How NOT to conduct a persuasive protest

Last updated on: May 16, 2014 at 9:27 am by Jane the Actuary

How NOT to conduct a persuasive protest 2014-05-16T09:27:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Rain poncho-clad demonstrators demanding $15-an-hour pay circled the McDonald’s with signs and chanted in Spanish, “What do we want? $15! When do we want it? Now!” and “McDonald’s, we are here.”

So reports a Tribune article on a multi-city (with “dozens” of protesters in Chicago) protest for $15 pay for fast-food workers.

Now, the protest was sponsored by, and funded by, the SIEU (the “funding” part is unclear, but the Tribune specifically uses the word “bankrolled” — I know that in some cases, they actually pay the protesters, though it’s not clear whether that happened here, or whether they just provided the ponchos and signs), and the article continues on to talk about desires for unionization and the impracticality of unionizing franchise workers when, depending on the size of the franchisee, there may be only comparatively small numbers of workers in each individual company. Accordingly, the union for now is trying to push the “wage theft” angle, and cites a survey with 92% of workers claiming wage theft, including lost breaks during busy periods (the article, of course, doesn’t question the validity of the survey) — and, I’ll have to admit, to the extent that employers are cheating their workers, I’m happy to have them prosecuted and fined, but if the union uses this to “blackmail” them into forming unions (or if the government uses this as a bargaining chip), not so much.

But, Spanish?

This happens repeatedly. Illegal immigrants’ rallies have included signs and chants in Spanish for years, which I find to be an absurd tactic. Who are they trying to persuade? “We want to be Americans — but we know so little English that we can’t even hold up an English sign” — really? And now fast-food workers? “We want a near-doubling of our pay, but we don’t speak English” — why would they do this? How hard is it to chant in English?

Besides which, in Chicago at least, aren’t they losing a fair percentage of their allies in their minimum wage fight if they alienate the English-speaking minimum wage workers?

Who, in the end, is their audience?

In third-world countries, they often protest with English signs, when their audience is an international one, either wanting the Developed World to come to their aid, or venting their anger against the West (say, for Koran-burning reports).

Or are these protests actually aimed at an audience? What is their goal? Are they speaking to the politicians, or the ordinary American passerby, or just to themselves?

(Also — turns out I had observed this back in the fall, too. So I’m being repetitive here, but it still troubles me.)

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