We Need a Union
By Tanzie Dorough, Houston
Having worked at Burger King for the past three years, I’ll be the first to tell you we don’t get paid enough. I struggle to pay my rent and light bill each month. However, the challenges fast-food workers like myself face are so much more than just low pay.
I’m never sure how many hours I’ll be working each week. Sometimes I’m scheduled for only one or two days a week. My manager is under pressure from her bosses to keep her staffing costs as low as possible, which not only means keeping each worker’s weekly hours as low as possible, but that when we’re at work, we’re understaffed and overworked. The combination of low pay and limited hours makes it very hard for me to support myself.
As part-time employees, we don’t receive health benefits. I have several chronic health problems, and I can’t go without medical care. I tried signing up for insurance through Obamacare, but because I fall into the so-called Medicaid gap, I couldn’t afford any of the plans available to me. I receive some assistance from the Harris Health System, but it’s not the same as having health insurance and being able to see a doctor regularly. This means that even though the problems I have, such as high blood pressure and complications from menopause, go untreated until I get sick enough to go to the hospital.
Recently, I suffered what doctors call a “mini-stroke.” I lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized. I wasn’t able to work, and as a result, I wasn’t able to pay my rent. I was lucky that my roommates were able to come up with the money I didn’t have.
Sometimes I want to scream and cry. The stress of working hard under rough conditions, having to travel an hour on the bus each time I go to work, and being sick and unable to do anything about it is really too much.
But together with my fellow workers, I’m doing what I can to fight back. I’ve been part of the Fight for $15, movement for a $15/hour minimum wage and a union, for a few years, and I tell everyone I know about it. I’ll even start conversations on the bus about it. The most important thing in my mind, is $15 is not enough. We need guaranteed hours each week, health insurance, and a way to make sure our voices are heard if our bosses treat us unfairly — as a black woman in my 50s, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against at work. We need a union. When workers do better, everyone benefits. Wages aren’t going to go up by themselves and things aren’t going to change by themselves. We have to fight for them.
