Chapter 6: A Worker-to-Worker Alternative to Staff-heavy Unionism: The Burgerville Workers Union

This chapter examines how fast food workers turned Burgerville – a Pacific Northwest chain with over 40 stores and 1,400 employees – into the United States’ first unionized fast food chain. What makes this campaign particularly remarkable is not just that it succeeded in an industry believed by many to be unorganizable, at least before labour law reform, due to its high turnover and small, dispersed workplaces. Even more surprisingly, the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) won a first contract despite having zero staffers backing its effort. Using this experience as a case study, the chapter suggests that a new model of union organizing – one that is cheaper and less staff-intensive – has the potential to scale up labour organizing by the millions.