(Daily Dot)
It’s been less than a week since Popeyes’ chicken sandwich took over Twitter and won the #ChickenSandwich with Chick-fil-A. But a recent thread documenting the thoughts of a grieving friend after the untimely death of a Starbucks worker is casting a new light on the conversation around fast-food chains and the employees who keep them running.
Food writer Allison Robicelli shared the thread on Saturday about her friend James Farmer who died at 22 due to a kidney failure. A GoFundMe set up for his funeral costs on Aug. 12 said he died on Aug. 11. According to Robicelli, Farmer would skip his dialysis treatment as he was an hourly wage worker and couldn’t afford to take off work hours.
“The people who serve you coffee and sandwiches, the people who barely get by because a living wage ‘isn’t in the best interest of shareholders,’ the people who so many believe don’t deserve to be paid fairly: they are people,” Robicelli wrote.
Robicelli explained that Farmer had health insurance but was afraid of taking off work and losing hourly pay.
“James was worried about money,” she wrote. “He thought if he took a day off for dialysis, he’d continue to have less hours on every weekly schedule.” Read more