Despite its origins in the history of the colonization of the Americas and genocide of Indigenous peoples, the Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated by many in the United States as a welcome day off in which workers spend time with their families. While not an explicitly religious holiday, getting together with family around a turkey dinner is portrayed in the media as a sacrosanct cultural ritual, a tradition that nothing should interfere with.
That is, nothing except the profit motive. Thanksgiving has now become a day of work for many in retail and service industries, as Black Friday shopping gets pushed earlier and earlier into Thanksgiving Thursday. Many department store workers are now leaving their families on Thanksgiving Day to staff Black Friday sales.
Tony Rohr, a Pizza Hut manager in Elkhart, Ind. decided that enough was enough. Rohr said of his employees: “Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days that they’re closed in the whole year and they’re the only two days that those people are guaranteed to have off and spend it with their families.”
Rohr was told to resign; however he wrote: “I am not quitting. I do not resign, however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company. I hope you realize that it’s the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible.”
Rohr has it exactly right—it is workers who create all value while lazy bosses skim the profit. Tony Rohr did the right thing and took a stand. Standing alone against Pizza Hut’s upper management he was fired—but if workers stand together, we can throw out the parasites, who contribute no value to society, and create a new society we can truly be grateful for.
Organize and win
Meanwhile workers at two Whole Foods stores in the Chicago area are striking on Thanksgiving Day. The workers, affiliated with the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, are joining with other low-wage workers from WalMart and fast food chains for a rally on Thanksgiving afternoon.
Instead of firing the workers, Whole Foods is now claiming that working on the holiday is “optional” and is touting its time-and-a-half holiday pay policy, which brings hourly wages up to $15 an hour.
Whole Foods striker Matthew Camp dismissed the bonus pay, asserting, “That 15 dollars an hour is what we should get paid regularly anyway.” (Salon)
