For nearly four years, I have been a full-time student by day and a fast food worker by night, working as a crew trainer or often at the drive-thru window at the McDonald’s at 840 Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn.
That is, until my manager fired me unfairly two days before Thanksgiving last year.
Unfair and unceremonious job termination for nonexistent or trumped up reasons, fear and retaliation are what we workers deal with most often in the fast food industry. I’ve seen co-workers fired because the manager was in a bad mood or, in one worker’s case, a manager said she had to go because she created “bad vibes.”