Restaurant Worker News

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (2023):

The striking workers include cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen and front desk agents.

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (2015):

https://web.archive.org/web/20220317032911/https://gothamist.com/food/pure-food-and-wine-workers-walk-out-claiming-two-weeks-without-paychecks

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (1990):

"On 2 July 1990, a general strike of up to 3 million mostly Black workers took place in South Africa demanding government action to end violence in the Natal region."

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (1986):

"On 2 July 1986, workers in Chile began a two-day general strike to protest against the military rule of Augusto Pinochet. The US-and UK-backed dictator tortured and murdered tens of thousands of workers and opponents during his rule. This is an archive content about struggles in Chile:

https://libcom.org/tags/chile "

https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9197/2-day-general-strike-in-protest-against-pinochet-regime

Freewheeling reflections on Latin America - David and Stuart Wise Wanderings & Meanderings, Digressions & Detours: Freewheeling reflections on Latin America in…

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (1951):

"On 2 July 1951, transgender revolutionary icon Sylvia Rivera, of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent, was born in the Bronx, New York (content note: child abuse).

Rejected by her family due to her "effeminate" behaviour Rivera ran away from home aged 11, and was s*x trafficked in the Times Square area.

In the 1960s, Rivera became involved in movements against the Vietnam war and for Black liberation, then with the Stonewall rebellion threw herself into the burgeoning gay liberation movement, taking part in activities with the Gay Liberation Front, and later the Gay Activists Alliance.

With her friend Marsha P Johnson and others, she co-founded Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, a radical group which raised money to rent an apartment to house and support homeless gay and trans young people. Much of the funding was provided by Rivera and Johnson engaging in s*x work.

Rivera was a critic of the more middle-class, cis gendered (i.e. not transgender) leadership of much of the gay rights movement, especially when a Gay Rights Bill which was eventually passed in 1986 omitted trans people, commenting:

"They have a little backroom deal without inviting Miss Sylvia and some of the other trans activists to this backroom deal with these politicians. The deal was, 'You take them out, we’ll pass the bill'".

After the suspected murder of Johnson in 1992, Rivera's life went "off the rails", according to her friend, historian Eric Marcus, and she ended up homeless again living on an abandoned pier in Manhattan and drinking heavily. She did get involved in movement again, and in 2001 relaunched STAR, renamed Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries, but she died the following year of liver cancer.

Rivera is today remembered as one of the key activists who "who made sure there was a 'T' with the 'LGB…'"."

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (1839):

"On 2 July 1839 enslaved people aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad rebelled off the coast of Cuba. The mutiny was led by Sengbe Pieh, also known as Joseph Cinqué, a Mende man from what is now Sierra Leone aged approximately 25.

The Amistad was sailing from Havana to Puerto Príncipe in Cuba with 53 people who had recently been kidnapped from Africa. The Africans were mistreated and tortured on board, particularly by the sadistic cook.

Before daybreak on July 2, the enslaved people got together and escaped their chains, killed the cook and the captain, and ordered the navigator to sail them back to Sierra Leone. But that night, the remaining Spanish crew secretly changed course and headed north-west, hoping to be rescued.

Eventually, on August 26 by Long Island, they came across a US Navy vessel, who quickly freed the Spaniards and imprisoned the rebels in Connecticut, which was still a slave state at that time. There followed a high-profile legal battle, with former president John Quincy Adams offering to defend the Africans.

After 18 months of imprisonment, the Supreme Court eventually upheld a ruling of a lower court ruling that the Africans had been taken to Cuba illegally and therefore were not legally enslaved, and set them free.

The abolitionist movement then set about raising funds to take the men home. Two of the rebels were killed in the mutiny, some died in the subsequent journey and one died of possible su***de. In November 1841 the 35 survivors finally boarded a ship back to Sierra Leone."

07/02/2025

On This Day In History (1848):

"On 2 July 1848, enslaved people in St Croix (now the US Virgin Islands) rebelled, burned down plantations and besieged the town of Frederiksted.

The Caribbean island was at that time a Danish colony, and it had been decreed that slavery would be abolished in 1859, but the enslaved workers refused to wait. After revolutions in Europe led to turmoil in nearby Martinique and Guadeloupe, hundreds of rebels seized the moment and rose up. By the end of the day, only the local military garrison, Fort Frederiksværn, had not yet been overrun.

The following day, the governor general, Peter von Scholten arrived. Faced with demands from the enslaved people to immediately abolish slavery, or they would burn the town to the ground, he relented and shouted out: “Now you are free, you are hereby emancipated.”

Technically, von Scholten had no authority to abolish slavery, and he was strongly criticised by enslavers and Danish authorities. But faced with a fait accompli, Denmark had no real choice but to accept the situation. The agreement achieved by the formerly enslaved people went even further than just immediate emancipation, as the order issued on the night of July 3 also applied to the Danish colonies of St Thomas and St John, and directed that the enslaved had the right to keep their current housing and provisions for three months, and that elderly and ill labourers had to be looked after by the former enslavers "until further determination".

The old enslavers subsequently sued the Danish government demanding recompense for the loss of their "property". Danish Parliament rejected their claim, on the grounds that "slavery [was] itself an institution in conflict with religion and justice". But they did then agree to pay a relatively low compensation figure of $50 per enslaved person."

07/02/2025

07/02/2025

"The market is getting more concentrated with the bigger players displacing the smaller companies," a marketing professor told Newsweek.

07/02/2025

Grocery workers will see wage increases and a $30 million contribution to pension plans

07/02/2025

07/02/2025

Thousands of city union workers are on strike, and their numbers include some staffers who work at Philadelphia International Airport.