US fast-food workers campaigning to end ‘poverty wages’ have begun to help organise their fellow workers in Britain by giving lessons to help transfer skills, strategies and tactics. Since late 2012, these US workers have campaigned for a minimum wage of $15 per hour with growing potency and success. A series of nationwide strikes in the US under the banner of ‘Fight for 15’ have grown in size and extent amongst not just workers in the traditional burger chains like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, and KFC. Successes in raising wages to $15 have been gained in cities like Seattle due to more assertive tactics being used. Workers in the U.S. fast-food industry are looking to transfer both their commitment to stepping up the campaign to an international level and their campaign methods to their fellow U.K. workers.
The counterpart to the US fast-food rights campaign was launched in Britain in early 2014 by the BFAWU bakers’ workers union and supporters in the union movement and called ‘Fast Food Rights: hungry for justice’. It has so far held speaking tours, organised public meetings, laid down a motion in parliament and undertaken protest actions outside a number of employers’ establishments as part of nationwide ‘days of action’ in the main towns and cities.
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