Worker’s Union Calls Burgerville Corporation White Supremacist, Demands Apology and $5hr Raise

The Burgerville Corporation had a policy that banned political buttons on employee  uniforms. When ten employees began wearing pins and buttons that said, “Abolish ICE,” “Black Lives Matter” and “No one is illegal,” they were sent home for the day. The Burgerville Worker’s Union threw a fit, and got the policy reversed at least temporarily. Those sent home got back pay.

Update: the Burgerville Corporation has instituted a written policy that will begin Sept 13 and the buttons and pins of political activism will NOT be allowed.

People began calling the Burgerville corporation to complain after workers started wearing “Abolish ICE” buttons. They didn’t want to have political messages shoved in their face while eating. They also didn’t appreciate the message itself- pro-illegal immigrants.

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The Oregonian reported (emphasis mine):

“We see the workplace as a central realm for combating white supremacy and anti-immigrant sentiment,” said Emmet Schlenz, a spokesman for the Burgerville Workers Union, which  launched in 2016 with help from members of the Industrial Workers of the World — better known as the Wobblies. [Editor’s note- we see restaurants as places to eat in peace, not political platforms.]

Few, if any, retail or service industry chains allow T-shirts, pins or other items that promote politics in the workplace. And Burgerville has “had a long-standing non-written policy” against outside buttons of any kind, the company said in a statement.

Please note that the “Industrial Workers of the World is a Communist organization which has the goal of doing away with capitalism. The preamble to their constitution reads in part:

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth…

…It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”

This year during collective bargaining they are demanding that Burgerville employees not only get an apology over the button issue, but a $5 per hour raise. They have accused the corporation of being “white supremacists.”  Five dollars per hour could bankrupt the company, then where would the “workers” go to spout their political views?

Blue Lives Matter reported,