This week in the War on Workers: What's disingenuous about a seven-day fast?

Does this woman seem insincere to you? How can a hunger strike be "disingenuous"? That's how a spokeswoman for Station Casinos described a group of Station workers and their supporters' seven-day fast.

Station Casino workers have gone without raises since 2007, faced cuts to benefits, and seen more than 2,800 of their coworkers laid off. Since they started attempting to organize, they have faced a campaign of illegal intimidation and firings by the company, with firings specifically targeting Latino workers. The current fast ramps up their activism and organizing efforts.

Station's reason for calling the fast "disingenuous" seems to be that the action is designed to draw attention to the workers' efforts to unionize. Well, yeah. Obviously a hunger strike or fast undertaken as part of an activist campaign is done to publicize the campaign. But "disingenuous" is defined as "lacking sincerity." You don't subsist on water for a week in an insincere way. In fact, if you're willing to do that, you're almost by definition extremely sincere. (For the record, I'm not a fan of the hunger strike of indefinite length. Those typically start out as "we're not eating until we get what we want" and end with "or maybe we are ..." But a seven-day, defined fast demonstrates serious commitment without setting up failure.) By this standard, anything other than perfectly targeted direct action, and certainly anything with a public relations intent, is "disingenuous."

Tell Station Casinos to stop firing Latino workers and respect the rights of its workers to join a union.