There's nothing quite so moving as a first-generation unionization story. (There's a similar one in this Joe Briggs Retropost.) In this story told succintly in a NYT Opinion Video and in this article, the Hot & Crusty Workers Association is pitted against Mark Samson, a skinflint, fast-food investor at Hot and Crusty (“New York's most disgustingly named bakery chain”). Samson’s main profitability strategy was to hire undocumented workers and use their undocumented status to keep them working at starvation wages in crappy conditions. Samson’s family probably always needed just one more German road machine to complete their own Ants-in-Panzer Brigade. If an undocumented Mexican fry cook got too uppity, he could always be replaced with an undocumented Guatemalan. During the Hot and Crusty struggle, owner Mark Samson appears in one of the videos begging for sympathy. He just wants to own something nice and live well and finds it "horrible what's happening to business owners in this city." After being picketed and occupied, he decided to close the franchise and sell it to someone else. The workers prevailed and came to an agreement with the new owners. I'm sure that the smiles on the workers' faces won't be there forever. Enjoy them while you can.
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