BIG MAC
ATTACK
Did Somebody Say Strike? The Kids Who Took On McDonald's
-- and Won
By Michael
Colton
Washington Post Staff
Writer
Sunday, April 26, 1998; Page
F01
MACEDONIA, Ohio—The McDonald's at 6400 Macedonia Commons Blvd. looks like most of the other 12,000 or so McDonald's in the United States. A generic gray edifice, complete with drive-through and Playland, it sits at the intersection of State Road 8 and Route 271, about halfway between Akron and Cleveland. It's next to a Ground Round, which is next to a KFC, which is next to an Applebee's. No one goes hungry on Macedonia Commons Boulevard.
Like all the other McDonald's, this one offers a faint, instantly recognizable odor. It's the smell of Double Quarter Pounders With Cheese, Filets-O-Fish and dimethyl polysiloxane-enhanced Chicken McNuggets. It's the smell that millions of low-wage workers take home with them every night -- the smell of blood, sweat and Special Sauce.
To Bryan Drapp -- 19-year-old fry cook, burger griller and labor organizer -- it's the smell of victory. For this is no ordinary McDonald's. This is the one that made history. Five Days That Shook McWorld, they'll call it in the textbooks: that week when 20 kids took a stand against The Man, who in this case wears a yellow suit and a red wig and calls himself Ronald. The time when this cry was heard across the land: "Service-sector workers of the world unite!"
Drapp and his mostly teenage cohorts -- who, yes, have pimples and patches of facial hair sprouting in odd places like they're supposed to -- did something in mid-April that no one else in America seems to have done since a visionary named Ray Kroc opened up a burger joint in Illinois 43 years ago. They went on strike against the nation's best-known restaurant chain, in an industry where organized labor is an anomaly. And they got what they wanted -- a little respect and a little more cash.
After picketing in the cold rain and harsh sun in their baseball caps and Air Jordans, carrying placards that complained "Overworked, Underpaid," and enduring the jokes of Jay Leno and Howard Stern, they are back on the job -- with the Teamsters watching over them, hoping to leverage the short-lived McDonald's strike into an example of labor's resurgence. These teens are heroes to a lot of people around here. And a headache for McDonald's well-greased PR machine.
But their managers -- oh, they're being real, real nice. While the crew still has to mop the bathroom floor, refill the napkin holders and assemble the Big Macs (dehydrated onions, two hamburger patties, etc.), at least now they're doing it with dignity.
"They're so much nicer to me than before," Drapp says of his superiors. "They say, 'Could you please do this if you have the time?' I'm loving it."
For anyone who's ever slung hash or worn a hairnet, it's a feeling just as valuable as a sheaf of stock options and a seat on the board of directors.
We live in a fast-food, fast-paced age, of which McDonald's is just the most blatant and ubiquitous reflection. McWorld is built upon the tenets of instant gratification and assembly-line speed, prepackaged goodness and artificiality. McHappiness.
Except not everybody's happy.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more McDonald's visors. While daily headlines trumpet the ascendance of the all-powerful Dow and increasingly titanic corporate mergers, the service sector is where most of America's new jobs are being created. Many of them are McJobs, a term that has come to signify all jobs characterized by low pay, few benefits and no future.
Regardless of whether a $5.85-an-hour job beneath the golden arches meets all these requirements -- and McDonald's will have you know it doesn't -- it is, by definition, the original McJob. If Marx were alive, he'd probably be handing out the spiffy new edition of his manifesto in Macedonia (pop. 12,000, home to such companies as Century Products, the car baby-seat manufacturer).
Wearing a visor, black apron and magenta shirt (blue-and-purple shirts are for management and crew trainers), Bryan Drapp works 45 hours a week, often in nine-hour shifts that begin at 6 a.m. For each shift he is granted one half-hour break, which he takes at his supervisor's discretion. He has burns on his arms from working the grill and circles under his eyes from lack of sleep (he also attends classes two days a week at the University of Akron).
Some of the kids who joined his strike come from similar circumstances: They're children of the Rust Belt, slogging hard to get ahead. Their small show of force resonated in a part of the country where industrial jobs once ruled. "Everybody should be treated with dignity," says Dominic Tocco, president of Cleveland's Teamsters Local 416, which rushed to represent the workers. "I don't care if they make $5 an hour or $500."
Had the Teamsters unionized the Macedonia McDonald's -- the strikers settled for an agreement with management, which is all they really wanted -- it apparently would have been the first in 25 years. Some McDonald's unions have been formed in Europe and Mexico, but the only reported success in America came in the early '70s when the United Food and Commercial Workers unionized a McDonald's in Mason City, Iowa, for four years.
McDonald's and the rest of the fast-food industry have been notoriously anti-union. In February, a McDonald's in St. Hubert, Quebec, permanently shut down in the middle of a union drive by its employees, sparking a nationwide labor movement to organize McDonald's workers.
The fast-food industry works on a small profit margin, which unionization would make even smaller. "The whole competitive edge McDonald's has is that the food's cheap," notes Michael Kaizen, a labor historian at American University. "If unions get there, prices will probably rise, so the company can be counted on to fight unionization from the beginning."
Of course the lack of organized labor is not just a reflection of the employers' wills but of the logistics of the industry. Employees work in small groups at separate franchises. There are many part timers. Turnover is high. Many are teenagers in their first jobs; they don't plan to make a career out of fast food. They are loath to reduce their already low wages by paying union dues. "These relatively young workers never are able to establish what is known in labor relations parlance as a 'community of interest,' " says Douglas McCabe, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Georgetown University.
But despite the stereotype mocked on "The Simpsons" and "Beavis and Butt-head," McDonald's is not staffed entirely by teens. There are older people who flip burgers to supplement Social Security, to keep up their car payments or raise a family. For them, McDonald's is the only option -- and they, Drapp says, are the ones he was trying to help. People like Margaretha DeLollis, 66, one of the oldest workers at the Macedonia McDonald's.
The Spark On April 8, DeLollis, a Netherlands native who moved to Ohio 30 years ago, was out on the floor putting new garbage bags in the cans every 15 minutes -- standard procedure during the lunch rush. She didn't want to have to go to the back of the restaurant every time she needed a new bag, so she left a stack of spares out in the open.
That didn't look like proper McDonald's behavior to Jerry Guffey, a franchise management employee. He grabbed her arm and yelled at her, she told local newspapers. Guffey also reportedly ordered the gray-haired worker to "use your legs."
DeLollis cried and ran out of the restaurant. "I felt like a little girl," she told the Akron Beacon Journal.
Bryan Drapp was at the grill wrapping burgers, and says he saw the whole thing. After DeLollis left, Guffey asked Drapp to clean the lobby -- DeLollis's job. Drapp refused. He says Guffey took him to the back office and said, "Your job is to do whatever I tell you."
Drapp walked out, furious.
(Guffey did not return several messages seeking comment. But Jed Greene, the owner and operator of the Macedonia franchise, now acknowledges that "mistakes were made," as the saying goes, and he admits that communication broke down.)
Drapp is a toothy, popular kid with fairly typical tastes -- fond of rappers like Scarface and Master P, wearing his baseball cap low on his head, calling people he doesn't like "punks" -- but he doesn't consider himself a troublemaker or a hothead. In the course of his McDonald's tenure -- he's been there two years -- he had quit once before. A manager was too demanding, he says. But Drapp came back when that manager left; he needed the money. He lives at home with his father, a computer repairman, and his mother, who takes care of his grandmother.
He and other workers say their problems were never addressed. Supplies were hard to find and equipment didn't work properly. The pay scale was out of sync; an employee making $5.85 might have to train a new worker earning $6.50. The store was understaffed -- managers swore and customers yelled, especially during the hectic Teeny Beanie Babies promotions.
After his April 8 walkout in support of his older comrade, Drapp still wanted to work at McDonald's. He came back a couple of hours later and tried to find out if it was okay to return for his next scheduled shift, on Good Friday. But he says Guffey -- who is the franchise's human relations supervisor -- wouldn't speak to him.
Drapp punched in bright and early on Good Friday. Meanwhile, he'd decided on a plan. He secretly told it to the other workers: He wanted them to go on strike.
Drapp had never even seen a strike before, except on TV. "We mostly talk about sports," says his father, Jeff, "not labor and Teamsters."
Not wanting to quit, and unable to get management to speak to him, Drapp figured he had to do something dramatic to get attention.
First Strike
Jamal Nickens was the first co-worker Drapp talked to about the strike. Tall, thin and quiet, Nickens, 20, has known Drapp since high school, and now also attends the University of Akron. Like Drapp, he studies business and wants to own his own establishment one day.
To afford school, Nickens has to work two other jobs in addition to McDonald's: landscaping and running the video arcade at a horse track. Some days he works at all three jobs. During the summer, when he works the most, he averages about four hours of sleep a night. Both he and Drapp make $6.50 an hour at McDonald's.
Nickens had also seen problems at work, and also had quit before. "They're authoritarian," he says. "You were their slave."
Promises went unfilled, Nickens says; he was supposed to get $25 for referring Drapp and getting him hired two years ago. The money didn't come through until after the strike.
On Easter Sunday morning, Drapp and Nickens met at the store at 6 but stood on the other side of the parking lot, near a flagpole that flies two flags -- one for America and one for McWorld. The night before, Drapp had bought some poster board. "Mom, I'm going to Wal-Mart," he told his mother. She tried to talk him out of striking, but then, resigned, she told him to be careful.
When the managers arrived to help open the store, they didn't quite understand what Drapp and Nickens were doing, and pleaded with them to come back in. Several other crew members showed up and also stayed outside.
Management scrambled; workers from Jed Greene's other two franchises in the area came, and a call went out to McDonald's regional corporate office in Independence, Ohio, which sent down consultants and executives -- and their spouses and children -- to work the store. Some came straight from church. The Macedonia franchise finally opened at 10, three hours late.
About 15 members of the store's crew, mainly teenagers, gathered on Sunday, holding signs like "Honk for Compassion" and "Did Somebody Say Unqualified Management?" (playing off the current McDonald's ad campaign, "Did Somebody Say McDonald's?"). Some other crew members, especially older ones with families to feed, expressed their support but went inside to work because they needed the money. Margaretha DeLollis was among them.
The timing was crucial -- since it was spring break, most of the high schoolers didn't mind hanging out all day on a picket line. A week earlier or a week later, and Drapp and Nickens, who had to skip their college classes, would have had a very lonely strike.
Management pleaded with them to come back in, offering to discuss their demands, but the strikers had not formalized their grievances yet. When the list was written, it ranged from the mundane -- fully equipped first-aid kits, written reviews and posted schedules -- to the angry: "No more DECEPTION," read No. 9.
By Tuesday, the news media had begun to arrive, though neither Drapp or Nickens contacted them. (Reviewing his news appearances on video after the strike, Drapp remarked, "There's some good-looking news ladies, I'll tell you that.") Passersby were showing their support by honking and, the employees claim, choosing to eat elsewhere. But some yelled insults like "Get a real job!"
Radio talk host Howard Stern called and, Drapp says, "ripped me apart."
"He told me to stick two pieces of cheese on my butt and sit on the grill and make a 'stupid sandwich,' " Drapp says, cracking up.
Jay Leno joked that among the strikers' demands were "more pimples." He also featured a running skit in which the strikers were intimidated and beaten by fast-food mascots like Ronald McDonald, Col. Sanders and Wendy. In one, Ronald tortures a striker by applying a hot McDonald's apple pie to his chest.
Managers from other restaurants -- Burger King, the Ground Round, Applebee's -- came by to offer job applications, but that's not what the strikers wanted. "A lot of deejays said, 'If you don't like it there, go to Taco Bell,'" recalls Drapp's mother, Dianne. "But that's not what Bryan was about. He didn't want another job. He wanted to change things."
The Teamster
Dominic Tocco -- whose local represents a nearby aerosol-can factory and an electronics firm -- had heard about the strike on the radio and decided to stop by on his way to work to buy the kids doughnuts and coffee. After finding out who he was, they said they wanted to be Teamsters.
Morale had been waning among the strikers -- some of the teens were calling in sick to Nickens and Drapp or whining about wanting to go back to work. The presence of the Teamsters pumped them up. "McDonald's was so intimidating to these kids," Tocco says. "They felt with almost 2 million Teamsters behind them, they wouldn't be intimidated. We were there to level the playing field."
Twenty people -- half of the store's employees -- signed union cards, authorizing Tocco to try to represent them.
As Tocco spread the word, Teamsters from around the area -- auto workers, steelworkers, electrical workers -- descended on 6400 Macedonia Commons Blvd. to offer food and support. For some, the sight of Teamsters was troubling. The ongoing David and Goliath story now had another Goliath, and some parents worried that the strikers were caught in the middle.
But the teens say that the Teamsters were not pushing an agenda (except, perhaps, to score some positive publicity). They advised the strikers but didn't interject typical Teamster demands -- like health care benefits and yearly wage increases.
Tocco says he just wanted to give the fledgling unionists a hand. "I have two sons -- Dominic, 21, and Giovanni, 19," he says. "If my boys were working at a company and being physically and verbally abused, I'd want them standing outside on a picket line, too."
McDonald's management was not particularly impressed by the presence of the Teamsters. "It just increased the number of people out there holding signs," says Mike Henry, regional marketing manager for McDonald's in Independence. They had scheduled a meeting Wednesday afternoon with the strikers at a nearby Holiday Inn. But they insisted that the meeting be McDonald's-only: no Teamsters. The strikers didn't show.
Meanwhile, other people -- mainly adults -- were filling out McDonald's job applications.
On Thursday, April 16, the strikers felt the tide turning. The presence of the Teamsters helped convince a UPS driver and a hamburger bun delivery man not to cross the picket line, the strikers say. At 4 p.m., six of the strikers met with management in the back of the store, with the provision that they could show any proposed agreement to Tocco. After two hours, a resolution was reached and the strike was over.
Among the terms of the agreement:
"People skills" classes for management.
A week's paid vacation after one year of full-time service (35 hours a week) -- an idea contributed by the Teamsters.
Retroactive salary hikes to cover any increases in the federal minimum wage (currently $5.15). For example, if a crew member is making $6.50 and the minimum wage goes up by 50 cents, the worker will make $7.
"No repercussions and/or consequences for the strikers due to the voicing of our issues and concerns."
Management, however, refused the workers' demand to fire Jerry Guffey.
'I Truly Am Sorry'
Sitting in a nearby Bob Evans the weekend after the strike, two McDonald's representatives -- Jed Greene and Dwight Bungo -- sip coffee and tell a somewhat different story. But they're clearly apologetic.
"I truly am sorry it happened," says Greene, a 34-year McDonald's veteran who began as a crew employee in high school, making 85 cents an hour to pay for Christmas presents. "I just have to learn to listen a little bit better."
Bungo, a consultant to the regional corporate headquarters, takes issue with some of the strikers' claims. Most significantly, the hamburger buns were delivered, he says, playing down the importance of the Teamsters. (The president of the New Horizons Baking Co. in Norwalk, Ohio, also says the delivery was made.)
Bungo and Greene prefer not call the resolution a "labor agreement." They call it an "action plan." And they emphasize that this strike was a unique incident that will probably have no major repercussions.
That's also the view from McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. "This is an isolated thing handled by a local owner-operator," says spokeswoman Lisa Howard, sounding very bored. Another spokeswoman refuses to even use the word "strike."
Given that the strike was against local management, not against McDonald's as a whole, it's hard to predict its full impact. But Dominic Tocco has received hundreds of phone calls. Employees from five McDonald's in Akron called for union cards, he says. A franchise owner from California called to make sure he was treating his employees fairly, as did a local Taco Bell manager.
"This is a wake-up call for people who are running these places," Tocco brags.
At the Macedonia McDonald's, managers have until the end of April to comply with all the terms of the agreement, and Tocco will be watching to make sure they do. He's made the ex-strikers "associate Teamsters," meaning they don't have to pay any dues.
Meanwhile, the star strikers have returned to the fryers. Greene has been spending more time with them, too, shoveling hash browns into paper sacks for the Sunday-morning breakfast crowd.
Drapp is waiting for confirmation of an invitation to appear on "The Tonight Show." Nickens is enjoying his managers' newfound politeness. "They've been kissing up to us," he says, his face still sunburned and peeling from the picket line. "But I don't know if it'll last."
His shift over, he takes off his apron and leaves the kitchen, where Drapp is still hastily assembling Quarter Pounders and Big Macs.
Nickens sits down at a table with a reporter from a socialist newspaper, Workers World. Drapp watches from the grill.
Workers World? He's never heard of it.