try and inform a few of my friends (I use to live in Omaha and know plenty of people who work at JJ's in the city). I'm sure they'll be happy to hear this.

[Rusty Shackleford]

exactly why i still have respect for the IWW. even though their hay day is long gone, they are coming back.
i dont care if they are anarchists or leninists, they are a working class organization.

good job wobblies!!

[Nachie]

is it that you prefer to ignore the fact that the working class is racially divided and needs to develop campaigns that bring people together?

No, I just prefer some context to statements like that (which you admirably actually started to give in your reply) as opposed to just "oh and by the way y'all, a whole bunch of these folks is african-american!" which reeks of white activists patting themselves on the back for having organized some people of color. no thank you.

how do potshots like this show that RAAN is "non-sectarian" as you claim?

don't front dude, you hate us. there's no reason to pretend we're ever going to get along with you, so whatevs.

[Magón]

I hope this trend the Wobblies are giving people, will start to spread more and more, and finally get out of the food business. (Or at least move onto other places too, besides just JJs and Subway.) I'm glad they're doing this stuff, but the IWW needs to start getting back to what they used to be, with something big I think? Not with explosions or something like that, but like a major nation wide walkout of all Working Class Americans, along with Students. Like France, 1968! That'd be something to see, and be apart of too.

But I say good luck and good job to those at various Minneapolis JJs and the IWW.

[syndicat]

No, I just prefer some context to statements like that (which you admirably actually started to give in your reply) as opposed to just "oh and by the way y'all, a whole bunch of these folks is african-american!" which reeks of white activists patting themselves on the back for having organized some people of color. no thank you.

so in other words you'd intervene with pot shots in a positive thread about a worker struggle based on a misinterpretation due to YOUR assumptions. i would say that's petty and self-indulgent.

don't front dude, you hate us. there's no reason to pretend we're ever going to get along with you, so whatevs.

what an ass. i did not start out "hating" you all. but you seem determined to create that result. I started out challenging you all by asking questions to get you to explain your viewpoint, since I didn't know what it was. politics isn't about personal "liking" or "disliking". but what it does require, in order to be effective, is the skill to have conversations and debates with people who you disagree with in a comradely or at least civil manner. you seem to not "get" the fact that there is a distinction between disagreeing with someone's politics and "hating" them.

[Nachie]

very well, in that case it is simply I who don't like you.

and yes, kudos to the IWW.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This is good news.

[fa2991]

I hope this trend the Wobblies are giving people, will start to spread more and more, and finally get out of the food business. (Or at least move onto other places too, besides just JJs and Subway.) I'm glad they're doing this stuff, but the IWW needs to start getting back to what they used to be, with something big I think? Not with explosions or something like that, but like a major nation wide walkout of all Working Class Americans, along with Students. Like France, 1968! That'd be something to see, and be apart of too.

These are just the most newsworthy campaigns.

http://www.iww.org/unions/dept300/iu330

http://www.iww.org/unions/dept500/iu530

(^Both have newspapers that are worth a read)

[MarxSchmarx]

I want to hear more about how this was done. Spcifically

- Were the organizers also Jimmy John's workers?

- How did you reach out to employees who were non-citizens?

- How did you deal with employer propaganda?

- What sort of external community groups were involved?


I'm sure many other comrades here share these questions, if somebody who involved on the ground level can give us some ideas for what they did and what they thought they could improve, this would be very helpful on a concrete level.

[P. Gage]

Hey MarxSchmarx, I'm not a Jimmy John's worker I bet they are all really busy right now. We've got to be careful sharing a lot of really specific information about campaigns in these discussions so I apologise if my answers are really vague and a lot more general than you would like but I think everyone understands the need for security on these matters when discussing strategy. What I can do is talk in general about what we do in the IWW to develop these campaigns and the model called Solidarity Unionism that we use to build direct action based unions run by the workers themselves.

-The campaign, like the vast majority of IWW campaigns is organised by the workers themselves on the floor. We have no paid full time organisers even our use of stipends for short periods of time is used extremely sparingly and I know of no stipends used in this campaign. All of our organising is on a shoe string budget.

-On Thursday the IWW held a 100 person picket in front of a Jimmy John's location, while the Twin Cities IWW does have a very large membership you don't pull an action like that off without allies in the community.

-We train our members to deal with employer propaganda in the IWW through innoculation. Part of the hundreds of 1 on 1 meetings that happen between member organisers and workers on the floor is telling them what the employer is going to say before they say it. We use handouts from previous campaigns with other employers, and talk about the various techniques bosses use to bust up unions (captive meetings, counter organising committees, threats and bribes etc). This is part of the IWWs organiser training program that is available to all IWW branches through the Organiser Training Committee.

-On the non citizen question I can't really answer that as I'm not a Jimmy John's worker, and not an American, however the methods all start the same. Find out their name, try and get a place to talk to them out of work and then find out what their concerns are and try and work that into the strategy.