Restaurant Worker News

08/11/2026

08/11/2026

On this day, 10 August 2005, the Gate Gourmet dispute began in London. British Airways (BA) had outsourced its airline meal production, primarily by Asian women

08/11/2026

On this day, 8 August 1845, UK Parliament passed an enclosure act, taking away common land, and appointing enclosure commissioners who could enclose more land without submitting a request to Parliament.
From the 17th to 20th centuries, the British government passed over 5,000 enclosure acts, enclosing 6.8 million acres of common land, which the public previously had rights to use.
Often military force was used to crush anyone who resisted. In his work, Capital, Karl Marx explained:
"The proletariat created by the breaking up of the bands of feudal retainers and by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this 'free' proletariat could not possibly be absorbed by the nascent manufactures as fast as it was thrown upon the world. On the other hand, these men, suddenly dragged from their wonted mode of life, could not as suddenly adapt themselves to the discipline of their new condition. They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances. The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers."
From the 16th century onwards, laws were introduced across Europe declaring "vagabondage" a crime, to be punished with brutal torture and ex*****on. Thus, the vast majority of people were forced into wage work, at low wages.
The enclosures were a vital part of the development of capitalism, as they created a whole class of landless people who had no way of surviving other than selling their labour power - the working class, or proletariat.
Learn more about enclosures and resistance in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/stop-thief-the-commons-enclosures-and-resistance

08/11/2026

On This Day In History (1963):

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/multimedia/vintage_west_virginia/vintage-west-virginia-protest-at-huntington-restaurant/image_510addf6-c6ac-5e7c-b98f-c9605dd35919.html

08/11/2026

On this day, 10 August 1680, the Pueblo Revolt (also known as Popé's Rebellion) began in the Spanish colonial province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México (present-day New Mexico, US) as the Indigenous Pueblo people rose up against the colonisers.
The Native people have suffered greatly from abuses by the Spanish, who enslaved local people, and routinely hanged, whipped and dismembered them. The Spanish also tried to impose Catholicism, and violently repressed local religious practices, and burned ceremonial pits and sacred objects.
Led by a medicine man named Popé, the uprising began on August 10, and by August 21 Spanish colonisers have been forced to retreat. 400 Spanish were killed, and the other 2000 Spanish settlers were expelled from the province.
The uprising was successful in liberating the land for 12 years. Tens of thousands of Pueblo people still live in the area today, some in the original ancient pueblos, like Taos Pueblo, which are considered to be some of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the US.
Learn more about Indigenous resistance in the Americas in our podcast episodes 88-89: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e88-89-indigenous-resistance-since-1992/
Pictured: mural depicting the rebellion by Loren Mozley

08/10/2026

Former Burger King worker Ariana Hamilton raised over $130,000 on an online crowdfunding campaign after being fired from a Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, franchise. She was dismissed following a viral video showing her telling an Israeli-American customer “Free Palestine” during an in-store interaction.

08/10/2026

4 cooks at Tutto Italia in Epcot’s Italy Pavilion demand compensation for having to work off the clock

08/10/2026

On This Day In History (2024):

08/09/2026

08/09/2026

Supporters doing an action at Smith Gardens in Mount Vernon to call attention to the displacement of workers and also the harms to local economies of the H2A program.