How Fast Food Workers Super-Sized Their Pay in New Zealand

14-02-2013

McDonald's workers in New Zealand The New Zealand union Unite launched its "SuperSize My Pay" campaign in 2005. Now with more than 4,000 members at KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Starbucks, Burger King, and Wendy's, it has become one of the most successful fast food organizing efforts in the world. Unite's strategy? Very simple! By going into fast-food restaurants and organizing the workers.

The organizers have proposed a three-point platform of demands: increasing the minimum wage, the abolition of "youth rate", and to "secure" hours.

Despite of high turnover - more than 30.000 workers have been members of Unite - that could have weakened the campaign, Unite has achieved almost all its targets. For more information read the original article from LaborNotes website [1].

The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is an international federation of trade unions representing workers employed in agriculture and plantations; the preparation and manufacture of food and beverages; hotels, restaurants and catering services; all stages of tobacco processing. The IUF is composed of 394 affiliated organizations in 126 countries representing a combined membership of around 2,6 million.

How to contact the IUF:
Email: [email protected]
Post: Rampe du Pont-Rouge, 8, CH-1213, Petit-Lancy (Switzerland)
Phone: + 41 22 793 22 33
Fax: + 41 22 793 22 38

Links:
[1] http://www.labornotes.org/2013/02/how-fast-food-workers-super-sized-their-pay-new-zealand