Fast Food Rights march in Wakefield

Fast Food Right protest for £10 an hour minimum wage in Wakefield

Chants demanding £10 an hour minimum wage rang out through Wakefield city centre as activists from Baker’s, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ), National Shop Stewards Network took part in a demonstration to mark the #FastFood Global day of action.

Iain Dalton, Yorkshire YFJ Organiser

Over the last week we’ve visited fast food workplaces across Wakefield and nearby shopping centres where we’ve received an enthusiatic response. On the evening after the protest, a public meeting heard via Skype from a Fast Food worker in New York taking part in the strikes and gaining ideas from that of how to take the campaign forward locally.

Socialist Party member and new BFAWU activist, Tom commented “We’ve had a fanatastic few weeks of raising awareness of the BFAWU and it’s call for a £10 an hour minimum wage, and if we continue taking that message to local workplaces I’m confident we can build BFAWU among fast food workers in Wakefield.”

Fast Food Rights Tour of Shame in Wakefield

Fast Food Rights protesters at the Food Court in Trinity Walk

The drizzle didn’t dampen spirits outside the McDonald’s in Wakefield as 20 people showed up to support our demand for a £10 minimum wage, a wage to truly live on. Iain Dalton opened the Fast Food Rights protest by declaring our presence there part of the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign, backed by the Baker’s Union, aiming to empower workers and show the possibility of unionisation.

Sam Lynch, Wakefield Socialist Party

The manager in McDonald’s told us that they didn’t want to be seen siding with a political agenda when we spoke to them and offered a leaflet, yet the political agenda of McDonald’s is pretty clear; anti-union, low wages and low protection for workers and devastating ecological destruction – and at this store amounts to its closure in little over a month, showing the urgent need for trade union organisation in fast Food.

We moved from McDonald’s to a Flutterbye’s charity that has utilised the government’s forced labour workfare scheme; giving the organisation free labour just so people can get their unlivable benefits disguised as experience.

From this shop we moved on to Pound Bakery, then Thomas the Baker and then to Sports Direct and Subway to protest their exploitative use of zero-hours contracts, along the way our chant for a living wage now attracted some attention from the local YMCA, a couple of young workers chased after us to ask about the campaign. We rounded around, continuing the momentum and proceded to march into Trinity Walk to speak outside the Burger King and leaflet their workers.

Aftrwards, with brightening skies, we called an end to the demonstration and thanked the trade unionists, TUSC supporters and activists for coming out. The campaign will be sustained by more frequent demonstrations over the summer with the next one taking place in Leeds on June 26th at 4.30pm outside the McDonalds on Boar Lane.

YfFJ Press Release

Yorkshire Youth Fight for Jobs have today published a press release concerning a Liberal Democrat candidate for the Wakefield Rural ward. It has come to the attention of YfFJ that Finbarr Cronin has been using the YfFJ logo’s on his election materials, claiming he supports the campaign, yet contrary to the views of Youth Fight for Jobs he is not standing on a platform against cuts! We wholeheartedly agree with their statement shown bellow, and encourage you to read their full post on this issue over at the Yorkshire Youth Fight for Jobs website.

“If Finbarr Cronin really supports the aims of Youth Fight for Jobs then he should resign from the Liberal Democrats and contest elections on a platform that includes the key demands of Youth Fight for Jobs. This is what Wakefield YFJ activist, Dan Dearden, is doing standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in Pontefract North ward.”

Successful Workfare Protest in Wakefield

Youth Fight for Jobs & Education organised a protest today against the governments controversial workfare schemes, outside one of the companies yet to pull out, McDonald’s. A small band of us met just outside the city centre store at noon and quickly had a table set up, with party and Youth Fight for Jobs petitions, flyers and posters, and two of us began handing flyers out and engaging the public outside the entranceway. The stores management was soon quick to make an appearance, insisting that we take our action across the street, but causing no obstruction to customers entering the store, we persisted. After an hour we must have gotten through over a hundred leaflets with ease, the majority of which ended up in the hands of the customers heading in for lunch.

The majority of people seemed curious, happy to accept a leaflet and began skimming it as soon as you had handed it to them, eager to find out what all the fuss is about, others remained long enough to sign a petition either at the door or the table stand, and conversed on the issue with us. It was a very successful day.

Scrap McWorkfare – Protest for Real Jobs

The Wakefield branch of Youth Fight for Jobs & Education have initiated another protest in Wakefield, now to target Mcdonalds. The branch will be participating in the protest and are helping to organise it. Beginning Monday 27th just before 12:00 outside the town centre location.

We encourage you all to come along, and to sign up to the event page on Facebook.

Following on from the pulling out of the government’s workfare scheme by large companies such as Superdrug, Matalan, Maplin as well as Tesco’s offering those referred to it by the government a 4 week paid job with a guaranteed job at the end of it, Youth Fight for Jobs is calling a day of action on Monday 27th February to target another of the big companies taking part in the government’s workfare scheme – McDonalds

YFfJ Tesco Protest Flyer

This flyer is designed for double sided printing so features two pages of the same flyer, you can also download this single page version.

Protest Against Tesco’s

We will be supporting our friends at Youth Fight for Jobs & Education this Wednesday from 18:30 with a protest against the supermarket chain Tesco, for their continued participation in the governments unfair work fair schemes. Everyone will be then very welcome to attend our branch meeting at the Black Rock from 19:30. A Facebook event has already been set up and we encourage you to sign up and help this grow.