McDonald’s boss tells sick worker to kill herself

This video from the USA is called Amy Goodman Reports From Fast-food Worker Strike at McDonald’s in New York City.

Mon Mar 10, 2014 at 08:03 AM PDT

McDonald’s worker: Manager told me to ‘put a bullet in my head’

by Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Workers rallied at a Chicago McDonald’s Saturday afternoon to protest a manager’s extreme verbal abuse of a sick worker there. Carmen Navarrette, who’s been working at the McDonald’s for nine years, says that after she asked to go home after a diabetic episode, her manager told her she should “just put a bullet in [her] head.”

Several Chicago aldermen rallied with the workers, and:

“I stand with the workers of McDonald’s and call on the corporation to treat them with respect and dignity,” Ald. Muñoz of the 22nd ward, where Carmen Navarrette lives, said in a statement. “No one should be verbally abused or threatened at work.”

While telling workers to shoot themselves in the head may be an extreme example, fast food workers often report bullying and verbal abuse from managers. It’s just that, unless workers are organized enough to fight back, we don’t hear about it. Billionaire venture capitalists get space on the Wall Street Journal editorial page to claim that complaints about massive economic inequality are just like Nazi Germany, while fast food workers are insulted and made to work off the clock or while they’re sick and we only rarely hear about it.

Aside from the insults and abuse, not being allowed time off when they’re sick is typical for fast food workers outside the few cities and one state that have paid sick leave laws. A paid sick leave bill in Chicago has the support of a majority of aldermen, but no word on whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel supports it.