We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now": The Global Uprising against Poverty Wages by Annelise Orleck (review)

These are dark times for workers. In many countries, wages have stagnated, union membership has fallen, and inequality is at a record high. Global corporations have acquired significant power to restructure work, leaving many workers precarious and feeling disposable. This isn't entirely new, of course, as the history of capitalism is a history of exploitation. But there have been times when corporations have been more regulated, and when political leaders granted more concessions to workers.

In this context, with weak unions, conservative politicians, and powerful corporations, it seems unlikely that workers could win anything. But in We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages, Annelise Orleck shows us that some workers are in fact winning. And not just any workers, but some of the most marginalized, low-wage, vulnerable workers.

After being inspired by Bangladeshi garment activists and fast-food worker strikes, Orleck travelled around the world interviewing over 140 workers and activists. She visited Cambodia, Bangladesh, Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa, and many parts of the US. She spoke with farmworkers, garment workers, fast-food workers, retail workers, hotel cleaners, and union organizers. While the countries and type of work vary greatly, many of the workers Orleck talks have a lot in common. Most are working long hours and struggling to make ends meet in a world that blames them for not doing more to get ahead. The title of the book comes from a quote from Keegan Shepard, a fast-food activist in Florida, who sees the ways in which interlocking systems of capitalism, gender, and racial oppression work to keep vast numbers of workers down.

We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now begins with stories of workers that highlight both the extent of the poor conditions but also some of the victories. Workers are winning higher wages and union representation. For example, hotel workers in Phnom Penh organized, formed a union, and protested. They've won a reduction in the number of rooms to clean and a reduction in sexual harassment. Fast-food workers in the US have won a $15 per hour minimum wage in California and New York, and dozens of cities.

The book then goes on to explore garment and farm work in detail. These are two of the most notorious industries for exploitative working conditions. Garment was one of the first to "globalize"; a relatively small number of huge brands and retailers have built a buyer-driven supply chain that makes workers compete against one another to drive down wages. The system makes it hard for workers to demand higher wages because the brand can then just end the contract and move the work somewhere else. Despite this, Orleck talks to workers who are fighting back. There are the berry pickers in Mexico who walk off the job with signs that say "We are Workers, not Slaves." Workers are fed up, like Bernardino Martinez, a migrant farm worker in Southern California who sued employers who used tasers against workers who organized in the fields. He tells Orleck, "Most workers are too scared to go to court. They are afraid they'll be deported. I was scared too, but even more, I was mad. And I was tired. I had been doing this for seven years and it never got better." (16)

Orleck has a gift for making workers' voices come alive. We hear the words of Tep Sareoung, a young woman who works as a beer promoter in Cambodia, talk about her experience with the union - first, when organizers came to her neighborhood to educate women about reproductive issues - and then later, as she herself became an activist and a mentor and role model for other young women. Or Girshriela Green, who worked for Walmart for many years and put up with much mistreatment until a friend who had worked there for 20 years was fired with no warning. "That was it for me...