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Antiwork

Comerica Park in Detroit, and many other multi-million dollar venues, use “volunteers” to staff their concession stands in exchange for a small percentage of the sales that day. I’m not sure how this is even legal.

From their website: “Non-Profit Concession Stands Groups may volunteer to work concession stands during Tigers games and receive a percentage of the sales. Organizations must have a 501(c)3 and provide proof of general liability insurance. The minimum number of volunteers is between 10-20, and new groups are expected to fulfill a 10-game commitment.” Not only are 10-20 people per concession stand working for millionaires for free, but there are also 10-20 people who might need a paying job who are being undercut by “volunteers” who will work for free. I was a teacher for many years, one of the fundraisers that is popular for PTAs is to have teachers work at the local McDonalds for an evening so all their students can come in and be served by their teachers. Lots of fun, right? Except it says teaching is no more challenging than working fast food. And it also means…


From their website:

“Non-Profit Concession Stands

Groups may volunteer to work concession stands during Tigers games and receive a percentage of the sales. Organizations must have a 501(c)3 and provide proof of general liability insurance. The minimum number of volunteers is between 10-20, and new groups are expected to fulfill a 10-game commitment.”

Not only are 10-20 people per concession stand working for millionaires for free, but there are also 10-20 people who might need a paying job who are being undercut by “volunteers” who will work for free.

I was a teacher for many years, one of the fundraisers that is popular for PTAs is to have teachers work at the local McDonalds for an evening so all their students can come in and be served by their teachers. Lots of fun, right? Except it says teaching is no more challenging than working fast food. And it also means people who need to work those shifts get their hours cut. When a group of teachers at the NEA conference tried to get the union to come out against this practice, the teachers themselves voted it down because many were in districts that were so underfunded that they relied on these fundraisers to run their schools. The system is broken.

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