Class frustrations result in infighting at Dunkin’
I work for Dunkin’ as a crew member. Like every food service crew, the workers at my location are understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. Most of us work crazy hours in a stressful environment for no holiday pay, no paid time off, no sick days, no retirement plan, and no job security—we can be fired at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. The local franchise does offer some benefits, including health insurance, but only to employees who meet their “full time” criteria, and almost all employees have their hours cappped just under that threshold. Not that it matters, anyway; my coworkers tell me I would be better off going through state health insurance agencies since the franchise plan coverage is so thin that it’s basically worthless. Our break time is unpaid, so most of us usually skip our breaks or shorten them to get more time on the clock. We’re all expected work weekends and holidays—some of the crew members worked all day and some of the evening on Thanksgiving for no extra pay. Our local franchise only started allowing our location’s workers to earn cash tips about a year ago after a protracted fight with the crew members. We still aren’t allowed to receive credit card tips, and when I asked why there are no plans to implement them, I was told that the franchise wants to avoid owing taxes to the city on tipped income.
It’s simple, really. We work our asses off, and in exchange we get screwed over.
Meanwhile, the franchise owner themselves delegates almost all of their work to their child, who arrives at our location in a luxury car, often wearing jewelry easily worth more than three month’s income for any of us workers. I wish I could say that when the boss makes a dollar, I make a dime; then I might actually be able to afford dental care on my wages. Instead, much of the value I produce for the local franchise from my labor goes straight to the pockets of the owner. But the owner isn’t even the worst thief; an even greater chunk of the money made from my hard work goes to the massive multi-national Dunkin’ corporation which licenses out its brand to the franchisees. The Dunkin’ corporation takes a large portion of each franchisee’s revenue right off the top just for providing its branding and infrastructure, raking in millions if not billions in profits for its private shareholders. Neither local franchise owner nor their child have ever worked a late closing shift, cleaned a bathroom, or sweated over the sandwich station at my location while I’ve been employed here. So why do they and their corporate “partners” make so much more than any of their workers?
It’s simple, really. The rich get richer BECAUSE the poor get poorer. When they rob us, they call it turning a profit.
Given how shamelessly we’re being exploited, you might expect that the workers at my location would feel a sense of solidarity with each other, or at least resent the owners of the franchise and the larger corporation. Unfortunately, however, most of the frustration and anger my coworkers feel gets directed towards each other.
For example, I once heard one of my coworkers vent about how difficult it is to get the store ready to open by themselves at four in the morning. They began criticizing the closing shift coworkers for forgetting to do certain tasks like rinsing out the coffee containers and restocking the sandwhich station. They went so far as to say that their main issue with their job was that nowadays people just wanted to collect a paycheck for nothing, which made everyone else’s job harder. They argued that the night shift shouldn’t even be paid minimum wage, since when they started at the corporation years ago they made even less than that. To my surprise, my other coworkers joined in, dogpiling the night shift and the less experienced workers in general and blaming most of their issues with their job on the lack of work ethic from the younger workers.
Soon I began to notice how often every problem we experienced as workers got blamed on other workers. We don’t make enough in tips? It’s because certain people don’t serve coffee fast enough or put effort into being friendly to customers. Can’t get enough hours? The slackers are eating up the payroll for doing nothing. Too much work to do in too little time? If the other shifts just did their job properly, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Like I said from the start, we’re all understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. In reality, the blame for our problems lies not with our coworkers, but with the franchise owners and corporate shareholders who want to pay us as little as they can for the most work. In a very real sense, even the manager’s hands are tied. My location, like many food service locations, has payroll capped as a percentage of revenue. For us, our weekly payroll is limited to around ~23% of the weekly revenue. The manager only has a limited amount of money available to pay the workers, including themselves, which is why they’re always keen on running understaffed skeleton crews, especially as the slow winter season sets in. If the manager consistently started exceeding that payroll cap, they would get fired. Even if our location did earn more revenue, three fourths of the value of the extra work we would have to do to serve the additional customers would go straight up the corporate chain. The location might hire a few more workers, but we’d still be stretched thin and understaffed given the additional volume, at the mercy of the cruel corporate carelessness of the ~23% in the column of a spreadsheet.
So why is it that we workers blame each other for the exploitation forced on us by the owners and shareholders?
It’s simple, really. Workers blame each other when the owners seem untouchable. And I (mostly) don’t blame any of us for doing so.
Many of my coworkers are single mothers who have been working multiple jobs for years. They’re exhausted, but the only way out is through. They don’t have any other choice, for themselves or their families. When was the last time a labor organizing victory penetrated the public consciousness in the US? It’s no secret that mainstream labor movements in America got coopted by the state a long time ago. The memory of strikes winning the eight hour day has long since faded, or more accurately been whitewashed. As other articles on this website illustrate, even so called labor “victories” like the Starbucks union fail to actually change the daily conditions of the workers (in classic state unionism fashion). Furthermore, many of my coworkers have personal or cultural ties to the franchise owners, and the culpability of the corporate shareholders is obfuscated by the bureaucracy of the coporation-franchisee relationship. Why would my coworkers risk speaking out against the owners when they feel powerless to effect change? Scapegoating the workers with even less power than them helps them voice some of their very real and valid frustration and anger in a way that doesn’t put their job in jeopardy. How else could they stay sane? Admitting the reality of their unjust exploitation by the owners, especially when they feel powerless to do anything about it, might sap some of their energy away, energy that they already need to split between umpteen different tasks. Sometimes, just to help keep yourself going, it’s easier to punch down than to look up at the boot. Slowing down for even a second could be life or death.
Well, that was certainly bleak. But not all hope is lost. My coworkers and I flooded the manager’s office on Thanksgiving demanding to know why we don’t get any holiday pay. We all left the office grumbling that the franchise clearly had enough money to pay us time and a half on holidays and that it “wasn’t right” what they were doing to us. Clearly, the righteous resentment against the owners is still there, even if it is often misdirected. And fortunately for us workers, our powerlessness is only a carefully cultivated illusion. Every walkout, every strike, every act of class solidarity chips away at the haughty power of the wealthy elite, no matter the immediate outcome. The risks of rising against the bourgeoisie are severe, yes, but we can mitigate them greatly when we act together in solidarity. Workers who strike together must also look for other work together if we get fired and replaced by scabs. We can help each other cover rent, get groceries, get a ride to the next job interview. We are all we need.
My recommendation? Try to gently redirect complaints at your workplace away from your fellow workers and back onto the managers and the owners. If at all possible, encourage the formation of a union or shop floor committee, one that upholds the strength inherent to workers banding together (especially via a strike) instead of cowing to the NLRB and the red tape of state-sanctified unions. Every time we choose not to fight back against the ruling class, we pass the risks of revolution onto those in more desperate circumstances who cannot afford to wait any longer.
“In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold /
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold /
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old /
For the union makes us strong!”
– Lyrics from “Solidarity Forever”